The Samsung 980 Pro is still the epitome of a fast gaming SSD that will let you boot up instantly, and load massive games quickly.
Find out why it is still the favourite SSD for discerning gamers all over the world!
Samsung 980 Pro : Super Fast Gaming SSD!
When it was launched back in September 2020, the Samsung 980 Pro was amongst the best and fastest gaming SSD money could buy.
It boasted a brand new 8nm Samsung Elpis controller with a native PCIe 4.0 interface, as well as improved TurboWrite caching.
To keep it running at peak performance, the Elpis controller is nickel coated to improve heat dissipation. It also uses a heat spreader label to keep the NAND chips cool.
The 980 Pro SSD also uses Samsung’s latest V-NAND TLC flash memory, with storage capacities of up to 2 TB in an M.2 2280 form factor.
Each SSD comes with 512 GB to 2 GB of LPDDR4 cache, and uses some of its storage as a fast SLC cache of between 49 GB and 216 GB in size.
Thanks to this combination of both DRAM and SLC caching, the Samsung 980 Pro boasts sequential read speeds of 6.4 GB/s to 7.0 GB/s, and sequential write speeds of 2.7 GB/s to 5.1 GB/s.
Of course, once the write caches ran out, sustained write speed fell to 400 MB/s for the 250 GB model, 900 MB/s for the 500 GB model, and 1.7 GB/s for the 1 TB and 2 TB models. But this was generally not an issue for gaming PCs, where read speed is paramount.
Capacity
Fixed
Intelligent
Total
TurboWrite
Speed
After
TurboWrite
250 GB
4 GB
45 GB
49 GB
2.7 GB/s
0.4 GB/s
500 GB
4 GB
90 GB
94 GB
5.0 GB/s
0.9 GB/s
1 TB
6 GB
108 GB
114 GB
5.0 GB/s
1.7 GB/s
2 TB
6 GB
210 GB
216 GB
5.1 GB/s
1.7 GB/s
But note that TurboWrite requires you keeping approximately 20% of the drive’s storage capacity free or empty. If you fill up the drive beyond that, the Intelligent portion of TurboWrite will be reduced.
Also, to fully utilise the Samsung 980 Pro, your gaming PC should PCIe 4.0. It is backward compatible and will have no issues working with PCIe 3.0, but your drive will be limited to 3.5GB/s for sequential reads.
Samsung 980 Pro : Now A Fast SSD That Won’t Break The Bank!
When it was first released, the Samsung 980 Pro was not only expensive, it was much sought after and were consequently hard to come by.
The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t do us any favour, with computer part prices skyrocketing from a combination of increased demand and reduced production.
18 months later – the Samsung 980 Pro remains one of the better gaming SSDs money can buy, only it’s more affordable these days!
Of particular interest are the smaller 250GB and 500GB models. While they don’t offer that much storage space, they are much cheaper on a per GB basis.
Here is a look at the latest deals on the Samsung 980 Pro SSD globally :
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Kingston Technology just announced that their DC500 enterprise-grade SSDs are now certified VMware Ready. Find out what this means!
Kingston DC500 SSDs Are Now Certified VMware Ready!
After the VMware Ready validation process, the Kingston DC500 family of enterprise SSDs are now certified for VMware vSAN and vSphere in production environments.
The Kingston DC500 family of enterprise SSDs had earlier been validated by NAS providers like QNAP and Synology, but this is their first enterprise-class validation.
This gives their enterprise clients assurance that the Kingston DC500 SSDs can be deployed in production environments without worry.
The Kingston DC500 drives have been tuned using comprehensive QoS test scripts developed in-house that measure IO and latency patterns at varying block sizes and queue depths. This allows them to deliver low latency out to six 9s (99.9999 percent) of consistency while delivering high throughput and predictable IO.
The VMware Ready program is a co-branding benefit of the VMware Technology Alliance Partner (TAP) program that makes it easy for customers to identify partner products certified to work with VMware cloud infrastructure.
The Kingston DC500 SSD Family
The Kingston DC500 SSD family consists of two models – DC500R and DC500M that are tuned for different use cases :
Kingston DC500R : Read-Centric SSD
The Kingston DC500R is highly optimised for read-centric workloads, delivering high I/O speeds and response times at lower price points than write-intensive SSDs.
Kingston DC500M : Mixed-Use SSD
The Kingston DC500M, on the other hand, is tuned for mixed-use workloads which demand a mix of read and write operations. It offers greater write endurance with strict performance consistency for datacenters.
Kingston DC500 Common Features
Both Kingston DC500R and DC500M SSDs incorporate end-to-end data path protection, which guarantee that all data will be written to the SSD and is protected against transient errors.
They also include on-board Power-Loss Protection (PLP) using tantalum capacitors. This ensures that data-in-flight is written to the flash memory in the event of unexpected power loss. The PLP also ensures that the drives’ mapping table (FTL) is updated before the drive powers down.
These safeguards reduce the risk of data loss, and ensure that the drive will initialise properly when the server powers up again.
Kingston DC500 SSD Family Specifications
For your convenience, we compare both DC500R and DC500M models in this table :
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Intel just revealed Optane Memory H10, which combines Optane Memory with QLC 3D NAND storage! Here is a quick primer on the new H10 storage solution!
Intel Optane Memory H10 With QLC 3D NAND Storage!
Intel Optane Memory H10 combines Optane Memory with QLC 3D NAND storage on a single M.2 module to produce better responsiveness and storage capacity.
This tight integration allows both Optane Memory and a solid state drive to be added into thin and light notebooks, as well as space-constrained desktop form factors such as All-in-One PCs and mini PCs.
This eliminates the need for a secondary storage device, while offering a higher level of performance, compared to traditional Triple Level Cell (TLC) 3D NAND SSDs.
Intel Optane Memory H10 Benefits
The Intel Optane Memory H10 allows space-constrained designs to benefit from the performance boost from Optane Memory while enjoying a large, affordable storage capacity courtesy of Intel QLC 3D NAND.
When compared to a standalone TLC 3D NAND SSD system, Intel claims the H10 will offer these benefits :
Documents will launch 2X faster while multitasking
Games will launch 60% faster while multitasking
Media files will open up to 90% faster while multitasking
Intel Optane Memory H10 Models
Intel will offer these H10 configurations :
16 GB Optane Memory+ 256 GB QLC 3D NAND storage
32 GB Optane Memory+ 512 GB QLC 3D NAND storage
32 GB Optane Memory+ 1 TB GB QLC 3D NAND storage
The first systems will be available through OEMs such as Dell, HP, ASUS, Acer and others.
The H10 will also be available on mobile platforms, starting with the 8th Generation Intel Core U-Series, which will debut in the later part of Q2 2019.
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GIGABYTE just revealed their 512 GB GIGABYTE M.2 SSD, an affordable solid state storage solution for the mainstream market. Learn more about GIGABYTE’s latest M.2 solid state drive!
The 512 GB GIGABYTE M.2 2280 SSD Revealed!
Based on the NVMe architecture, the 512 GB GIGABYTE M.2 SSD utilises PCIe Gen3 x2 lanes to deliver higher bandwidth and transfer speeds compared to the traditional SATA interface. Like the earlier 128 GB and 256 GB models, the 512 GB GIGABYTE M.2 SSD supports TRIM and S.M.A.R.T technologies.
The 512 GB GIGABYTE M.2 SSD is built around TLC flash memory, with Host Memory Buffer (HMB) to improve performance at a more affordable price point.
Why PCIe x2, Not PCIe x4?
With reduced SSD prices in recent years, many users have made the transition from SATA devices to M.2 devices. Despite the upgrade, storage performance from their M.2 SSDs is often bottlenecked by the utilization of SATA 6Gb/s lanes on their storage devices.
The SATA 6Gb/s interface cannot match the read/write speeds of the SSDs, holding back their storage devices. NVMe based storage devices that utilize PCIe Gen3 lanes circumvent this issue but these devices usually come with PCIe Gen3 x4 lanes which makes them significantly more expensive.
While users are looking for better performance, NVMe based PCIe Gen3 x4 solid state drives are expensive. GIGABYTE M.2 SSD is based on NVMe architecture but uses PCIe Gen3 x2 lanes to reduce cost, while using Host Buffer Memory (HMB) to maximise performance.
HMB technology uses system memory to cache and improve the SSD‘s performance. This eliminates the need for dedicated cache memory, allowing GIGABYTE to keep costs low.
GIGABYTE M.2 SSD Price + Availability
The GIGABYTE M.2 SSD series comes with a 3 year warranty, and three capacity sizes of 128GB, 256GB and the newly-announced 512GB. Here are some direct purchase links (with prices accurate as of 24 December 2018) :
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The new ADATA ISSS316 and IMSS316 3D NAND SSDs have just been launched. Discover what these two new solid state drives offer!
ADATA ISSS316 and IMSS316 3D NAND SSDs Launched!
ADATA launched 2 new solid-state drive (SSD) – the ADATAISSS316 2.5″ SSD and IMSS316 3D TLC mSATA SSD. Both are industrial-grade and equipped with next-generation 3D NAND Flash.
ADATA ISSS316 and IMSS316 Key Features
The ADATA ISSS316 and IMSS316 3D NAND SSDs provide higher storage capacity, efficiency, and reliability than 2D NAND and comes in capacities ranging from 32GB to 1TB. Both SSDs support LDPC (Low-Density Parity-Check) error correcting code technology to ensure data integrity and extended lifespans.
The ISSS316 delivers read/write speeds of up to 550/520MB per second while the IMSS316 delivers read/write speeds of up to 540/530MB per second.
The ISSS316 is ideally suited for computing, gaming, surveillance, healthcare, defense, and general automation industries. The smaller form factor of the IMSS316 makes it suitable for thin clients, and embedded applications.
Both SSDs support a number of technologies including Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.). Both these technologies can indicate possible imminent drive failures and provide added stability and reliability.
NCQ and Windows TRIM Command can boost performance.
Customers can use ADATA’s SSD Toolbox which facilitates the monitoring and managing of the drives for convenient management of the SSDs. This added technology comes with drive status, wear level, and lifespan information.
ADATA ISSS316 and IMSS316 Price + Availability
The exact price and availability of the ADATA ISSS316 and IMSS316 SSDs vary by region.
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ADATA just unveiled their Ultimate SU630 solid state drive, expanding their business into 3D QLC NAND flash storage. Let’s take a look at the new ADATA SU630 3D QLC NAND SSD!
ADATA Launches SU630 Flash Storage!
The ADATA SU630 is a 2.5” SATA 6Gb/s SSD, and is their first 3D QLC NAND flash storage product. With next-generation QLC (Quad-Level Cell) 3D NAND Flash, the SU630 promises to deliver terrific value, great performance, and superb reliability.
Performance and Reliability without Breaking the Bank
Delivering excellent performance with the same great value as SSDs, the SU630 gives HDDs a run for their money. It comes in 240GB, 480GB, and 960GB capacities and sports 3D QLC NAND Flash to deliver improved reliability, longevity, and performance over its TLC counterparts.
Reinforced by performance-boosting SLC Caching, the SU630 reaches speeds of 520MB/s read, and 450MB/s write for smooth and fast boot, file transfers, and downloads.
The ADATA SU630 SSD also features characteristics that work to keep data safe, including a shock rating of 1500G/0.5ms and resilience to temperature changes (0°C ~ 70°C). It is also more energy-efficient and quieter than HDDs.
LDPC ECC Technology, SSD Toolbox, and Migration Utility
With support for LDPC (Low-Density Parity-Check) ECC (error correcting code) technology, the SU630 can detect and fix errors to ensure data integrity and deliver an extended lifespan. With the purchase of the SU630, users qualify to download ADATA’s SSD Toolbox and Migration Utility free of charge.
SSD Toolbox allows users to monitor and manage the SU630, with drive status, wear level, and lifespan information. The Migration Utility is especially helpful for users making the switch from HDD to SSD, as it allows for simple and straightforward backup and migration of data, including the operating system.
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The WD Black NVMe SSD may be fast, but WD is now introducing a faster WD Black 3D NVMe SSD that combines a new NVMe controller with 3D NAND! Check out the details below!
Today, they introduced the new WD Black 3D NVMe SSD, that features their own SSD architecture and controller, and paired with their 3D NAND. It was engineered from the ground up on a new NVMe architecture, using a new NVMe SSD controller paired with their 3D NAND.
The WD Black 3D NVMe SSD (Price Check) boasts a sequential read speed of up to 3.4 GB/s, and a sequential write speed of up to 2.8 GB/s! It also delivers up to 500,000 random read IOPS, and 400,000 random write IOPS, so it will easily handle any kind of workload, even the most intensive multi-threaded applications.
It comes in three capacities – 1 TB, 500 GB and 250 GB. The 1 TB model can handle up to 600 terabytes of writes (TBW) in its lifetime, while the 500 GB model can handle 300 TBW and the 250 GB model will handle up to 200 TBW.
2018 WD Black 3D NVMe SSD Specifications
Specifications
1 TB Black 3D NVMe
500 GB Black 3D NVMe
250 GB Black 3D NVMe
Model Number
WDS100T2X0C
WDS500G2X0C
WDS250G2X0C
Form Factor
M.2 2280
M.2 2280
M.2 2280
Interface
POIe 3.0 x8 (4 lanes)
POIe 3.0 x8 (4 lanes)
POIe 3.0 x8 (4 lanes)
Sequential Read
3.4 GB/s
3.4 GB/s
3.0 GB/s
Sequential Write
2.8 GB/s
2.4 GB/s
1.6 GB/s
Random Read
500,000 IOPS
410,000 IOPS
220,000 IOPS
Random Write
400,000 IOPS
330,000 IOPS
170,000 IOPS
Endurance
600 TBW
300 TBW
200 TBW
MTTF
1.75 million hours
1.75 million hours
1.75 million hours
Average Active Power
140 mW
110 mW
110 mW
Low Power (PS3)
100 mW
70 mW
70 mW
Slumber (PS4)
2.5 mW
2.5 mW
2.5 mW
Operating Temperature
0 °C to 70 °C
0 °C to 70 °C
0 °C to 70 °C
Shock
1,500 G
1,500 G
1,500 G
Operating Vibration
5.0 gRMS, 10–2000 Hz, 3 axes
5.0 gRMS, 10–2000 Hz, 3 axes
5.0 gRMS, 10–2000 Hz, 3 axes
Dimensions
22 mm wide
80 mm long
2.38 mm thick
22 mm wide
80 mm long
2.38 mm thick
22 mm wide
80 mm long
2.38 mm thick
Weight
7.5 g
7.5 g
7.5 g
Warranty
5 years
5 years
5 years
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2018 WD Black 3D NVMe SSD Price + Availability
The new WD Black 3D NVMe SSD (Price Check) is available at the end of July 2018 at the following price points :
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Western Digital today launched two portable SSD drives – the My Passport Wireless SSD and the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD. Let’s hear from WD’s Albert Chang on the key features of these new portable SSD drives. He will also introduce the upcoming G-Technology family of professional storage solutions!
The SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD
The rugged SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD (Price Check) delivers high-speed transfers with up to 550MB/s read speeds, making it perfect for saving and editing high resolution photos and videos. Its IP55 dust- and water-resistance rating mean it can stand up to hazards such as rain, splashes, spills and dust.
Offered in capacities up to 2 TB, the new SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD (Price Check) is perfect for extensive photo shoots – giving users the capacity to take their portfolio with them on the go, or back up instantly while out in the field.
High-speed transfers with up to 550MB/s read speeds
Rugged, water- and dust-resistant (IP55 rated)
Shock-resistant solid state core for greater durability
Compact and designed to fit in the palm of your hand
Works with both PC and Mac computers and comes with a 3-year limited warranty
The SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD (Price Check) delivers high-performance and capacity in a pocket-sized drive.
The SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD (Price Check) has a three-year limited warranty and is available now at all leading IT retail outlets across Malaysia & online stores including Lazada, 11street and Shopee. Here are its Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) :
G-Technology is a Western Digital brand that focuses on professional-grade storage solutions. Albert gives us a quick overview of G-Technology, and the kind of storage drives they create.
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Western Digital today launched two portable SSD drives – the My Passport Wireless SSD and the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD. Let’s hear from WD’s Albert Chang on the key features of these new portable SSD drives. He will also introduce the upcoming G-Technology family of professional storage solutions!
My Passport Wireless SSD
The new My Passport Wireless SSD (Price Check) is an all in one portable drive that helps preserve photos and videos captured on cameras or drones. The device features one-touch card copy to enable editing and sharing of content out in the field, as well as a new capability to directly access the device within third-party mobile creative apps, like FiLMiC Pro and LumaFusion.
Built-in SD card reader with up to 65 MB/s read speeds and one-touch copy button that makes it easy to quickly back up photos and videos from an SD card without a computer or additional software
Durable, shock-resistant SSD inside that helps keep content safe from shock, vibrations and drops up to one (1) meter, even when the drive is in operation
Fast SSD transfer speeds (up to 390 MB/s read) when using the USB 3.0 port to move files to and from PC or Mac computers
All-day battery life (up to 10 hours of continuous use)
Wirelessly stream 4K videos and view photos with the My Cloud mobile app
The My Passport Wireless SSD (Price Check) is backed by a two-year limited warranty and will be available by end of July 2018 at all leading IT retail outlets across Malaysia & online stores including Lazada, 11street and Shopee. Here are its Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) :
G-Technology is a Western Digital brand that focuses on professional-grade storage solutions. Albert gives us a quick overview of G-Technology, and the kind of storage drives they create.
If you like our work, you can help support our work by visiting our sponsors, participating in the Tech ARP Forums, or even donating to our fund. Any help you can render is greatly appreciated!
The highlight of the WD Black NVMe SSD showcase at Computex 2018 was the massive 8TB SSD RAID array that is as fast as DDR4-2400 memory! Wonder how they accomplished this? Read on and find out!
Updated at 2018-06-22 : Our sincere apologies. We mixed up the system specifications for this SSD RAID Array. It’s actually an AMD Ryzen Threadripper system. We have since corrected the article to reflect this.
This 8TB SSD Is As Fast As DDR4 Memory!
As you can see here, Western Digital hit a throughput of 19 GB/s with the Western Digital Black NVMe SSDs (Price Check)! That is as fast as single-channel DDR4-2400 memory!
How To Create This Super-Fast 8TB SSD
The secret? Andrew Vo explains how they created this super-fast 8TB SSD RAID array using the Western Digital Black NVMe SSDs (Price Check) in this video.
This is what you will need, if you plan to replicate their project :
Each WD Black NVMe SSD is capable of a peak transfer rate of 2.8 GB/s (write) to 3.4 GB/s (read), so eight of them would have a theoretical throughput limit of 22.4 to 27.2 GB/s!
To hit 19 GB/s, you need to create a RAID 0 array of those eight 1 TB WD Black NVMe SSDs (Price Check), but you can’t use the motherboard’s RAID feature because you would be limited by the 32 Gbps / 4 GB/s DMI bottleneck.
Intel VROC
The ASUS Hyper M.2 X16 Card (Price Check) supports Intel Virtual RAID on CPU (VROC), which reassigns unused PCIe lanes of an Intel Skylake or Coffee Lake processor to boost transfer rates up to 128 Gbps or 16 GB/s.
Of course, those are the theoretical limits, and the actual throughput will be considerably lower than 16 GB/s. To go beyond that, you will need two ASUS Hyper M.2 X16 Cards (Price Check).
AMD Ryzen Threadripper
However, Western Digital used an AMD Ryzen Threadripper system instead. The Threadripper processor has 64 PCIe lanes – plenty for two Hyper M.2 X16 Card (Price Check).
In the end, Western Digital only hit 19 GB/s with two of these cards. This is 30% lower than the theoretical capability of a perfect RAID 0 array of eight 1 TB WD Black NVMe SSDs (Price Check), and 40% lower than the theoretical capability of two ASUS Hyper M.2 X16 Cards (Price Check).
However, without resorting to this method, a motherboard-based RAID 0 array of eight 1 TB WD Black NVMe SSDs (Price Check) would only deliver a maximum transfer rate of just 4 GB/s. Even that’s in a perfect world.
How Much Does This Super-Fast SSD RAID Array Cost?
Each 1 TB WD Black NVMe SSDs (Price Check) currently costs $399.99. So the eight SSDs alone cost a princely US$ 3,192 / € 2,765 / RM 12,779.
The ASUS Hyper M.2 X16 Card (Price Check) is much cheaper at just $59 each. That’s an additional US$ 118 / € 102 / RM 472.
All in, this 8 TB SSD RAID array will set you back US$ 3,247/ € 2,812 / RM 12,999. And that does not include the AMD Ryzen Threadripper system=.
No doubt, this is a very expensive project. But think about it – you now have a massive 8 TB SSD RAID 0 array that is as fast as DDR4-2400 memory!
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In addition to their WD Black NVMe SSD showcase, Western Digital also showed off their wide range of portable SSD drives under the SanDisk, WD and G-Technology brands. Join us for our tour of the WD Portable SSD showcase at Computex 2018!
The WD Portable SSD Showcas
Western Digital currently has portable SSDs under three brands – SanDisk, WD and G-Technology. Western Digital’s Jared Peck gives us a tour of these portable SSDs, and their key features. He even demonstrates how crushproof the G-DRIVE portable SSD is!
SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD
The SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD is a tough, IP55 dust- and water-resistant drive. It offers capacities up to 2 TB, with transfer rates of up to 550 MB/s.
WD is increasing the capacity of their My Passport SSD drive to 2 TB. It offers up to 540 MB/s in transfer rate, with 256-bit AES hardware encryption built-in.
The WD My Passport Wireless SSD is the SSD version of the WD My Passport Wireless drive. Designed for photographers on-the-go, it not only comes with an internal battery and WiFi-AC connectivity, it also has a SD card reader built-in.
The G-Technology G-DRIVE Mobile SSD has a built-in heatsink that keeps the drive cool and makes it crushproof (up to 450 kg / 1000 lbs). It is also IP67 dust- and water-resistant.
The G-DRIVE Mobile Pro SSD uses NVMe and Thunderbolt 3 technologies to achieve transfer rates of up to 2,800 MB/s! It also comes with a heatsink core that doubles as a crushproof cage (up to 450 kg / 1000 lbs).
This is a desktop version of the G-DRIVE Mobile Pro drive above, although it’s arguably portable as well. It has an enterprise-grade SSD inside, with storage capacities of up to 7.68 GB, and transfer rates of up to 2,800 MB/s. You can even daisy-chain multiple G-DRIVE Pro SSDs together.
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The 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD is the first Western Digital solid state drive to feature their 64-layer 3D NAND technology that delivers higher storage capacities, performance and endurance, with lower power consumption. Let’s see if the 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD delivers on that promise!
The WD Blue 3D NAND SSD Family
The WD Blue 3D NAND SSD family consists of four models built upon the same technology. They mainly differ in storage capacities, with some performance characteristics. Here’s a table comparing their key specifications :
Specifications
2 TB WD Blue 3D SSD
1 TB WD Blue 3D SSD
500 GB WD Blue 3D SSD
250 GB WD Blue 3D SSD
Model Number
WDS200T2B0A
WDS100T2B0A
WDS500G2B0A
WDS250G2B0A
Storage Capacity
2048 GB (Total)
2000 GB (Effective)
1024 GB (Total)
1000 GB (Effective)
512 GB (Total)
500 GB (Effective)
256 GB (Total)
250 GB (Effective)
Overprovisioning
48 GB (2.4 %)
24 GB (2.4 %)
12 GB (2.4 %)
6 GB (2.4 %)
SSD Controller
Marvell 88SS1074-BSW2
Marvell 88SS1074-BSW2
Marvell 88SS1074-BSW2
Marvell 88SS1074-BSW2
NAND Flash Type
64-layer WD 3D NAND (BiCS3)
64-layer WD 3D NAND (BiCS3)
64-layer WD 3D NAND (BiCS3)
64-layer WD 3D NAND (BiCS3)
SDRAM Cache
None
None
512 MB DDR3
256 MB DDR3
Interface
SATA 6 Gb/s
SATA 6 Gb/s
SATA 6 Gb/s
SATA 6 Gb/s
Peak Sequential Read
560 MB/s
560 MB/s
560 MB/s
550 MB/s
Peak Sequential Write
530 MB/s
530 MB/s
530 MB/s
525 MB/s
Random Read I/O
95,000 IOPS
95,000 IOPS
95,000 IOPS
95,000 IOPS
Random Write I/O
84,000 IOPS
84,000 IOPS
84,000 IOPS
81,000 IOPS
Write Endurance
500 TB
400 TB
200 TB
100 TB
Slumber Power
56 mW
56 mW
56 mW
56 mW
DEVSLP Power
5-12 mW
5-12 mW
5-7 mW
5-7 mW
Mean Time To Failure (MTTF)
Up to 1.75 million hours
Up to 1.75 million hours
Up to 1.75 million hours
Up to 1.75 million hours
Ambient Temperature
0°C to 70°C (Operating)
-55°C to 85°C (Non-Operating)
0°C to 70°C (Operating)
-55°C to 85°C (Non-Operating)
0°C to 70°C (Operating)
-55°C to 85°C (Non-Operating)
0°C to 70°C (Operating)
-55°C to 85°C (Non-Operating)
The 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) comes in a deceptively light cardboard box. Let’s unbox it and take a closer look!
The 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) is a low-profile 2.5″ drive, with a thickness of only 7 mm. This is thinner than the regular 9.5 mm drives, making it suitable for all 2.5″ drive bays, even in thin laptops.
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The WD 3D NAND Technology
Western Digital first announced their 64-layer 3D NAND technology, also known as BiCS3, last year. However, it was only slated for commercial volume production in the first half of 2017.
BiCS3 was developed jointly with their technology and manufacturing partner, Toshiba. It not only uses 64-layers, but also 3-bits-per-cell technology to achieve high capacity (256 to 512 gigabits per chip) and performance at a much lower cost.
SanDisk nCache 2.0 Technology
SanDisk nCache 2.0 is a proprietary pseudo-SLC caching technology that greatly increases the write performance of the solid state drive. Here is an old infographic (from their Ultra II SSD) that shows how it works :
A small portion (about 4%) of the NAND memory blocks are set to run in the SLC mode, which allows for a much higher write speed. This SLC portion serves as a fast write cache for all writes to the drive, allowing for write speeds of up to 530 MB/s.
The data is later transferred to the TLC portion using the special On Chip Copy feature. This proprietary feature allows the transfer to occur internally on-die without affecting any other transfers.
In a 1TB drive, about 40 GB is reserved for use as the nCache 2.0 write cache. That translates into an effective write cache size of about 13 GB.
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The Marvell 88SS1074 SSD Controller
The 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) uses the Marvell 88SS1074 SSD controller, which boasts the following key features :
Supports up to 4 NAND channels, with up to 8 NAND chips per channel
Features Marvell’s third-generation NANDEdge low-density parity check (LDPC) technology
Supports SATA 3.2 (6.0 Gbps)
Toggle 2 and ONFI2 support at up to 400 MT/s
Integrated DEVSLP (Device Sleep) mode for low power support
Supports 256-bit AES hardware encryption
Built on 28 nm CMOS process
The Marvell NANDEdge LDPC technology allows for reliable on-the-fly error correction of the 3-bit TLC flash memory, with minimal impact on latency, performance and power consumption.
However, the Marvell 88SS1074 is likely to fall short in sustained throughput, because it only supports 4 NAND channels. Competing controllers like the Phison S10, for example, boast 8 NAND channels, allowing twice as many NAND chips to be accessed simultaneously.
SATA 6 Gb/s Interface
The 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) is a Serial ATA drive, with native support for SATA 6 Gb/s interface. It is backward-compatible, so you will have no problem using it with older SATA 3 Gb/s controllers. However, the faster SATA 6 Gb/s interface is necessary for optimal performance because this SSD is capable of a peak transfer rate of 560 MB/s.
Like all Serial ATA drives, it comes with the standard SATA data (left) and power (right) connectors, and is hot-pluggable. That means you can connect and disconnect this solid state drive while the PC is still running. There is no jumper block, because there’s really nothing for you to set. It’s just plug and play!
If you like our work, you can help support our work by visiting our sponsors, participating in the Tech ARP Forums, or even donating to our fund. Any help you can render is greatly appreciated!
SSD Endurance
The 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) is rated for a lifetime write lifespan of 400 TBW (Terabytes Written). That does not seem like a lot (equal to overwriting the drive just 400 times), but it is considered enterprise-grade endurance. Many consumer-grade SSDs of equivalent capacity are rated at around 75-100 TBW.
Based on a typical consumer DWPD (Drive Writes Per Day) of 20 GB per day, this 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) will last at least 54 years.
Please note that this long lifespan is due to the large capacity. The 500 GB and 250 GB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSDs are rated at 200 TBW and 100 TBW respectively. That corresponds to an estimated lifespan of 27 years and 13.5 years respectively.
Like all other current SSDs, the 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) comes with certain features to help extend its lifespan :
Wear Levelling
Unlike hard disk drives, flash-based SSDs write and overwrite data in large blocks of 512 KB to 1 MB in size. Even if you only need to write one byte of data, it has to erase and overwrite an entire block. This causes a lot of wear on the memory cells and greatly reduces their lifespan.
To help extend the lifespan of the drive, SSDs perform wear levelling by spreading the writes, so that the flash memory cells have equal wear. The lifespan of the memory cells remain unchanged, but it prevents some of them from failing earlier due to excessive wear.
Write Combine Cache
SSDs also use a write buffer to temporarily store and combine the writes before they are actually written to the flash memory. This reduces the number of block erases required, and consequently, extends the lifespan of the flash memory cells.
The 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) uses the aforementioned nCache 2.0 technology instead of a dedicated SDRAM write combine cache. It reserves about 4% of the NAND blocks and uses them in the SLC mode.
The resulting nCache 2.0 write cache may not be as fast as an SDRAM cache, but it is much larger in size. The 1TB WD Blue SSD, for example, boasts a large 1 GB DDR3L memory cache, but that is nothing compared to the 13 GB (or so) SLC cache in the 1TB WD Blue 3D SSD.
TRIM
Current SSDs support the TRIM command, otherwise known as the ATA8-ACS-2 DATA SET MANAGEMENT command. Operating systems that support TRIM (e.g. Microsoft Windows 7) will notify the SSD when data blocks are deleted in the file system. This allows the SSD to perform garbage collection in the background – internally erasing the affected blocks so that they are ready to be written to.
Without the TRIM command, the SSD will not know when a block of data has been deleted by the operating system. When new data is written to the same block of data, it will force the SSD to perform the time-consuming read-erase-modify-write cycle, which not only cripples performance but also increases wear on the affected memory cells.
Multi-Stream
This is a new SSD technology that was introduced in May 2015, as part of the T10 SCSI Standard. Multi-stream greatly improves performance and extends lifespan by reducing or even eliminating garbage collection.
It achieves this by marking data writes that are associated with one another, or have a similar lifetime, with a unique stream ID. This allows the SSD controller to pack all data writes with the same stream ID into the same block.
When the operating system deletes data, it is likely that they are all packed into the same block. If the block has not been written to the SSD, then this eliminates the pending write operation completely. If the block has been written to the SSD, then this would only require that single block to be erased, instead of multiple blocks (which would happen if the data was not all packed into the same block).
SSD Maintenance
First of all, you should never, ever defragment solid state drives. Spatial fragmentation of data on the SSD has no effect on its performance. Fragmented data are accessed as quickly as nicely-packed blocks, so it’s pointless to defragment the data blocks. Doing so will only reduce the lifespan of the flash memory cells by putting them under additional wear.
3D NAND flash memory will only last about 1,000 erase/write cycles – about the same as TLC NAND memory. You will want to minimise the number of times each flash memory cell is erased.
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You should also use an operating system that supports the TRIM command. If you are using one of the following operating systems, then you have nothing to worry about :
Microsoft Windows 7, or better
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2, or better
Linux 2.6.33, or better
FreeBSD 8.2, or better
Mac OS X Snow Leopard, or better
If not, you should consider upgrading your operating system. Otherwise, you will need to perform manual garbage collection on a regular basis, either using a manufacturer utility, or newer defragmentation software that specifically supports solid state drives.
Basically, these utilities will retrieve the list of free blocks from the operating system’s file system and pass it to the SSD in the form of TRIM commands, so that it will know which blocks to erase internally. Again, these utilities are not necessary if you are using an operating system that supports TRIM.
If you like our work, you can help support our work by visiting our sponsors, participating in the Tech ARP Forums, or even donating to our fund. Any help you can render is greatly appreciated!
We tested in both Windows 7 and Windows Vista, with the latest updates. We chose to use IO Meter 2008, AS SSD Benchmark, ATTO Disk Benchmark as well as our “old faithful”, WinBench 99 2.0, with the following tests :
Platter Data Transfer Profile
Business Disk WinMark 99
High-End Disk WinMark 99
Disk Transfer Rate (Beginning)
Disk Transfer Rate (End)
Business Disk WinMark 99 is a real-world simulation based on three office application suites – Microsoft Office 97, Lotus SmartSuite and Corel WordPerfect Suite 8, as well as a web browser, Netscape Navigator. They are quite dated, but should still reflect the usage patterns of users in an office environment using such applications. The test runs through a script that keeps multiple applications open, while it performs tasks that switches between those applications and Netscape Navigator. The result is the average transfer rate during the script run.
High-End Disk WinMark 99 is a real-world simulation based on AVS/Express 3.4, FrontPage 98, MicroStation SE, Photoshop 4.0, Premiere 4.2, Sound Forge 4.0 and Visual C++ 5.0. However, it differs by running the applications serially, instead of simultaneously. There are individual results for each application but in this comparison, we will be looking only at the weighted average score, which is the average transfer rate during the tests.
Unfortunately, WinBench 99 is not fully compatible with Microsoft Windows 7, registering a SetFilePointer error in the Disk Access Time test. So, we were not able to obtain any Disk Access Time results.
In addition, it would keep crashing if the hard drive was tested with a single partition. This is likely due to a limit on the size of the partition that is supported by WinBench 99. We came up with a workaround by dividing the hard disk drive into 5 partitions of equal sizes. We then tested each partition individually and averaged the results.
This 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) has a maximum storage capacity of 1,024 GB, courtesy of eight 128 GB SanDisk 3D NAND chips. Of that, a mere 24 GB has been set aside for garbage collection, wear levelling and replacement of failing blocks.
Ordinarily, the limited 2.4% over-provisioning may impact long-term performance and lifespan. However, Western Digital mitigated that using a large 13 GB pseudo-SLC write cache they call nCache 2.0.
After it is formatted in NTFS, the actual formatted capacity is 1,000,202,039,296 bytes. This is slightly (202 MB) more than the official formatted capacity of 1,000 GB.
With about 124 MB of space allocated to the NTFS file system, the actual usable capacity is just above 1,000 GB.
Transfer Rate Profile
We compared the 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) to the 1TB WD Blue SSD. As you can see, it has a sustained throughput of about 378 MB/s, which makes it almost twice as fast as the 1TB WD Blue SSD, which uses TLC NAND memory.
This chart shows you the range of memory cell-to-controller transfer rates for SSDs, or the range of platter-to-buffer transfer rates from the innermost track to the outermost track in HDDs.
Despite boasting an official peak read speed of 560 MB/s, the 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) could only hit 386 MB/s. That is impressive in its own right, but puts it below the 256 GB OCZ Vector and the 240 GB HyperX Savage SSDs.
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The small random reads and writes are the most important tests for applications that make a lot of random accesses, so these would be key performance indicators for SSDs that are often used as boot drives.
The 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) did incredibly well in this test, solidly beating the 1TB WD Blue SSD. Thanks to its built-in nCache 2.0 technology, it delivered almost twice the large random write performance of the 1TB WD Blue SSD!
Random Access Time
Test
1 TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD
1 TB WD Blue SSD
Difference
512 KB Read
1.41 ms
2.19 ms
– 35.5%
512 KB Write
1.07 ms
2.04 ms
– 47.4%
4 KB Read
0.13 ms
0.17 ms
– 25.1%
4 KB Write
0.05 ms
0.08 ms
– 29.8%
The random write performance of the 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) was truly stellar, in comparison to the 1TB WD Blue SSD.
Random CPU Utilization
Test
1 TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD
1 TB WD Blue SSD
Difference
512 KB Read
29.50 %
7.16 %
+ 312.0%
512 KB Write
30.12 %
7.31 %
+ 312.3%
4 KB Read
32.53 %
9.94 %
+ 227.2%
4 KB Write
35.72 %
11.91 %
+ 199.9%
The only downside – the 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) uses up a lot more CPU performance than the 1TB WD Blue SSD. About 3X more CPU performance, on average!
The sequential read and write performance indicators determine how fast you can copy and move files. This is also important in determining how fast you can launch an application or game.
The 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) did marvellously in this test, coming in twice as fast as the 1TB WD Blue SSD in large, sequential reads and writes. It also had a large boost in small sequential read and write performance.
Sequential Access Time
Test
1 TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD
1 TB WD Blue SSD
Difference
512 KB Read
1.03 ms
2.10 ms
– 51.2%
512 KB Write
1.06 ms
2.05 ms
– 48.3%
4 KB Read
0.05 ms
0.07 ms
– 26.7%
4 KB Write
0.05 ms
0.07 ms
– 22.4%
Sequential CPU Utilization
Test
1 TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD
1 TB WD Blue SSD
Difference
512 KB Read
29.61 %
8.69 %
+ 240.7%
512 KB Write
29.11 %
5.76 %
+ 405.4%
4 KB Read
36.38 %
15.93 %
+ 128.4%
4 KB Write
35.69 %
15.42 %
+ 131.5%
Again, the 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) took up a significant amount of CPU processing power.
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Even though the 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) is rated for enterprise-class endurance, its Marvell 88SS1074 controller is just not capable of handling too many simultaneous operations. It appears to handle up to 8 simultaneous transactions.
Its nCache 2.0 technology appears to have compensated for its limited NAND channels, allowing it greatly supersede the performance of the 1TB WD Blue SSD, even though they both use the same SDD controller.
If you like our work, you can help support our work by visiting our sponsors, participating in the Tech ARP Forums, or even donating to our fund. Any help you can render is greatly appreciated!
AS SSD Benchmark
AS SSD Benchmark is a simple and easy-to-use SSD benchmark by Alex Intelligent Software. It not only tests the drive’s sequential transfer rates and access times, but also its performance at both single-threaded and multi-threaded 4K IOPS.
If you like our work, you can help support our work by visiting our sponsors, participating in the Tech ARP Forums, or even donating to our fund. Any help you can render is greatly appreciated!
ATTO Disk Benchmark
ATTO Disk Benchmark is a free benchmark that allows you to compare the performance of solid state drives using a variety of transfer sizes. It also allows us to determine if the SSD performs data compression to improve performance, and extend lifespan.
I/O Comparison
Results
Compressible Data
Non-Compressible Data
Minimum
Maximum
Minimum
Maximum
Read Speed
6.5 MB/s
145.1 MB/s
5.8 MB/s
143.6 MB/s
Write Speed
5.6 MB/s
137.2 MB/s
6.1 MB/s
134.2 MB/s
The Marvell 88SS1074 controller does not perform any data compression, which is why the performance results are the same for both compressible and non-compressible data. The 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) reached its peak transfer rate with a block size of 1 MB.
Multiple I/O Comparison
Results
Compressible Data
Non-Compressible Data
Minimum
Maximum
Minimum
Maximum
Read Speed
8.8 MB/s
147 2 MB/s
10.2 MB/s
147.5 MB/s
Write Speed
8.3 MB/s
139.6 MB/s
9.0 MB/s
136.5 MB/s
With just 8 simultaneous transactions, the 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) reached its peak transfer rate with a block size of 128 KB.
Our Verdict & Award
The first 1 terabyte solid state drive we tested was the 1TB WD Blue (WDS100T1B0A) SSD. While it had a large storage capacity, high endurance and a affordable price point, it was not particularly fast.
That changed with the introduction of the 64-layer 3D NAND technology, which not only increases storage capacity and performance, but also reduces cost and power consumption. Now we can have our cake and eat it too.
The 1TB WD Blue 3D SSD (Price Check) is the first Western Digital solid state drive to make use of the 64-layer 3D NAND technology and it sure impressed us with its performance.
Despite using the same SSD controller as the 1TB WD Blue, the 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) was twice as fast in large reads and writes. It accomplished this without using any SDRAM cache, thanks to nCache 2.0 technology.
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The 1TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD (Price Check) will work well as a boot drive, thanks to its excellent small random performance. It will be particularly attractive as an upgrade option for laptops still running on hard disk drives, or smaller SSDs.
Just note that its high performance requires a significant amount of CPU performance. So make sure you pair it with a fast processor.
We like its combination of great performance, large storage capacity and lower cost so much, we think it deserves our Editor’s Choice Award. Great work, Western Digital!
WD Blue 3D NAND SSD Prices & Warranty
The WD Blue 3D SSDs are available in storage capacities from 250 GB to 2 TB in the 2.5-inch / 7mm cased drive form factor, at the following price points :
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Western Digital colour-codes their hard disk drives not to make the drives look sexier, or to help sell more hard disk drives. They created the WD drive colours to help users understand the distinct advantages or use of each drive family. In this article, Western Digital will help us show you how to choose the best drive for your PC.
Every Drive Has A Purpose
There is no better person than Albert Chang, Senior Manager of Product Marketing at WD Asia Pacific, to explain why every drive has a purpose. He also points out a key point that users often forget to factor when consumers purchase a drive – the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership).
That’s right. The TCO is often overlooked, because that is ultimately the price you are paying over the lifetime of a drive. So make sure you don’t just buy the cheapest possible drive, because that may result in a high TCO… including the loss of priceless data.
Introducing The Five WD Drive Colours
Here is a quick primer on the five WD drive colours, and how they can help you determine the best drive for your PC.
Now, let’s take a closer look at each WD drive colour, and find out what advantages each drive colour boasts!
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WD Blue For Mainstream PCs
The WD Blue (Price Check) family are focused on offering highly-affordable drives with large storage capacities.
The WD Blue family does not just consist of hard disk drives. Western Digital also offers WD Blue SSHDs (solid state hybrid drives) and WD Blue SSDs (solid state drives).
For more information, you can read these WD Blue articles :
The WD Black family (Price Check) is targeted at power users and gamers who want the fastest possible hard disk drives for their PCs.
The WD Black drives offer a much higher spindle speed, a very large cache, and a fast processor. For more information, you can read these WD Black articles :
The WD Red (Price Check) family of NAS drives is specifically designed for the “always on” environment of a NAS enclosure. They run cooler and vibrate less, greatly increasing their reliability and lifespan in NAS enclosures.
The WD Red drives are also optimised for NAS usage patterns (80% reads, 20% writes), so you will be able to access your files faster than with a regular hard disk drive.
For more information, you can read these WD Red articles :
WD Purple drives (Price Check) are designed to handle the high-temperature, “always-on” environment of the CCTV and DVR systems. Regular drives will fail quickly under such conditions.
They are also designed to handle multiple video streams without dropped frames, or gaps in recorded footage… and do this 24/7 without rest!
For more information on the WD Purple, and why it is the best drive for surveillance and CCTV systems, please read :
Qualified for nearline storage use in datacenters, datacenter hard disk drives like WD Gold (Price Check) are designed to offer high storage capacities at maximum performance and reliability while operating continuously 24 hours a day in large drive arrays.
So if you want nothing but the best drive to secure your company’s data, there can be no doubt that the WD Gold (Price Check) is the ultimate storage solution.
For more information, you can read these WD Gold articles :
If you like our work, you can help support our work by visiting our sponsors, participating in the Tech ARP Forums, or even donating to our fund. Any help you can render is greatly appreciated!
The 1TB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD is the first SanDisk solid state drive to feature their 64-layer 3D NAND technology that delivers higher storage capacities, performance and endurance, with lower power consumption. Let’s see if the 1TB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD delivers on that promise!
The SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD Family
The SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD family consists of four models built upon the same technology. They mainly differ in storage capacities, with some performance characteristics. Here’s a table comparing their key specifications :
The 1TB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD (Price Check) comes in a deceptively light cardboard box. Let’s unbox it and take a closer look!
The 1TB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD (Price Check) is a low-profile 2.5″ drive, with a thickness of only 7 mm. This is thinner than the regular 9.5 mm drives, making it suitable for all 2.5″ drive bays, even in thin laptops.
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The WD 3D NAND Technology
Western Digital first announced their 64-layer 3D NAND technology, also known as BiCS3, last year. However, it was only slated for commercial volume production in the first half of 2017.
BiCS3 was developed jointly with their technology and manufacturing partner, Toshiba. It not only uses 64-layers, but also 3-bits-per-cell technology to achieve high capacity (256 to 512 gigabits per chip) and performance at a much lower cost.
SanDisk nCache 2.0 Technology
SanDisk nCache 2.0 is a proprietary pseudo-SLC caching technology that greatly increases the write performance of the solid state drive. Here is an old infographic (from their Ultra II SSD) that shows how it works :
A small portion (about 4%) of the NAND memory blocks are set to run in the SLC mode, which allows for a much higher write speed. This SLC portion serves as a fast write cache for all writes to the drive, allowing for write speeds of up to 530 MB/s.
The data is later transferred to the TLC portion using the special On Chip Copy feature. This proprietary feature allows the transfer to occur internally on-die without affecting any other transfers.
In a 1TB drive, about 40 GB is reserved for use as the nCache 2.0 write cache. That translates into an effective write cache size of about 13 GB.
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The Marvell 88SS1074 SSD Controller
The 1TB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD (Price Check) uses the Marvell 88SS1074 SSD controller, which boasts the following key features :
Supports up to 4 NAND channels, with up to 8 NAND chips per channel
Features Marvell’s third-generation NANDEdge low-density parity check (LDPC) technology
Supports SATA 3.2 (6.0 Gbps)
Toggle 2 and ONFI2 support at up to 400 MT/s
Integrated DEVSLP (Device Sleep) mode for low power support
Supports 256-bit AES hardware encryption
Built on 28 nm CMOS process
The Marvell NANDEdge LDPC technology allows for reliable on-the-fly error correction of the 3-bit TLC flash memory, with minimal impact on latency, performance and power consumption.
However, the Marvell 88SS1074 is likely to fall short in sustained throughput, because it only supports 4 NAND channels. Competing controllers like the Phison S10, for example, boast 8 NAND channels, allowing twice as many NAND chips to be accessed simultaneously.
SATA 6 Gb/s Interface
The 1TB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD (Price Check) is a Serial ATA drive, with native support for SATA 6 Gb/s interface. It is backward-compatible, so you will have no problem using it with older SATA 3 Gb/s controllers. However, the faster SATA 6 Gb/s interface is necessary for optimal performance because this SSD is capable of a peak transfer rate of 560 MB/s.
Like all Serial ATA drives, it comes with the standard SATA data (left) and power (right) connectors, and is hot-pluggable. That means you can connect and disconnect this solid state drive while the PC is still running. There is no jumper block, because there’s really nothing for you to set. It’s just plug and play!
If you like our work, you can help support our work by visiting our sponsors, participating in the Tech ARP Forums, or even donating to our fund. Any help you can render is greatly appreciated!
SSD Endurance
The 1TB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD (Price Check) is rated for a lifetime write lifespan of 400 TBW (Terabytes Written). That does not seem like a lot (equal to overwriting the drive just 400 times), but it is considered enterprise-grade endurance. Many consumer-grade SSDs of equivalent capacity are rated at around 75-100 TBW.
Based on a typical consumer DWPD (Drive Writes Per Day) of 20 GB per day, this 1TB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD (Price Check) will last at least 54 years.
Please note that this long lifespan is due to the large capacity. The 500 GB and 250 GB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSDs are rated at 200 TBW and 100 TBW respectively. That corresponds to an estimated lifespan of 27 years and 13.5 years respectively.
Like all other current SSDs, the 1TB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD (Price Check) comes with certain features to help extend its lifespan :
Wear Levelling
Unlike hard disk drives, flash-based SSDs write and overwrite data in large blocks of 512 KB to 1 MB in size. Even if you only need to write one byte of data, it has to erase and overwrite an entire block. This causes a lot of wear on the memory cells and greatly reduces their lifespan.
To help extend the lifespan of the drive, SSDs perform wear levelling by spreading the writes, so that the flash memory cells have equal wear. The lifespan of the memory cells remain unchanged, but it prevents some of them from failing earlier due to excessive wear.
Write Combine Cache
SSDs also use a write buffer to temporarily store and combine the writes before they are actually written to the flash memory. This reduces the number of block erases required, and consequently, extends the lifespan of the flash memory cells.
The 1TB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD (Price Check) uses the aforementioned nCache 2.0 technology instead of a dedicated SDRAM write combine cache. It reserves about 4% of the NAND blocks and uses them in the SLC mode.
The resulting nCache 2.0 write cache may not be as fast as an SDRAM cache, but it is much larger in size. The 1TB WD Blue SSD, for example, boasts a large 1 GB DDR3L memory cache, but that is nothing compared to the 13 GB (or so) SLC cache in the 1TB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD.
TRIM
Current SSDs support the TRIM command, otherwise known as the ATA8-ACS-2 DATA SET MANAGEMENT command. Operating systems that support TRIM (e.g. Microsoft Windows 7) will notify the SSD when data blocks are deleted in the file system. This allows the SSD to perform garbage collection in the background – internally erasing the affected blocks so that they are ready to be written to.
Without the TRIM command, the SSD will not know when a block of data has been deleted by the operating system. When new data is written to the same block of data, it will force the SSD to perform the time-consuming read-erase-modify-write cycle, which not only cripples performance but also increases wear on the affected memory cells.
Multi-Stream
This is a new SSD technology that was introduced in May 2015, as part of the T10 SCSI Standard. Multi-stream greatly improves performance and extends lifespan by reducing or even eliminating garbage collection.
It achieves this by marking data writes that are associated with one another, or have a similar lifetime, with a unique stream ID. This allows the SSD controller to pack all data writes with the same stream ID into the same block.
When the operating system deletes data, it is likely that they are all packed into the same block. If the block has not been written to the SSD, then this eliminates the pending write operation completely. If the block has been written to the SSD, then this would only require that single block to be erased, instead of multiple blocks (which would happen if the data was not all packed into the same block).
SSD Maintenance
First of all, you should never, ever defragment solid state drives. Spatial fragmentation of data on the SSD has no effect on its performance. Fragmented data are accessed as quickly as nicely-packed blocks, so it’s pointless to defragment the data blocks. Doing so will only reduce the lifespan of the flash memory cells by putting them under additional wear.
3D NAND flash memory will only last about 1,000 erase/write cycles – about the same as TLC NAND memory. You will want to minimise the number of times each flash memory cell is erased.
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You should also use an operating system that supports the TRIM command. If you are using one of the following operating systems, then you have nothing to worry about :
Microsoft Windows 7, or better
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2, or better
Linux 2.6.33, or better
FreeBSD 8.2, or better
Mac OS X Snow Leopard, or better
If not, you should consider upgrading your operating system. Otherwise, you will need to perform manual garbage collection on a regular basis, either using a manufacturer utility, or newer defragmentation software that specifically supports solid state drives.
Basically, these utilities will retrieve the list of free blocks from the operating system’s file system and pass it to the SSD in the form of TRIM commands, so that it will know which blocks to erase internally. Again, these utilities are not necessary if you are using an operating system that supports TRIM.
If you like our work, you can help support our work by visiting our sponsors, participating in the Tech ARP Forums, or even donating to our fund. Any help you can render is greatly appreciated!
We tested in both Windows 7 and Windows Vista, with the latest updates. We chose to use IO Meter 2008, AS SSD Benchmark, ATTO Disk Benchmark as well as our “old faithful”, WinBench 99 2.0, with the following tests :
Platter Data Transfer Profile
Business Disk WinMark 99
High-End Disk WinMark 99
Disk Transfer Rate (Beginning)
Disk Transfer Rate (End)
Business Disk WinMark 99 is a real-world simulation based on three office application suites – Microsoft Office 97, Lotus SmartSuite and Corel WordPerfect Suite 8, as well as a web browser, Netscape Navigator. They are quite dated, but should still reflect the usage patterns of users in an office environment using such applications. The test runs through a script that keeps multiple applications open, while it performs tasks that switches between those applications and Netscape Navigator. The result is the average transfer rate during the script run.
High-End Disk WinMark 99 is a real-world simulation based on AVS/Express 3.4, FrontPage 98, MicroStation SE, Photoshop 4.0, Premiere 4.2, Sound Forge 4.0 and Visual C++ 5.0. However, it differs by running the applications serially, instead of simultaneously. There are individual results for each application but in this comparison, we will be looking only at the weighted average score, which is the average transfer rate during the tests.
Unfortunately, WinBench 99 is not fully compatible with Microsoft Windows 7, registering a SetFilePointer error in the Disk Access Time test. So, we were not able to obtain any Disk Access Time results.
In addition, it would keep crashing if the hard drive was tested with a single partition. This is likely due to a limit on the size of the partition that is supported by WinBench 99. We came up with a workaround by dividing the hard disk drive into 5 partitions of equal sizes. We then tested each partition individually and averaged the results.
This 1TB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD (Price Check) has a maximum storage capacity of 1,024 GB, courtesy of eight 128 GB SanDisk 3D NAND chips. Of that, a mere 24 GB has been set aside for garbage collection, wear levelling and replacement of failing blocks.
Ordinarily, the limited 2.4% over-provisioning may impact long-term performance and lifespan. However, SanDisk mitigated that using a large 13 GB pseudo-SLC write cache they call nCache 2.0.
After it is formatted in NTFS, the actual formatted capacity is 1,000,202,039,296 bytes. This is slightly (202 MB) more than the official formatted capacity of 1,000 GB.
With about 124 MB of space allocated to the NTFS file system, the actual usable capacity is just above 1,000 GB.
Transfer Rate Profile
We compared the 1TB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD (Price Check) to the 1TB WD Blue SSD. As you can see, it has a sustained throughput of about 410 MB/s, which makes it almost twice as fast as the 1TB WD Blue SSD, which uses TLC NAND memory.
This chart shows you the range of memory cell-to-controller transfer rates for SSDs, or the range of platter-to-buffer transfer rates from the innermost track to the outermost track in HDDs.
Despite boasting an official peak read speed of 560 MB/s, the 1TB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD (Price Check) could only hit 411 MB/s. That is impressive in its own right, but puts it below the 256 GB OCZ Vector and the 240 GB HyperX Savage SSDs.
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The small random reads and writes are the most important tests for applications that make a lot of random accesses, so these would be key performance indicators for SSDs that are often used as boot drives.
The 1TB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD (Price Check) did incredibly well in this test, solidly beating the 1TB WD Blue SSD. Thanks to its built-in nCache 2.0 technology, it delivered almost twice the large random write performance of the 1TB WD Blue SSD!
Random Access Time
Test
1 TB SanDisk Ultra 3D
1 TB WD Blue SSD
Difference
512 KB Read
1.35 ms
2.19 ms
– 38.3%
512 KB Write
1.06 ms
2.04 ms
– 48.0%
4 KB Read
0.13 ms
0.17 ms
– 22.8%
4 KB Write
0.05 ms
0.08 ms
– 29.9%
The random write performance of the 1TB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD (Price Check) was truly stellar, in comparison to the 1TB WD Blue SSD.
Random CPU Utilization
Test
1 TB SanDisk Ultra 3D
1 TB WD Blue SSD
Difference
512 KB Read
30.21 %
7.16 %
+ 321.9%
512 KB Write
29.72 %
7.31 %
+ 306.8%
4 KB Read
32.15 %
9.94 %
+ 223.4%
4 KB Write
35.61 %
11.91 %
+ 199.0%
The only downside – the 1TB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD (Price Check) uses up a lot more CPU performance than the 1TB WD Blue SSD. About 3X more CPU performance, on average!
The sequential read and write performance indicators determine how fast you can copy and move files. This is also important in determining how fast you can launch an application or game.
The 1TB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD (Price Check) did marvellously in this test, coming in twice as fast as the 1TB WD Blue SSD in large, sequential reads and writes. It also had a nice boost in small sequential read and write performance.
Sequential Access Time
Test
1 TB SanDisk Ultra 3D
1 TB WD Blue SSD
Difference
512 KB Read
1.02 ms
2.10 ms
– 51.2%
512 KB Write
1.06 ms
2.05 ms
– 48.3%
4 KB Read
0.05 ms
0.07 ms
– 26.8%
4 KB Write
0.05 ms
0.07 ms
– 22.1%
Sequential CPU Utilization
Test
1 TB SanDisk Ultra 3D
1 TB WD Blue SSD
Difference
512 KB Read
30.17 %
8.69 %
+ 247.1%
512 KB Write
30.11 %
5.76 %
+ 422.7%
4 KB Read
36.07 %
15.93 %
+ 126.4%
4 KB Write
35.74 %
15.42 %
+ 131.9%
Again, the 1TB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD (Price Check) took up a significant amount of CPU processing power.
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Even though the 1TB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD (Price Check) is rated for enterprise-class endurance, its Marvell 88SS1074 controller is just not capable of handling too many simultaneous operations. It appears to handle up to 8 simultaneous transactions.
Its nCache 2.0 technology appears to have compensated for its limited NAND channels, allowing it greatly supersede the performance of the 1TB WD Blue SSD, even though they both use the same SDD controller.
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AS SSD Benchmark
AS SSD Benchmark is a simple and easy-to-use SSD benchmark by Alex Intelligent Software. It not only tests the drive’s sequential transfer rates and access times, but also its performance at both single-threaded and multi-threaded 4K IOPS.
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ATTO Disk Benchmark
ATTO Disk Benchmark is a free benchmark that allows you to compare the performance of solid state drives using a variety of transfer sizes. It also allows us to determine if the SSD performs data compression to improve performance, and extend lifespan.
I/O Comparison
Results
Compressible Data
Non-Compressible Data
Minimum
Maximum
Minimum
Maximum
Read Speed
11.6 MB/s
426.1 MB/s
11.6 MB/s
427.1 MB/s
Write Speed
7.6 MB/s
526.3 MB/s
7.6 MB/s
525.1 MB/s
The Marvell 88SS1074 controller does not perform any data compression, which is why the performance results are the same for both compressible and non-compressible data. The 1TB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD (Price Check) reached its peak transfer rate with a block size of 1 MB.
Multiple I/O Comparison
Results
Compressible Data
Non-Compressible Data
Minimum
Maximum
Minimum
Maximum
Read Speed
25.8 MB/s
559 2 MB/s
26.7 MB/s
580.5 MB/s
Write Speed
16.2 MB/s
538.1 MB/s
16.1 MB/s
538.1 MB/s
With just 8 simultaneous transactions, the 1TB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD (Price Check) reached its peak transfer rate with a block size of 128 KB.
Our Verdict & Award
The first 1 terabyte solid state drive we tested was the 1TB WD Blue (WDS100T1B0A) SSD. While it had a large storage capacity, high endurance and a affordable price point, it was not particularly fast.
That changed with the introduction of the 64-layer 3D NAND technology, which not only increases storage capacity and performance, but also reduces cost and power consumption. Now we can have our cake and eat it too.
The 1TB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD (Price Check) is the first SanDisk solid state drive to make use of the 64-layer 3D NAND technology and it sure impressed us with its performance.
Despite using the same SSD controller as the 1TB WD Blue, the 1TB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD (Price Check) was twice as fast in large reads and writes. It accomplished this without using any SDRAM cache, thanks to nCache 2.0 technology.
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The 1TB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD (Price Check) will work well as a boot drive, thanks to its excellent small random performance. It will be particularly attractive as an upgrade option for laptops still running on hard disk drives, or smaller SSDs.
Just note that its high performance requires a significant amount of CPU performance. So make sure you pair it with a decent processor.
We like its combination of great performance, large storage capacity and lower cost so much, we think it deserves our Editor’s Choice Award. Great work, SanDisk!
SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD Price Check
The SanDisk Ultra 3D SSDs are available in storage capacities from 250 GB to 2 TB in the 2.5-inch / 7mm cased drive form factor.
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Western Digital earlier announced the development of 64-layer and 96-layer 3D NAND technologies, and now, they are introducing the availability of consumer-grade WD Blue 3D NAND SSDs and SanDisk Ultra 3D SSDs. These are the world’s first consumer-grade solid state drives that use the 64-layer 3D NAND technology to deliver lower power consumption with higher performance, endurance and capacities.
The WD + SanDisk SSDs With 64-Layer 3D NAND Technology
Targeting DIY enthusiasts, resellers and system builders, the WD Blue 3D NAND SATA SSDs boast an industry-leading 1.75 million hours MTTF, as well as the quality backing of WD Functional Integrity Testing Lab (F.I.T. Lab) certification.
The SanDisk Ultra 3D SSDs, on the other hand, are intended for gaming and creative enthusiasts who want to improve their PCs. The product delivers enhanced endurance and reliability, no-wait boot-up, shorter application load times, and quicker data transfers.
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The WD 3D NAND Technology
Western Digital first announced their 64-layer 3D NAND technology, also known as BiCS3, last year. However, it was only slated for commercial volume production in the first half of 2017.
BiCS3 was developed jointly with their technology and manufacturing partner, Toshiba. It not only uses 64-layers, but also 3-bits-per-cell technology to achieve high capacity (256 to 512 gigabits per chip) and performance at a much lower cost.
Availability & Pricing
The WD Blue 3D NAND SATA SSDs and SanDisk Ultra 3D SSDs are available in storage capacities from 250 GB to 2 TB in the traditional 2.5-inch / 7mm cased drive form factor. They have the same MSRP:
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Taipei, Taiwan – June 15, 2017– ADATA Technology today launched the industrial-grade ADATA IM2P3388 PCIe Gen3x4 M.2 2280 solid state drive. It employs 3D MLC NAND Flash and an SMI controller to deliver performance several times faster than SATA III SSDs, with read up to 2500MB/s and write reaching 1100MB/s.
The M.2 2280 form factor fits easily in the IT setup of industrial and enterprise users, while the IM2P3388 can withstand a wide temperature range, shocks, and vibration. The IM2P3388 is offered in up to 1TB and supports a range of features such as S.M.A.R.T, TRIM, power fail protection, and secure erase.
The ADATA IM2P3388 Key Features
Ultra-fast 3D MLC NAND M.2 SSD
The IM2P3388 complies with NVMe 1.2 specifications to provide performance optimized for low latency, big bandwidth PCI Express 3.0 x4 (four lanes). Users tap up to 2500MB/s read and 1100MB/s write, greatly accelerating data transfers to help increase productivity and efficiency.
ADATA is offering the IM2P3388 in 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB. All models carry premium 3D MLC NAND that has been carefully sorted, tested, and verified to the highest standards. SLC and DRAM caching provide speed boosts for sustained performance during even the most intense activity sessions, preventing bandwidth or IOPS drop offs.
Reinforced for industrial applications
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In addition to a wide temperature range of -40 to 90 degrees Celsius, the power efficient IM2P3388 is also rated for 20G vibration resistance and 1500G/0.5ms shock tolerance. It can work normally in diverse climates, notably relative humidity of 5% to 95%.
The ADATA IM2P3388 undergoes extensive testing to ensure EMI and ESD proofing. To protect data around the clock, the IM2P3388 has sensors to constantly monitor its status, covering estimated lifespan, power failure prevention, and data recovery. With the ADATA SSD Toolbox app, it supports secure erase to permanently remove sensitive data, wear leveling to promote balanced Flash utilization, and TCG Opal 2.0 encryption for improved data security and privacy protection.
Paving the way for greater SSD adoption
Traditionally, industrial users had to compromise capacity to get storage durability and performance. The IM2P3388 signals a continued shift towards the integration of high speed, compact, and large capacity M.2 SSD products in sectors such as manufacturing, data centers, surveillance, and transportation.
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May 25, 2017 – Kingston today announced the Kingston KC1000 NVMe PCIe SSD. Shipping in mid-June, the M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD is over 2x faster than SATA-based SSDs and over 40x faster than a 7200RPM hard disk drive.
The Kingston KC1000 NVMe PCIe SSD
The Kingston KC1000 is built for the power user, providing the ultimate, low-latency performance boost for resource-demanding applications including high-resolution video editing, data visualization, gaming and other data intensive workload environments where traditional storage solutions are unable to keep pace with data demand.
The demands of today’s performance power users are constantly being put to the test as new data-intensive applications push the boundaries of what can be achieved with even the market’s high performance professional workstations and most powerful gaming rigs.
The KC1000 is the perfect solution to meet the needs of media and design professionals, gaming enthusiasts and anyone who needs ultra-low latency storage performance to end data bottlenecks.
This native NVMe device offers one of the industry’s most powerful storage solutions for high-resolution content delivery, virtual reality applications, accelerated game play or a competitive edge for the creative professional on tight deadlines.
The Kingston KC1000 delivers up to 290,000 IOPS and will ship in mid-June in 240GB, 480GB and 960GB capacities. The high-performance SSD supports the PCIe Gen3 x4 interface and the latest NVMe protocol.
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The Kingston KC1000 provides accelerated boot and load speeds and increases sequential read/write performance, as well as offering improved endurance and energy efficiency. It is perfect for users seeking instant, breakthrough performance improvements for:
High-resolution video editing
Virtual and augmented reality applications
CAD software applications
Streaming media
Graphically intensive video games
Data visualization
Real-time analytics
The KC1000 is backed by a limited five-year warranty and legendary Kingston support.
Kingston KC1000 NVMe PCIe SSD Features and Specifications
180.98mm x 120.96mm x 21.59mm (with HHHL AIC – standard bracket) 181.29mm x 80.14mm x 23.40mm (with HHHL AIC – low-profile bracket)
Weight:
10g (M.2)
76g (with HHHL AIC – standard bracket)
69g (with HHHL AIC – low-profile bracket)
Vibration operating: 2.17G Peak (7-800Hz)
Vibration non-operating: 20G Peak (20-1000Hz)
MTBF: 2,000,000
Warranty/support: Limited 5-year warranty with free technical support
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The Fixed Disk Boot Sector BIOS feature provides rudimentary anti-virus protection by write-protecting the boot sector.
If this feature is enabled, the BIOS will block any attempt to write to the boot sector and flash a warning message. This protects the system from boot sector viruses. Please note that it offers no protection against other types of viruses.
If this feature is disabled, the BIOS will not block any writes to the boot sector.
This feature can cause problems with software that need to write to the boot sector. One good example is the installation routine of all versions of Microsoft Windows, from Windows 95 onwards. When enabled, this feature causes the installation routine to fail.
Many hard drive diagnostic utilities that access the boot sector can also trigger the system halt and error message as well. Therefore, you should disable this feature before running such utilities, or when you intend to install a new operating system.
Details
The Fixed Disk Boot Sector BIOS feature provides rudimentary anti-virus protection by write-protecting the boot sector.
If this feature is enabled, the BIOS will block any attempt to write to the boot sector and flash a warning message. This protects the system from boot sector viruses. Please note that it offers no protection against other types of viruses.
If this feature is disabled, the BIOS will not block any writes to the boot sector.
This feature can cause problems with software that need to write to the boot sector. One good example is the installation routine of all versions of Microsoft Windows, from Windows 95 onwards. When enabled, this feature causes the installation routine to fail.
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Many hard drive diagnostic utilities that access the boot sector can also trigger the system halt and error message as well. Therefore, you should disable this feature before running such utilities, or when you intend to install a new operating system.
Please note that this BIOS feature is useless for storage drives that run on external controllers with their own BIOS. Boot sector viruses will bypass the system BIOS with such anti-virus protection features, and write directly to the drives. Such controllers include additional IDE, SATA or SCSI controllers that are either built into the motherboard or part of add-on PCI Express or PCI cards.
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Plextor just announced the debut of the Plextor M8Se series solid state drives (SSDs) that built around the ultra-high-speed NVMe interfaces. The drives also use the industry’s flagship TLC NAND and control chip components, and specialized heat sinks with streamlined aesthetic design.
The Plextor M8Se NVMe SSD Series
The Plextor M8Se series also caters to a variety of user requirements for SSD upgrades or system assembly, with both PCIe and M.2 2280 specifications. The PCIe version adopts lines drawn from fluid mechanics and a professional blue and black high-performance heat sink design. This presents dynamic ultra-fast speed aesthetics, along with more efficient thermal conductivity that can quickly eliminate the heat generated by M8Se’s high speed transmission and help the computer system maintain optimal operating efficiency.
The M8Se series has the most trustworthy service life and stability of any SSD. The Marvell control chip and Toshiba Super-High-Performance TLC NAND flash memory also allow the M8Se series to have outstanding performance, read/write service life, capacity, and stability, even better than the usual TLC SSD.
The M8Se series is powered by the latest generation NVMe PCIe Gen 3x 4 super high-speed transmission interface that delivers high bandwidth and low latency that allows sequential read/write access speeds of up to 2,450/1,000 MB/s and random read/write speeds of up to 210,000/175,000 IOPS. Whether it’s for work, fun, or multimedia applications, the M8Se is the perfect solution to speed up your system and provide the ultimate user experience.
Equipped with Plextor firmware technology and advanced LDCP debugging capability, the M8Se series has greatly enhanced read/write reliability. Its exclusive PlexNitro write cache technology can ensure the most reliable read/write performance, and its extended SSD service life guarantees peace of mind to long-term users.
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The Plextor M8Se Series Availability
The Plextor M8Se series is anticipated to officially reach the market in June 2017. In addition to providing the PCle expansion card and M.2 2280 specifications, capacities of 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB are also available to satisfy players’ diverse needs for system construction and expansion.
The M8Se series products have passed Plextor’s stringent quality tests, with a 1.5 million hour MTBF (mean time between failures) guarantee in addition to a 3-year warranty period.
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Transcend Information Inc. is proud to introduce the Transcend SSD430, an industrial-grade solid-state drive.
The Industrial-Grade Transcend SSD430 SSD
Compatible with SATA III 6Gb/s specifications, the Transcend SSD430 delivers impressive transfer speeds of up to 560MB/s read and 490MB/s write. In addition to blazing speed, Transcend’s SSD430 features excellent reliability and comes in a small, stylish case. The drive is loaded with low-density parity check (LDPC) error-correction code (ECC) and advanced protective technologies, making it an excellent choice for industrial needs.
Top-quality 3D MLC NAND chips translate into greater transfer efficiency
The industrial-grade SSD430 solid-state drive is constructed of 3D MLC NAND flash chips. 3D engineering has increased SSD430’s speeds to an incredible sequential 560MB/s read and 490MB/s write; the random transfer efficiency is also boosted to 310MB/s read and 350MB/s write.
Low power consumption and high reliability are also hallmarks of 3D NAND. Transcend’s SSD430 is manufactured for a long-term, stable operation for various types of data and application, and is suited for industrial PCs, automated machinery, and fanless industrial systems.
Improved ECC ensures data reliability
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The Transcend SSD430 solid-state drive is equipped with a DDR3 DRAM cache and a SLC cache to boost read and write speeds. The SSD430 also comes equipped with advanced LDPC ECC to secure data. In addition, the drive features Device Sleep mode, Power Shield, Intelligent Block Management, and Global Wear Leveling, all designed to enhance device endurance and reliability.
SSD Scope Pro
Available for customization, Transcend’s proprietary SSD Scope Pro software package is an easy-to-use software that monitors industrial-grade SSD health and helps it run more efficiently over the long term. Tools include drive information and S.M.A.R.T. status monitoring, diagnostic scan, secure erase, health indication, system clone, and remote monitoring.
Warranty
Transcend’s SSD430 solid-state drive is available in 120GB and 240GB capacities, and is covered by Transcend’s three-year limited warranty.
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Taipei, 30 March 2017 – GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd is proud to release the all-new advanced capability to utilize Intel Optane Memory on its 200 Series Motherboards. Intel Optane Memory enhances traditional mechanical drives, and even the newer generation SSDs, and NVMes by caching frequently used applications and files for rapid access.
Since its launch, GIGABYTE’s 200 series motherboards have had Intel Optane Memory ready technologies onboard. With a simple BIOS update and a 7th Gen Intel Core processor installed, users can enable this performance enhancement to experience their PC like never before.
“Intel Optane Memory is a game-changer for this industry. With the market still relying heavily on mechanical drives for storage capacity, Optane will make traditional drives new again,” said Henry Kao, Vice President of GIGABYTE’s Motherboard Business Unit. “By giving mechanical HDDs a means to keep up with new SSDs and NVMes, Optane is the way of the future.”
Intel Optane Memory
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Intel Optane memory delivers high-speed response when combined with large storage drives. Installed in the M.2 memory module, Intel Optane accelerates operation while maintaining the current system storage capacity to improve productivity and an overall PC computing experience.
Applications and games can now install quicker and launch faster with minimal latency. Not only is this technology revolutionary, it is affordable to all who want to experience shorter boot times, faster application launches, and an extraordinary gaming experience.
BIOS updates to enable Optane support for GIGABYTE’s 200 Series are available for users to download on the GIGABYTE and AORUS product pages.
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24 February 2017 – Western Digital Corporation, a global storage technology and solutions leader, today announced its fastest, high-capacity USB flash drive to date with the launch of its high-performance 256GB* SanDisk Extreme PRO USB 3.1 Solid State Flash Drive. The new drive delivers the speed, capacity, and reliability of an SSD in the convenient form factor of a small USB flash drive, and is ideal for creative professionals, tech enthusiasts, or anyone who creates and shares massive files.
A game-changer in the USB storage category, the drive is capable of read speeds up to 420MB/s and write speeds up to 380MB/s. With its unprecedented speeds, you can transfer full-length 4K movie to the drive in less than 15 seconds. With its USB 3.1 interface, people can rapidly access and move files on the go, without having to worry about a cable. The new drive also features a sophisticated design with a durable aluminum metal casing and a retractable connector for ultimate style and reliability.
“The combination of SSD performance and a compact USB form factor offers the ultimate performance and convenience for moving files easily and quickly,” said Peter Mah, regional director of SanDisk APAC marketing for Western Digital Corporation. “With its increased capacity and blazing speeds, the SanDisk Extreme PRO USB 3.1 Solid State Flash Drive is our sleekest, most powerful SanDisk USB device yet.”
The SanDisk Extreme PRO Solid State Flash Drive is available up to 256GB, giving consumers plenty of room to manage large files. For added file protection, it includes the SanDisk SecureAccess software, which offers 128-bit file encryption and password protection. The drive also comes with a limited lifetime warranty.
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SanDisk Extreme PRO USB 3.1 Pricing and Availability
The SanDisk Extreme PRO USB 3.1 Solid State Flash Drive is now available in Malaysia in capacities of 128GB and 256GB with MSRPs of MYR 469 / ~US$ 104 and MYR 769 / US$ 170, respectively.
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Taipei, 15 Febuary 2017 – ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of highperformance DRAM modules, NAND Flash products, and mobile accessories today launched the XPG SX950 SSD and its accompanying gaming-styled EX500 drive enclosure.
Loaded with up to 960GB of 3D MLC NAND and driven by a SMI controller, the SX950 utilizes a custom ADATA PCB and is backed by an extra-strict chip sorting process to ensure an SSD that can handle prolonged high demand. Performance reaches 560MB/s read and 530MB/s write.
Bearing the signature XPG look, the EX500 is aimed at gamers and case modders, boasting a textured enclosure and a vibrant yet aggressive feel. It arrives with a spacer and bracket for easy install on desktops and notebooks. For users that would like to use the SX950 as external storage, the EX500 offers a stylish, durable, and easy-install enclosure that pairs instantly with desktops, notebooks, and game consoles via high speed USB 3.1.
ADATA XPG SX950 SSD & EX500
Gamers enjoy the benefits of 3D NAND
ADATA is completing its transition to stacked memory, or 3D NAND. This allows for SSDs with bigger capacities without a correlating increase in prices paid by end users. The SX950 uses durable 3D MLC (multi-level cell) NAND Flash and SMI controller. Consumers can choose from 240GB, 480B, and 960GB versions of the SX950. Not only denser (higher capacity), 3D NAND is also roughly 10% faster than 2D NAND and so the SX950 outpaces its predecessor, the SX930 – reaching 560MB/s read and 530MB/s write.
Optimized for gaming applications
The SMI controller and ADATA-designed firmware have been tested extensively with some of the most demanding PC and console titles available. The SX950 features SLC Cache and DRAM Cache Buffer to maintain speeds and withstand high demand periods such as during asset streaming in open world games, texture streaming, and even loading times for large levels. To prolong SSD lifespan, ADATA includes data shaping and wear leveling algorithms in the firmware. RAID Engine is supported for easy integration in drive arrays.
Complete package for easy install
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Contrary to bare SSDs, the SX950 lives up to XPG standards by arriving fully loaded. In the box users can find a 2.5mm spacer/riser so the SX950 can easily slide into 7mm and 9.5mm bays on ultrabooks and notebooks. Desktop users can opt to use the included 3.5” bracket and install kit. Either way, the SX950 delivers neat and quick installation on gaming desktops and notebooks. It also provides extended peace of mind with a 6-year warranty backing up its quality.
EX500: the drive enclosure for gamers
Fitting any 2.5” SSD/HDD, the EX500 offers an aggressively-styled enclosure aimed at passionate gamers looking for storage expansion. Tool-free installation, secure locking, and impact-resistant construction make it ideal for gamers at home and on the go, as it delivers high speed via USB 3.1. The EX500 is “plug and game” compatible with PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
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Common Options : 0 to 15 or 0 to 30, in 1 second steps
Quick Review
Motherboards are capable of booting up much faster these days, with the initialization of IDE devices now take place much earlier. Unfortunately, this also means that some older IDE drives will not be able to spin up in time to be initialized! When this happens, the BIOS will not be able to detect those IDE drives and make them available to the operating system even though there’s nothing wrong with them.
This is where the IDE Detect Time Out BIOS feature comes in. It allows you to force the BIOS to delay the initialization of IDE devices for up to 30 seconds (although some BIOSes allow for even longer delays). The delay gives your IDE devices more time to spin up before the BIOS initializes them.
If you do not use old IDE drives and the BIOS has no problem initializing your IDE devices, it is recommended that you leave the delay at the default value of 0 for the shortest possible boot time. IDE devices manufactured in the last few years will have no problem spinning up in time for initialization. Only older IDE devices may have slower spin-up times.
However, if one or more of your IDE devices fail to initialize during the boot up process, start with a delay of 1 second. If that doesn’t help, gradually increase the delay until all your IDE devices initialize properly during the boot up process.
Details
Regardless of its shortcomings, the IDE standard is remarkably backward compatible. Every upgrade of the standard was designed to be fully compatible with older IDE devices, so you can actually use the old 40 MB hard disk drive that came with your ancient 386 system in your spanking new Intel Core i7 system! However, even backward compatibility cannot account for the slower motors used in the older drives.
Motherboards are capable of booting up much faster these days, with the initialization of IDE devices now take place much earlier. Unfortunately, this also means that some older IDE drives will not be able to spin up in time to be initialized! When this happens, the BIOS will not be able to detect those IDE drives and make them available to the operating system even though there’s nothing wrong with them.
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This is where the IDE Detect Time Out BIOS feature comes in. It allows you to force the BIOS to delay the initialization of IDE devices for up to 30 seconds (although some BIOSes allow for even longer delays). The delay gives your IDE devices more time to spin up before the BIOS initializes them.
If you do not use old IDE drives and the BIOS has no problem initializing your IDE devices, it is recommended that you leave the delay at the default value of 0 for the shortest possible boot time. IDE devices manufactured in the last few years will have no problem spinning up in time for initialization. Only older IDE devices may have slower spin-up times.
However, if one or more of your IDE devices fail to initialize during the boot up process, start with a delay of 1 second. If that doesn’t help, gradually increase the delay until all your IDE devices initialize properly during the boot up process.
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The new WD Blue and WD Green solid state drives are the first product of Western Digital’s acquisition of SanDisk in May 2016. However, it was not Western Digital’s first acquisition of a solid state manufacturer, or even their first solid state drive.
Western Digital acquired the SSD manufacturer, SiliconSystems and released the WD SiliconDrive family in 2009. However, the SiliconDrive family didn’t gain much traction. The SanDisk acquisition though was much larger and far more substantial. Western Digital not only gained access to a wide array of SSD and NAND intellectual property, they now have a substantial and stable NAND flash supply.
Today, we are going to take a look at their top-of-the-line solid state drive – the 1TB WD Blue SSD (WDS100T1B0A), which features SanDisk’s second-generation 15 nm TLC NAND technology. Check it out!
The WD Blue SSD Family
The new WD Blue SSD family will offer 1 TB, 500 GB and 250 GB models, each available in either the 2.5″ or the M.2 form factor. Here is a specification comparison of the three main models :
Specifications
1 TB WD Blue SSD
500 GB WD Blue SSD
250 GB WD Blue SSD
Model Number
WDS100T1B0A (2.5")
WDS100T1B0B (M.2)
WDS500G1B0A (2.5")
WDS500G1B0B (M.2)
WDS250G1B0A (2.5")
WDS250G1B0B (M.2)
Storage Capacity
1024 GB (Total)
1000 GB (Effective)
512 GB (Total)
500 GB (Effective)
256 GB (Total)
250 GB (Effective)
Overprovisioning
24 GB (2.4 %)
12 GB (2.4 %)
6 GB (2.4 %)
SSD Controller
Marvell 88SS1074-BSW2
Marvell 88SS1074-BSW2
Marvell 88SS1074-BSW2
NAND Flash Type
15 nm SanDisk TLC NAND
15 nm SanDisk TLC NAND
15 nm SanDisk TLC NAND
SDRAM Cache
1 GB DDR3L SDRAM
(Micron MT41K512M8RG-107 x 2)
1 GB DDR3L SDRAM
(Micron MT41K512M8RG-107 x 2)
512 MB DDR3L SDRAM
(Micron MT41K512M8RG-107)
Interface
SATA 6 Gb/s
SATA 6 Gb/s
SATA 6 Gb/s
Peak Sequential Read
545 MB/s
545 MB/s
540 MB/s
Peak Sequential Write
525 MB/s
525 MB/s
500 MB/s
Random Read I/O
100,000 IOPS
100,000 IOPS
97,000 IOPS
Random Write I/O
80,000 IOPS
80,000 IOPS
79,000 IOPS
Write Endurance
400 TB
200 TB
100 TB
Average Active Power
70 mW
70 mW
70 mW
Max. Read Power
2.85 W
2.85 W
2.35 W
Max. Write Power
4.40 W
4.00 W
3.40 W
Slumber Power
45-52 mW
42-46 mW
42-45 mW
DEVSLP Power
6.0-9.7 mW
6.0-7.7 mW
4.9-6.0 mW
Mean Time To Failure
Up to 1.75 million hours
Up to 1.75 million hours
Up to 1.75 million hours
Ambient Temperature Range
0°C to 70°C (Operating)
-55°C to 85°C (Non-Operating)
0°C to 70°C (Operating)
-55°C to 85°C (Non-Operating)
0°C to 70°C (Operating)
-55°C to 85°C (Non-Operating)
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The 1TB WD Blue SSD
The 1TB WD Blue SSD (WDS100T1B0A) looks like any other 2.5″ slim hard disk drive. It was, after all, built to conform to the 2.5″ form factor, allowing it to easily replace any 2.5″ hard disk drive with a height of 7 mm. But there’s no doubt about its solid state nature when you pick it up – it’s very light!
The label on the underside has a lot of important information, like the model and serial numbers in case you need to RMA it. The label also lists interesting details like the date and place of manufacture. This particular drive was manufactured in China on 9 September 2016.
As it only serves to protect the NAND chips, SSD controller and circuit board inside from static damage, the case is made from plastic. In fact, it will sound hollow when you tap on it because the SSD internally does not take up much space.
SATA 6 Gb/s Interface
The 1TB WD Blue SSD is a Serial ATA drive, with native support for SATA 6 Gb/s interface. It is backward-compatible, so you will have no problem using it with older SATA 3 Gb/s controllers. However, the faster SATA 6 Gb/s interface is necessary for optimal performance because this SSD is capable of a peak transfer rate of 545 MB/s.
Like all Serial ATA drives, it comes with the standard SATA data (left) and power (right) connectors, and is hot-pluggable. That means you can connect and disconnect this solid state drive while the PC is still running. There is no jumper block, because there’s really nothing for you to set. It’s just plug and play!
The Marvell 88SS1074 SSD Controller
The 1TB WD Blue SSD uses the Marvell 88SS1074 SSD controller, which boasts the following key features :
Supports up to 4 NAND channels, with up to 8 NAND chips per channel
Features Marvell’s third-generation NANDEdge low-density parity check (LDPC) technology
Supports SATA 3.2 (6.0 Gbps)
Toggle 2 and ONFI2 support at up to 400 MT/s
Integrated DEVSLP (Device Sleep) mode for low power support
Supports 256-bit AES hardware encryption
Built on 28 nm CMOS process
The Marvell NANDEdge LDPC technology allows for reliable on-the-fly error correction of the 3-bit TLC flash memory, with minimal impact on latency, performance and power consumption.
However, the Marvell 88SS1074 is likely to fall short in sustained throughput, because it only supports 4 NAND channels. Competing controllers like the Phison S10, for example, boast 8 NAND channels, allowing twice as many NAND chips to be accessed simultaneously.
The SanDisk TLC Flash Memory
To keep costs low, the 1TB WD Blue SSD uses TLC (Triple Level Cell) flash memory chips, where each cell holds 3-bits. These are SanDisk second-generation planar TLC chips, built on the 15 nm process. There are a total of eight of these TLC flash memory chips, each with a capacity of 128 GB.
The Micron DDR3L SDRAM Cache
The 1TB WD Blue SSD has a large 1 GB write combine cache, courtesy of two Micron MT41K512M8RG-107 chips. These are DDR3L SDRAM chips with an effective clock rate of 1866 MHz (DDR), a voltage of 1.35 V, and a storage capacity of 512 MB.
This large SDRAM cache allows the WD Blue SSD to mitigate the TLC flash memory’s inherently poor write performance. It also allows writes to the SSD to be combined, reducing wear on the flash memory cells and extending their lifespan.
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SSD Endurance
The 1TB WD Blue SSD is rated for a lifetime write lifespan of 400 TBW (Terabytes Written). That does not seem like a lot (equal to overwriting the drive just 400 times), but it is considered enterprise-grade endurance. Many consumer-grade SSDs of equivalent capacity are rated at around 75-100 TBW.
Based on a typical consumer DWPD (Drive Writes Per Day) of 20 GB per day, this 1TB WD Blue will last at least 54 years. Please note that this long lifespan is due to the large capacity. The 500 GB and 250 GB WD Blue SSDs are rated at 200 TBW and 100 TBW respectively. That corresponds to an estimated lifespan of 27 years and 13.5 years respectively.
Like all other current SSDs, the 1TB WD Blue SSD comes with certain features to help extend its lifespan :
Wear Levelling
Unlike hard disk drives, flash-based SSDs write and overwrite data in large blocks of 512 KB to 1 MB in size. Even if you only need to write one byte of data, it has to erase and overwrite an entire block. This causes a lot of wear on the memory cells and greatly reduces their lifespan.
To help extend the lifespan of the drive, SSDs perform wear levelling by spreading the writes, so that the flash memory cells have equal wear. The lifespan of the memory cells remain unchanged, but it prevents some of them from failing earlier due to excessive wear.
Write Combine Cache
SSDs also use a write buffer to temporarily store and combine the writes before they are actually written to the flash memory. This reduces the number of block erases required, and consequently, extends the lifespan of the flash memory cells.
The 1TB WD Blue SSD boasts a large 1 GB DDR3L memory cache, which should help to really extend the limited lifespan of the TLC flash memory. This allows the 1TB WD Blue to get away with a very small amount of “over-provisioned” space.
TRIM
Current SSDs support the TRIM command, otherwise known as the ATA8-ACS-2 DATA SET MANAGEMENT command. Operating systems that support TRIM (e.g. Microsoft Windows 7) will notify the SSD when data blocks are deleted in the file system. This allows the SSD to perform garbage collection in the background – internally erasing the affected blocks so that they are ready to be written to.
Without the TRIM command, the SSD will not know when a block of data has been deleted by the operating system. When new data is written to the same block of data, it will force the SSD to perform the time-consuming read-erase-modify-write cycle, which not only cripples performance but also increases wear on the affected memory cells.
Multi-Stream
This is a new SSD technology that was introduced in May 2015, as part of the T10 SCSI Standard. Multi-stream greatly improves performance and extends lifespan by reducing or even eliminating garbage collection.
It achieves this by marking data writes that are associated with one another, or have a similar lifetime, with a unique stream ID. This allows the SSD controller to pack all data writes with the same stream ID into the same block.
When the operating system deletes data, it is likely that they are all packed into the same block. If the block has not been written to the SSD, then this eliminates the pending write operation completely. If the block has been written to the SSD, then this would only require that single block to be erased, instead of multiple blocks (which would happen if the data was not all packed into the same block).
SSD Maintenance
First of all, you should never, ever defragment solid state drives. Spatial fragmentation of data on the SSD has no effect on its performance. Fragmented data are accessed as quickly as nicely-packed blocks, so it’s pointless to defragment the data blocks. Doing so will only reduce the lifespan of the flash memory cells by putting them under additional wear.
Remember – TLC flash memory will only last about 1,000 erase/write cycles. You will want to minimise the number of times each flash memory cell is erased.
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You should also use an operating system that supports the TRIM command. If you are using one of the following operating systems, then you have nothing to worry about :
Microsoft Windows 7, or better
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2, or better
Linux 2.6.33, or better
FreeBSD 8.2, or better
Mac OS X Snow Leopard, or better
If not, you should consider upgrading your operating system. Otherwise, you will need to perform manual garbage collection on a regular basis, either using a manufacturer utility, or newer defragmentation software that specifically supports solid state drives. Basically, these utilities will retrieve the list of free blocks from the operating system’s file system and pass it to the SSD in the form of TRIM commands, so that it will know which blocks to erase internally.
Western Digital does not provide such a utility for their WD Blue SSDs, so if you are using an older operating system, you will need to use a third-party SSD optimisation software. Note that those software are not necessary if you are using an operating system that supports TRIM.
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We tested in both Windows 7 and Windows Vista, with the latest updates. We chose to use IO Meter 2008, AS SSD Benchmark, ATTO Disk Benchmark as well as our “old faithful”, WinBench 99 2.0, with the following tests :
Platter Data Transfer Profile
Business Disk WinMark 99
High-End Disk WinMark 99
Disk Transfer Rate (Beginning)
Disk Transfer Rate (End)
Business Disk WinMark 99 is a real-world simulation based on three office application suites – Microsoft Office 97, Lotus SmartSuite and Corel WordPerfect Suite 8, as well as a web browser, Netscape Navigator. They are quite dated, but should still reflect the usage patterns of users in an office environment using such applications. The test runs through a script that keeps multiple applications open, while it performs tasks that switches between those applications and Netscape Navigator. The result is the average transfer rate during the script run.
High-End Disk WinMark 99 is a real-world simulation based on AVS/Express 3.4, FrontPage 98, MicroStation SE, Photoshop 4.0, Premiere 4.2, Sound Forge 4.0 and Visual C++ 5.0. However, it differs by running the applications serially, instead of simultaneously. There are individual results for each application but in this comparison, we will be looking only at the weighted average score, which is the average transfer rate during the tests.
Unfortunately, WinBench 99 is not fully compatible with Microsoft Windows 7, registering a SetFilePointer error in the Disk Access Time test. So, we were not able to obtain any Disk Access Time results.
In addition, it would keep crashing if the hard drive was tested with a single partition. This is likely due to a limit on the size of the partition that is supported by WinBench 99. We came up with a workaround by dividing the hard disk drive into 5 partitions of equal sizes. We then tested each partition individually and averaged the results.
This WD Blue SSD has a maximum storage capacity of 1,024 GB, courtesy of eight 128 GB Micron NAND chips. Of that, a mere 24 GB has been set aside for garbage collection, wear levelling and replacement of failing blocks.
Ordinarily, the limited 2.4% over-provisioning may impact long-term performance and lifespan. However, it appears that Western Digital has opted to mitigate that using a large 1 GB DDR3L SDRAM cache.
After it is formatted in NTFS, the actual formatted capacity is 1,000,202,039,296 bytes. This is slightly (202 MB) more than the official formatted capacity of 1,000 GB.
With about 124 MB of space allocated to the NTFS file system, the actual usable capacity is just above 1,000 GB.
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Transfer Rate Profile
We compared the 1TB WD Blue SSD to the 240GB HyperX Savage. As you can see, it delivered a sustained throughput of between 230 MB/s and 249 MB/s, with occasional bursts to 280 MB/s.
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In the High-End test, the 1TB WD Blue SSD did not do so well, coming in the lower end of the chart, albeit significantly faster than the hard disk drives.
This chart shows you the range of memory cell-to-controller transfer rates for SSDs, or the range of platter-to-buffer transfer rates from the innermost track to the outermost track in HDDs.
Despite boasting an official peak transfer rate of 545 MB/s, our tests show that the sustained transfer rate of the 1TB WD Blue SSD is much slower – between 230 and 249 MB/s. This makes it significantly slower than the other SSDs in this comparison. It is important to note though that the 1TB WD Blue SSD remains much faster than even top-of-the-line hard disk drives like the 1TB WD VelociRaptor.
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The small random reads and writes are the most important tests for applications that make a lot of random accesses, so these would be key performance indicators for SSDs that are often used as boot drives.
The 1TB WD Blue SSD held up well in small reads and writes, matching the 240 GB HyperX Savage SSD in writes, and coming in just 10% slower in reads. The large SDRAM cache seems to be doing its job very well.
However, it was much slower when it came to large reads and writes. This is due to the TLC the Phison S10 controller used in the HyperX Savage has twice the NAND channels of the WD Blue’s Marvell 88SS1074 controller.
Random Access Time
Test
1 TB WD Blue SSD
240 GB HyperX Savage
Difference
512 KB Read
2.19 ms
1.41 ms
– 35.6%
512 KB Write
2.04 ms
1.07 ms
– 47.5%
4 KB Read
0.17 ms
0.15 ms
– 11.8%
4 KB Write
0.08 ms
0.08 ms
–
The small random write access time of the 1TB WD Blue SSD was completely masked by the large SDRAM cache, allowing it to match the performance of the 240 GB HyperX Savage SSD. The small random read access time was also very good, coming within 12% of the HyperX Savage. However, due to the lack of NAND channels, its large access times were almost twice as long.
The sequential read and write performance indicators determine how fast you can copy and move files. This is also important in determining how fast you can launch an application or game.
The 1TB WD Blue SSD did very well when the sequential reads and writes were small. It was particular good at small sequential reads. However, when it came to large sequential accesses, the WD Blue’s limited NAND channels came into play… giving it half the throughput of the HyperX Savage SSD.
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Even though the 1TB WD Blue SSD is rated for enterprise-class endurance, its Marvell 88SS1074 controller is just not capable of handling too many simultaneous operations. It appears to handle up to 8 simultaneous transactions. Its limited NAND channels also held back its performance in large reads and writes.
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The 1TB WD Blue SSD did well in small sequential reads, but it remain limited to 8 simultaneous transactions. When it came to the larger accesses, it was limited by its 4-channel design.
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AS SSD Benchmark
AS SSD Benchmark is a simple and easy-to-use SSD benchmark by Alex Intelligent Software. It not only tests the drive’s sequential transfer rates and access times, but also its performance at both single-threaded and multi-threaded 4K IOPS.
The 1TB WD Blue SSD did quite well in this test, especially in the multi-threaded 4K IOPS test. Its sequential transfer rate was, again, limited by its 4-channel design.
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ATTO Disk Benchmark
ATTO Disk Benchmark is a free benchmark that allows you to compare the performance of solid state drives using a variety of transfer sizes. It also allows us to determine if the SSD performs data compression to improve performance, and extend lifespan.
I/O Comparison
Results
Compressible Data
Non-Compressible Data
Minimum
Maximum
Minimum
Maximum
Read Speed
11.3 MB/s
246.8 MB/s
11.3 MB/s
249.7 MB/s
Write Speed
10.4 MB/s
269.5 MB/s
10.6 MB/s
269.5 MB/s
The Marvell 88SS1074 controller does not perform any data compression, which is why the performance results are the same for both compressible and non-compressible data. The 1TB WD Blue SSD reached its peak transfer rate with a block size of 1 MB.
Multiple I/O Comparison
Results
Compressible Data
Non-Compressible Data
Minimum
Maximum
Minimum
Maximum
Read Speed
26.6 MB/s
286 2 MB/s
26.6 MB/s
285.6 MB/s
Write Speed
24.5 MB/s
273.9 MB/s
24.8 MB/s
274.5 MB/s
With just 8 simultaneous transactions, the 1TB WD Blue SSD reached its peak transfer rate with a block size of 64 KB.
Our Verdict
The 1TB WD Blue SSD offers extremely quick random access times like other modern solid state drives. But it is no race car. Due to its 4-channel design, it was half as fast as comparable SSDs at transferring large files. On the other hand, it offers a tremendous amount of space at an affordable price point, and boasts enterprise-class endurance levels. So what does this mean for you, the user?
If you are looking for the absolute fastest SSD in the market, then the 1TB WD Blue SSD is not for you. You can find much faster SSDs in the market, albeit at much higher price points.
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But if you are looking for a decent solid state drive with a large storage capacity, and don’t want to sell an arm and a leg for it, the 1TB WD Blue SSD is worth considering. More so if you want something that will last you for many years to come.
The 1TB WD Blue SSD works well as a boot drive, booting up the operating system and applications much faster than any hard disk drive can. It may be much slower than comparable SSDs in certain benchmarks but in real life, it will only mean the operating system and applications start up a bit slower. In fact, you are unlikely to notice any difference unless you compare two systems side-by-side.
The WD Blue SSD‘s large storage capacity is a great boon to laptop users who cannot add a second hard disk drive for more storage. It would obviate the need to use a portable hard disk drive for extra storage. It also allows for an intriguing possibility – install it into a USB enclosure and you have a spacious portable drive that is impervious to shock and vibration!
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Taipeh, 22 December 2016 – ZADAK Lab is thrilled to achieve the honor of being the only brand with the distinction of having overcame the challenges of developing multi-colored LED illuminated SSDs and memory modules with their new SHIELD RGB series.
The ZADAK team is happy to announce that both SHIELD RGB DDR4 and SHIELD RGB SSD are ground-breaking products unlike anything else in the market right now. ZADAK511 SHIELD RGB memory and SSD have set the standard for both design and functionality for both markets for the next one or two years. This is truly a revolution brought on by the SHIELD series from ZADAK511.
ZADAK LAB is the only brand to have an RGB dual-interface SSD, the SHIELD, is the world’s first and only SSD featuring dual-interface connections for both SATAIII and USB3.1 Type-C. The patented SHIELD RGB Dual-Interface SSD is one of the most beautiful designs to ever be seen on an SSD and is easily distinguishable from other SSDs.
The ZADAK team utilized various metal materials, forged by exquisite worksmanship to creative the multi-level design of the upper cover of the SHIELD RGB SSD, making the look pop with a 3D effect. This makes this product very exciting to look at and is simply an amazing adornment for PC enthusiasts, standing as a legend amongst SSDs because of its craftsmanship.
Function-wise, the high-speed SATAIII and USB3.1 Type-C Gen2 deliver superior performance from the SHIELD SSD’s MLC NAND flash which underwent rigorous testing for guaranteed reliability so your files are safe in the drive. The ZADAK511 SHIELD RGB SSD is rated for up to 550MB/s read and 480MB/s write speed with capacities up to 480GB.
The ZADAK511 SHIELD SSD also comes with the ZArsenal software which regulates the colors and lighting patterns and can sync with all types of g aming motherboards. It also allows instant firmware updates as well as displaying status information about the SSD like health status, disk information, capacity and alerts for maximum peace of mind so that measures can be taking when issues occur.
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Taipei, 8 December 2016 – ADATA Technology today launched the updated SC660H and SV620H external SSDs.
Based on previous designs, the new models are part of the ADATA move to 3D NAND Flash in all new SSDs and in refreshes of existing models. The SC660H and SV620H feature 3D TLC NAND instead of traditional 2D NAND to provide increased reliability, durability, and efficiency.
The drives connect to host PCs via USB 3.1 Gen 1, and are presented in two distinct enclosure styles. Thanks to 3D NAND, the updated SSDs are available in 256GB and 512GB as opposed to 240GB and 480GB in the original SC660/SV620. Performance is 440MB/s read and 430MB/s write in both models.
ADATA SC660H : ultra-thin and tough elegance
The SC660H measures just 9.6mm tall. Its slim enclosure uses electroplated and textured titanium, ensuring a high degree of resistance against shocks, scratches, paint chipping, and fingerprints. The SC660H weighs a mere 73g, a fraction of the bulk of an external mechanical hard drive.
ADATA SV620H : elevating external SSD design
Also light and slender, the SV620H likewise employs a sandblasted titanium enclosure that makes it shock and scratch resistant. Its flat surfaces are raised 0.75mm, so that even when moved across a desk or other area the risk of unsightly scratches is minimized. The SV620H weighs 76g, and like its SC660H sibling has a cool blue activity LED.
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Bigger capacity in the same space plus added reliability
The 3D TLC NAND used on the two external SSDs is more reliable than 2D NAND and enables “packing” more storage into identical product chassis. At 256GB and 512GB, the SC660H and SV620H offer more space than their predecessors without consuming extra power. They are extremely efficient and ideal for notebook PCs thanks to placing very little stress on batteries.
Like all SSDs, they run totally silent and cool. With their 3D NAND, the SC660H and SV620H simply offer a better value than 2D NAND-based external SSDs, representing another step in ADATA embracing new technology to benefit consumers worldwide.
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Taipei, 3 November 2016 – ADATA Technology today launched the M.2 2280 version of the ADATA SU800 3D NAND SSD. With higher density, faster performance, and longer lifespan than 2D NAND SSDs, the new SU800 SSD fits on a compact card while still available in 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB and offered at very attractive price points.
It supports a DRAM Buffer and SLC Caching mode to boost performance up to 560MB/s read and 520MB/s write, with LDPC error correction, Data Shaping, and a RAID Engine to bolster data integrity. For users that want a simple, cable-free, and low energy draw SSD upgrade, the ADATA SU800 M.2 2280 has much to offer.
The ADATA SU800 M.2 2280 SSD
Denser, faster, and longer-lasting SSD with a smaller footprint
The ADATA SU800 M.2 2280 fits on a compact PCB and slots directly into M.2 ports, which are increasingly common on desktop PCs and the standard on notebooks. It uses 3D NAND with an SMI controller and fits up to 1TB. Unlike 2.5” SSDs, it does not require cables and only needs very minimal power, supplied straight from the motherboard.
The direct motherboard link also helps reduce latency and increase performance by roughly 10% compared to 2.5” SATA 6Gb/s drives. The SU800 M.2 2280 reaches 560MB/s read and 520MB/s write. It also lasts longer than 2D NAND drives, with an MTBF (mean time between failures) of 2,000,000 hours versus 1,500,000.
Packed with performance-enhancing and data integrity-ensuring features
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The ADATA SU800 M.2 2280 integrates a DRAM Cache for speed acceleration on demand, complemented by SLC Caching mode (single-level cell performance). For data integrity and safety, LDPC (low density parity check) error correction, RAID Engine, and Data Shaping are deployed, the latter helping even out read/write cycle loads to prolong SSD lifespan.
Extremely power efficient – and easy on batteries
Like all M.2 cards, the ADATA SU800 needs very little power to operate. It helps extend battery life on notebooks and reduces overall system power requirements for users building a desktop PC. The drive uses DEVSLP (Device Sleep) technology to go into a dormant, extra low-power state when idle to reduce energy consumption even further.
An immediately obvious upgrade
For users moving from 3.5” and 2.5” mechanical drives, the ADATA SU800 M.2 2280 offers a striking increase in performance combined with a massive reduction in drive size, noise, heat, and energy draw. Even for SATA 6Gb/s SSD users, it presents a much simpler, neater, and more reliable SSD solution that is well worth considering.
Like other ADATA SSDs, the ADATA SU800 M.2 2280 includes licenses for SSD Toolbox drive management and Migration Utility data migration apps.
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1 November 2016 – Transcend Information, Inc. is proud to announce the launch of a brand new SSD with built-in 3D NAND flash. With the growing needs for high-capacity and high-performance storage, Transcend has adopted 3D NAND flash technology for the 2.5” Transcend SSD230 solid state drives, boosting storage capacity, transfer rates, and reliability all at once.
3D NAND Flash Technology for Upgraded Capacity, Performance, and Endurance
To achieve higher densities, 2D planar NAND flash technology shrinks each memory cell onto a single layer of cells. However, this technology increases cell-to-cell interference and hence reduces reliability as it approaches its physical scaling limit. 3D NAND flash was developed to resolve this bottleneck, as it features multiple layers of memory cells stacked vertically.
3D NAND flash not only resolves the density limitations of 2D horizontal NAND, but also boosts read and write performance, as it does not require the invocation of algorithms to prevent data corruption. Free from cell-to-cell interference, state-of-the art 3D NAND flash technology also features higher endurance and lower power consumption.
Exceptional Performance up to 560MB/s and Enhanced Reliability
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Besides built-in 3D NAND flash, Transcend’s SSD230 is equipped with a DDR3 SDRAM cache that provides an incredible 4K random read and write performance of up to 340MB/s, making it the perfect choice as a boot disk for everyday computing tasks and programs.
Taking full advantage of the SATA III 6Gb/s interface and built-in SLC caching technology, the SSD230 achieves exceptional sequential transfer speeds of up to 560MB/s read and 520MB/s write. In addition to blazing-fast transfer speeds, the SSD230 also features a RAID engine and LDPC (Low-Density Parity Check) coding, a powerful ECC algorithm, to keep data secure.
Exclusive SSD Scope Software
Developed for download and use with Transcend’s SSD products, SSD Scope is advanced, user-friendly software that makes it easier to maintain a healthy and efficient SSD. This software brings together the latest technology to determine the condition and optimize the performance of an SSD. SSD Scope’s useful features include: drive information and S.M.A.R.T. status monitoring, diagnostic scan, secure erase, firmware update, TRIM enabling, health indication, and system clone.
Transcend SSD230 Capacities & Warranty
The Transcend SSD230 solid state drives are offered in 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB capacities and backed by Transcend’s Three-year Limited Warranty.
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The trend of SSD nowadays is shifting from MLC to a more cost efficient TLC flash memory and Plextor too with no exception, will be fully adopting the TLC memory on its upcoming products. As there are users who still prefer MLC SSD, Plextor today announced its last model in the MLC SSD product line, the Plextor S1 Series SSD for these users.
Plextor S1 Series
Plextor S1 Series are designed with the best price-performance ratio in mind to meet the need of the South east Asian Market and will only be available for the Southeast Asia region because of the limit edquantity of the MLC SSD. This means,you will have to come to the South east Asia region for the last chance to buy the MLC flash memory based SSD.
The strength of S1’s core components comes from the Toshiba’s high-quality Toggle Mode MLC NAND flash memory, as well as the SMI’s well-reputed SM 2246 controller. By extending Plextor’s exclusive firmware technology, and employing industry-preferred components, the S1 series provides users with performance up to 510/440MB/s in sequential read/write and 74K/79K IOPS in random read/write, respectively.
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The excellent performance data exhibited by the S1 series bring application advantages to users which exceed those of entry-level solutions.
The S1 series is suitable as an entry-level SSD for all types of users to drastically improve the load time of all applications, increase productivity, improve power efficiency, and enhance total system responsiveness. The S1 may not be the fastest drive on the market, but was carefully designed to provide the best value possible and still perform at amazing SSD speeds that won’t break the bank.
Plextor’s S1 series has successfully passed various stringent factory tests and with no doubt, meet the needs of SSD storage and upgrade requirements by desktop and laptop users. The S1 series SSD will be available in two interface specifications: 2.5-inch(S1C) and M.22280(S1G), two different storage capacity of 128GB and 256GB, and is covered by a 3-year warranty.
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