2/24/2018 How to convert MBps to IOPS or calculate IOPS from MB/s - Editor Seán

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How to convert MBps to IOPS or calculate IOPS

from MB/s
Most SSDs have two speed ratings for reading as well as
for writing.  The first rating is the sustained MB/s Archive
performance, which is the main marketing most
manufacturers use.  The second rating is the 4K Random
IOPS performance, which gives a much better idea of how the drive will perform in
the real world.  The sustained MB/s rating is the sequential transfer rate the SSD will
maintain continuously, such as over a period of 30 seconds.  The 4K Random IOPS on
the other hand is how many 4K (4096 byte) operations the drive will handle per second
with each block being read or written to a random position.

Usually when a Random 4K IOPS figure is given, it may state that this is at a certain
queue depth, such as 4, 16, 32 or 64.  With a queue depth of 4, this means that there are
4 separate threads taking place with the drive, each thread independently running its
own transfers.  With the use of Native Command Queuing (NCQ), the SSD can handle
these threads simultaneously to improve the overall throughput compared to running
a single thread.  While many hard disks use native command queuing to line up
read/write operations to minimise seek times between each read/write operation, SSDs
can read from and write to multiple NAND cells simultaneously, where as the
read/write head in a hard disk can only be in one physical place at any time.
While it is nice to see how many IOPS a drive is capable of, it is also useful to see how
this translates into actual throughput or even vice versa.  For example, most
benchmark tools such as CrystalDiskMark and AS SSD report the random 4K
performance in throughput, i.e. MB/s, while the SSD’s specifications usually rates the
4K performance in IOPS.To see how to translate MBps into IOPS and vice versa, we
need to do a little math:

IOPS = (MBps Throughput / KB per IO) * 1024

Or
MBps = (IOPS * KB per IO) / 1024
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2/24/2018 How to convert MBps to IOPS or calculate IOPS from MB/s - Editor Seán

So let’s say we have an SSD claiming a Random 4K write speed of 20,000 IOPS and it
achieves 76.2MB/s in the CrystalDiskMark with the QD32 write test.

To convert the 76.2MB/s to IOPS, we perform the following calculation:

IOPS = (76.2 / 4) * 1024

IOPS = 19.1 * 1024
IOPS = 19,558.4

To see what throughput we need to achieve to match the actual 20,000 IOPS claim, we
can perform this calculation in reverse:

MBps = (20,000 * 4) / 1024

MBps = 80,000 / 1024
MBps = 78.125MB/s

Note that each manufacturer uses its own method of coming up with their SSD IOPS
ratings.  Besides separate IOPS ratings for read and write speeds, a given SSD can
behave quite different depending on the type of data being read or written, as well as
the duration this transfer takes place.  For example, an SSD that achieves 5,000 Random
4K IOPS sustained write over a period of 30 seconds may only achieve 1,000 IOPS
sustained write over a period of 5 minutes.  For SSDs using the SandForce processor,
the compressibility of the data also has an impact, so two benchmark tools may show
completely different IOPS readings if one tool sends uncompressible data and the
other tool sends highly compressible data and also if one runs the benchmark for
longer duration than the other.

Happy calculating.  

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