AMD Store MI technology test analysis： black technology that can’t be returned after use？

　　[PConline gossip]In the first test of X470 motherboard, we mentioned that X470 motherboard will give a software AMD StoreMI technology worth 19 dollars with the board. Unfortunately, the software used by AMD at that time was not perfect, so we failed to evaluate and analyze this technology at that time. Fortunately, many problems can be solved through time. Now we finally get the supporting software of AMD StoreMI. Let’s take a look at whether this technology is a chicken rib or an artifact to enhance the user experience.

　　AMD StoreMI is a technology provided with X470 motherboard, which can be used as long as it is X470 motherboard. Its biggest function is to accelerate the traditional mechanical hard disk with slow reading and writing.

　　Everyone knows that using SSD will be fast, but the 1TB SSD that can meet the storage needs of most consumers is too expensive, so now most consumers can only choose a compromise way, that is, install the system and frequently read and write files on the SSD with small capacity, and then put large files and games on the mechanical hard disk with slow reading and writing. The advantage of this is that compared with using only mechanical hard disk, our daily application system is very responsive in web browsing, viewing desktop files, etc., and the user experience is optimized without spending too much money, but the disadvantage is that the feedback of the system is still heartbreaking when reading and writing the file game program that starts the mechanical hard disk.

　　butAMD StoreMI is to combine the HDD, SSD and part of the computer’s memory (up to 2GB of DDR4 memory) into a storage whole, and accelerate the HDD which was originally slow to read and write, so that we can fly quickly when reading and writing files on the mechanical hard disk..

　　In our traditional mode of using computers, the file storage address needs to be managed manually by our users, but when AMD StoreMI is turned on, the system intelligent learning algorithm constantly optimizes the common file locations.Migrate frequently accessed files to the storage device with the fastest reading and writing speed..

　　In fact, this function is similar to Intel’s Aoteng, which uses the devices with faster reading and writing as the cache of the devices with slower reading and writing to accelerate the devices with slower reading and writing. However, many consumers know that Aoteng has many shortcomings, such as occupying the M.2 interface and booting into the system before it can be used. So let’s take a look at whether AMD StoreMI technology has similar problems.

　　This test platform adopts the combination of the flagship of the second generation Ryzen plus ASUS ROG C7H(WI-FI) and N hard disks for emergency use.

　　The main purpose of this test is to test whether the combination of mechanical disk and solid-state hard disk has a qualitative improvement in the reading and writing performance test and actual daily use of AMD StoreMI technology. Besides, it will also test the usability of this technology and analyze its advantages and disadvantages.

　　First, we went to official website to download and install the software, and now official website has started to provide AMD StoreMI software downloads.

　　There is nothing to say about the installation process. Although it is all in English, we just need to keep clicking Next, Next and Next. Near the end of the installation process, some users may pop up a warning, which means that some components of the software need to be installed with Java 1.7 or higher. Do you need to install it? Just point it out directly.

　　After the installation, a shortcut to the software appears on the desktop. Obviously, the software has just been made, and there is no Chinese version. The dozens of pages of instructions for the software are also in English, which is really not very friendly to Chinese people. This needs to be spit out.

　　Opening AMD StoreMI software is naturally in pure English. There will be two options displayed here. The first option is for users to have a shared hard disk of ssd and hdd, one of which has a system disk installed and the other is empty. Officials suggest users to install the system in the mechanical hard disk first. The second option means to build a StoreMI system without a system, and keep the partition and data of one hard disk, but not both hard disks..The third line, that is, the second option, is applicable when the user has three hard disks and wants to integrate two hard disks other than the system installation hard disk.

　　For example, for example, my system is installed on the Galaxy Gamer 480GB, and I want to integrate Samsung 860EVO and Western Digital Blu-ray Disc through AMD StoreMI technology, so I chose the third option.

　　Then it will ask the user whether the software can divide 2GB of memory as the accelerated cache of the merged hard disk. In order to test whether AMD StoreMI technology is really useful, we can choose here.

　　We will soon see the prompt to create a new hard disk successfully.

　　At this time, we open the disk management in my computer management, and we can see that disk 0 and disk 2 have no capacity, and they are merged into a new disk 4. Let’s simply call it AMD StoreMI hard disk first. Then let’s take a look at the performance of this new disk.

　　In order to make the test results more intuitive, we also tested the reading, writing and practical application results of 860 EVO 256GB and 2TB of Western Digital Blu-ray Disc, and then we summed up the results of 860 EVO, Western Digital Blu-ray Disc and AMD StoreMI hard disk, and we can intuitively see whether this technology is useful.

AS SSD Benchmark test:

　　Test summary:AMD StoreMI technology is really a new species for storage. In the traditional hard disk reading and writing test, we can see that AMD StoreMI hard disk has abnormal results in many tests. Let’s analyze them one by one. In terms of continuous reading and writing performance, the reading performance of AMD StoreMI hard disk is surprisingly high. You can still remember that when we used AMD StoreMI to create a new hard disk, we divided 2GB of memory as the cache of the new hard disk. According to this reading speed, we guess that the software is reading the speed measured by the data in the memory at this time. In terms of read response time, the read response time of AMD StoreMI hard disk is also bizarre, which can only be understood as that it takes a lot of time for the driver to find the read data in three different storage media (memory, SSD and HDD). Other reading and writing scores are more in line with expectations, far better than HDD, but slightly worse than SSD. Of course, testing with a single software doesn’t mean anything. Let’s continue testing.

CrystalDiskMark test:

　　Test summary:Whether it is random reading or continuous reading, the performance of AMD StoreMI hard disk is still scary, but the performance of writing is not as good as that of pure SSD, and the test performance is consistent with that of AS SSD Benchmark.

DiskSpeedTest：

　　Test summary:The relative performance of the three hard disks is basically consistent with the above software, but the reading performance of AMD StoreMI hard disk is not so off the charts.It seems that the software driver is not perfect., leading to different software test results are quite different.

Anvil`s Storage Utilities test:

Western Digital Blu-ray Disc 2TB

Samsung 860 EVO 250GB

AMD StoreMI hard disk

　　Test summary: Anvil`s Storage Utilities can fully see the performance of a hard disk. The reading performance of AMD StoreMI here is still excellent, and the writing performance is slightly lower than that of Samsung 860 EVO.

　　Of course, the benchmark performance test can only reflect the theoretical performance of the hard disk, and we need to combine its performance in daily applications to draw a conclusion.

　　Test summary:In various daily applications, AMD StoreMI hard disk is slightly inferior to Samsung 86 EVO 250GB in a file decompression test, and other performances are basically the same as Samsung 860 EVO 250GB. Let’s take a look at the stability of AMD StoreMI hard disk in transmission.

　　After the test, let’s try to restore the hard disk. I have to say that this is the most troublesome part in a winter.

　　We open the software of AMD StoreMI again. At this time, only the last option, Change Settings, can be selected. Because the original screenshot can’t be found in a winter, I will use the screenshot before AMD StoreMI hard disk was created as an auxiliary explanation. Please don’t kill a winter to sacrifice to heaven.

Pretend there’s a picture here

　　At this point, we can click a Remove option, and the software will separate the two hard disks that have been fused together after clicking.And move all the data to HDD.

　　This process is very long. This operation has not been completed until the end of work one winter. After about 3 hours, we can see that Disk 0 and Disk 2 are finally back.

　　In addition, there is a quick way to remove StoreMI, that is, click Delete in Change Settings, so that the two disks will be restored to their original state at a fast speed, and of course all the data in them will be lost..

　　In fact, AMD StoreMI is a technology that combines SSD and HDD into a hybrid hard disk through software. When we write a file, the system will first write the file into SSD, and then AMD StoreMI will intelligently judge whether the file is commonly used according to user habits.Keep the commonly used files in SSD, and the infrequently used files, such as audio and video, pictures, etc., will be moved to the mechanical hard disk when the disk is idle.. AMD official data also shows that when we replace SATA SSD with NVMe SSD, AMD StoreMI’s reading and writing speed will become the same as NVMe SSD.

New AMD StoreMI hard disk

970 EVO 1TB

　　Then I tried it one winter, using Samsung 970 EVO 1TB and Western Digital Blue Disk 2TB to form a new AMD StoreMI hard disk, and the writing speed really became NVMe SSD level.

　　We can also see that the reading speed of AMD StoreMI hard disk is very off the charts in the above test, which is probably the result of using memory to accelerate the new hard disk, but this is not very obvious in the actual application test, and the game loading speed is consistent with that of pure SSD.

　　Conceptually, AMD StoreMI is a software that helps you manage disks and files intelligently.Put the commonly used software on SSD and the infrequently used software on HDD.Whether this software works or not actually depends on how intelligent it is. A smart housekeeper is a good housekeeper, and an unintelligent housekeeper is worse than nothing. This also means that this technology can be continuously improved through user feedback. Based on the above tests, in fact, the advantages and disadvantages of this technology are obvious, and we can list them separately.

　　AMD StoreMI has three advantages, the most important of which is that it can intelligently help users manage file storage addresses, which is simply the gospel of lazy cancer patients, and many inventions that promote social progress in history are invented for lazy people; The second is that after this function is turned on, when I move files on this disk, I write them into ssd first, and then move them later. Then the file transfer is carried out at the transfer speed of SSD, and on the surface, the user seems to have a large-capacity solid state. Third, compared with Intel’s Opteron, we don’t need to buy additional hardware.

　　However, the shortcomings of this technology are also obvious. If you use a relatively slag SSD and HDD to start this technology,If one day your SSD is scrapped, the data of your whole hard disk including HDD will be gone.; Finally, based on the above tests, we can find that the write performance of AMD StoreMI hard disk is slightly worse than that of the original pure SSD. No matter whether 860 EVO or 970 EVO is used, the performance of SSD will be partially lost. Finally, this technology is presented with the X470 motherboard. If you use the AMD 300 series motherboard and want to use this function, it will cost 19 dollars. At this time, consumers need to measure whether it is useful to themselves.

　　Generally speaking, this technology is a good benefit for consumers who have purchased the X470 motherboard. If you have a reliable SSD, you can actually use this technology boldly. However, if you are not a user of the X470 motherboard, I suggest that you wait and see until this technology is more perfect. After all, it doesn’t even have a Chinese version of the manual, and it is still a very initial product.