Here at the 2014 Samsung SSD Summit in Seoul, Korea, Samsung had an entire room filled with SSDs to show off – one of which caught our eye.

Labeled as the Samsung SM953, this M.2 22110 (22×110) form factor drive carries a capacity of 480GB and maximum performance of up to 1,800 MB/s reads. For those familiar with Samsung’s M.2 lineup, currently the only Samsung M.2 drive we know about is client oriented Samsung’s XP941, which can achieve a slightly lower maximum performance of 1,400 MB/s.  Unfortunately, there’s very little additional information on the drive such as controller or NAND however, given that this drive is in Samsung’s SM series lineup and that it has onboard power loss protection, it’s an OEM/enterprise drive that most of us probably won’t get our hands on anytime soon.

Samsung SSD Summit 2014: Samsung SM953 M.2 SSD - Custom PC Review

As one of the more quiet introductions for the SSD Summit, Samsung recently introduced a new 3D V-NAND based datacenter/enterprise oriented SSD, the Samsung 845DC PRO, which along with the previously reviewed Samsung 845DC EVO, would be among the first of its kind to go to retail market rather than being OEM/enterprise partner only.

The Samsung 845DC PRO is Samsung’s latest enterprise/datacenter drive oriented towards write heavy datacenter applications. The drive will come in either 400/800GB capacities and will feature Samsung’s latest 3D V-NAND which was the highlight of the summit. However, unlike the Samsung 850 PRO which uses Samsung’s 86Gb 2nd generation 32-layer V-NAND, the Samsung 845DC PRO will utilize Samsung’s 1st generation 128Gb 24-layer V-NAND.

Samsung claims that this drive will deliver not only superior performance with a rated 92,000/51,000 IOPS 4K read/write (800GB), but it’s also high endurance with a rating of 10DWPD (Drive Writes Per Day) for 5 years. While competitors such as Micron, Intel and SanDisk are capable of similar performance/endurance with higher end 2D planar NAND based SSDs, Samsung expects this drive to retail for only ~$1.50-$2.00/GB, which will significantly undercuts the competition when it’s released sometime this month.

We should be getting these drives in for review in the near future, so stay tuned.

Samsung SSD Summit 2014: Samsung 845DC PRO - Custom PC Review

Although Samsung has been fairly tight lipped about their XP941 M.2 SSD ever since it went into mass production back in June of last year, Samsung recently also silently revealed the Samsung SM951, an upcoming SSD that appears to be the successor to the XP941.

While exact NAND and controller configuration are unknown at this time, the Samsung SM951 is expected to be NVMe compatible, and will be capable of up to 1,600/1,000 MB/s sequential reads/writes and 130K/100K IOPS 4K random reads/writes – slightly faster than the XP941 rated for 1,400 MB/s sequential reads. The drive is also NVMe low power (L1.2) certified and is rated to draw <10mW power at idle (probably DevSleep mode).

The Samsung SM951 will come in either the M.2 or 2.5″ form factor and will be available in capacities up to 1TB. Unfortunately, the release date is still not available at this time, but according to the slides it should be “coming soon”. Unfortunately, like the XP941, the SM951 will most likely be available to OEM/system integrators only when it launches, but as M.2 support continues to becomes more prevalent, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a retail variant of the drive down the line.

2014 Samsung SSD Summit: Samsung SM951 M.2 PCIe SSD - Custom PC Review

During Samsung’s SSD Summit, Samsung displayed a ton of never-before-seen OEM partner only SSDs, including two PCIe SSDs and a NVMe demo which caught my eye.

The first PCIe SSD is the Samsung XS1715, which is a PCIe Gen 3 x4, SFF-8639 based SSD. According to the specs, the XS1715 is capable of up to 750,000/115,000 IOPS random read/write and will come in capacities of 400GB, 800GB, and 1,600GB. It’ll also include full NVMe support and will include “enhanced” power loss protection.

Next to the Samsung XS1715 was the SM1715, which is a PCIe Gen 3 x4, HHHL (Half Height Half Length) SSD. According to its specs, the Samsung SM1715 is capable of up to 750,000/180,000 IOPS random read/write and will come in capacities of 1,600GB and 3,200GB. The SM1715 will also fully support NVMe and will include “enhanced” power loss protection.

Although it wasn’t specified which SSDs were being used for the test, Samsung also had a NVMe benchmarking demo setup with one system on the left benchmarking an SSD on the NVMe protocol while a system on the right was benchmarking a SSD on the AHCI protocol. Both SSDs were benchmarked using ATTO Disk Benchmark at up to the 2MB transfer size.

The system on the right (AHCI) was only capable of up to 557/532 MB/s sequential reads/writes while the system on the left (NVMe) was capable of up to 1,858/873 MB/s sequential reads/writes.

2014 Samsung SSD Summit: XS1715, SM1715 NVMe PCIe SSD - Custom PC Review

SanDisk’s Most “Extreme” SSD Ever

When SanDisk first introduced the Extreme II SSD last year, it easily ranked as one of the best enthusiast SSDs on the market. Unlike many enthusiast SSDs which can reach top performance only in light workloads, the Extreme II is also capable of top, consistent performance even after heavy, extended use. At the time, this was a fairly new aspect of enthusiast SSD performance which was generally only a metric in the enterprise space.

Recently at Computex early last month, SanDisk unveiled the successor to the SanDisk Extreme II, the SanDisk Extreme PRO which we have the opportunity of reviewing today. Like the SanDisk Extreme II before it, the SanDisk Extreme PRO is designed for users such as media professionals, gamers, and PC enthusiasts who not only demand fast, but also consistent performance.

SanDisk Extreme PRO Specifications

The SanDisk Extreme PRO will come in only three capacities – 240GB, 480GB, and 960GB. It’s nice to see that capacities such as 120/128GB are finally being dropped from SSD lineups thanks to ever increasing die sizes, ever increasing dies per package, and ever decreasing prices. As far as internals go, the SanDisk Extreme PRO isn’t much different from the SanDisk Extreme II. In fact, it’s using the exact same Marvell 88SS9187 “Monet” controller as well as pretty much the exact same in-house proprietary 19nm eX2 ABL Toggle Mode MLC.

What’s different about the new SanDisk Extreme PRO however, is mostly a reworked firmware and an enhanced version of nCache, which SanDisk calls nCache PRO.

For those who aren’t familiar nCache from some of SanDisk’s previous SSDs, nCache is basically a repurposed portion of the main MLC storage which acts as a SLC cache. This SLC nCache is used to store mapping tables along with small write segments which is then later flushed to the main MLC flash storage.

By doing so, this provides two benefits. The first benefit is higher performance. As SLC is significantly faster than MLC, writes to the nCache would be a a lot faster than writes to the main MLC storage. This is pretty obvious. The second benefit is better data security. Without nCache, the mapping tables and small write segments would be stored in the volatile DRAM cache which would result in data loss in the event of a power failure. By using the non-volatile SLC cache to store mapping tables and small write segments, this problem is mostly avoided – the reason I say mostly is because SanDisk still employs the use of a DRAM cache in conjunction with nCache.

Since nCache is a proprietary technology, we’ve never really been given a whole lot of details regarding the actual changes between the old nCache and the new nCache PRO, but SanDisk did tell us that the capacity of nCache PRO is less than 1GB, similar to the older nCache implementations. Since the size of the cache is the same, my best guess is that nCache has been optimized to be more efficient although I doubt that there’ll be any massive performance improvements without significant increases to the size of the nCache.

Additionally, SanDisk is also doubling the warranty term on the drive, making it an industry leading 10 years – similar to the warranty we saw on the recently released Samsung 850 PRO. SanDisk is also rating the Extreme PRO at >80 TBW (Tera Bytes Written), which is slightly different than the hard and fast 80 TBW rating on the older Extreme II.

Let’s take a closer look at the drive.

Review: SanDisk Extreme PRO 480GB SATA SSD - Custom PC Review

3D V-NAND for the Datacenter

As the biggest producer of NAND flash in the world, Samsung has been in the enterprise SSD space for a very long time, but unless you’re one of Samsung’s big partners, you probably had no idea.

Even as a SSD reviewer, I was quite stunned when I recently attended the Samsung SSD Global Summit when they showed off a vast selection of enterprise SSDs, most of which I hadn’t even heard of, yet would probably do well in the retail market. Of course, I’m sure Samsung thought the same thing as earlier this year, Samsung took a big leap forward into the retail enterprise SSD space by introducing their first ever enterprise SSD designed for the channel, the Samsung 845DC EVO.

While the Samsung 845DC EVO was a fantastic enterprise SSD for read centric type of workloads, being that it’s based off Samsung’s 19nm 3-bit MLC NAND, it wasn’t ideal for those interested in using the SSD for write-intensive applications. 3-bit MLC is not only significantly slower, but also significantly lower endurance than MLC, which meant it wasn’t really competitive against most competitor’s MLC based offerings.

In order to fill the gap, Samsung recently introduced the Samsung 845DC PRO, which would rely on Samsung’s latest innovation, 3D V-NAND, to produce a drive that was both high performance in write intensive workloads and also high endurance as well.

Samsung 845DC PRO Specifications

The Samsung 845DC PRO will come in only two capacities – 400GB and 800GB, and both capacities will only be available in the 2.5″, 7mm form factor. Today we have the opportunity to review the Samsung 845DC PRO 400GB model. According to the specs the 800GB model should perform slightly better, although not by much.

Internal hardware for the Samsung 845DC PRO will include a combination of the tried and true Samsung MDX controller along with some of Samsung’s 1st generation 24-layer 3D V-NAND. Since the Samsung 845DC PRO is an enterprise part, we also get onboard tantalum capacitors for full path power loss protection. We’ll go more in detail on the internals when we take a closer look at the drive.

Warranty on the Samsung 845DC PRO is 5 years at 10DWPD (Drive Writes Per Day) across the board. This means the 400GB drive is rated at a whopping 7,300 TBW (Tera Bytes Written) while the 800GB drive is rated at 14,600 TBW. Compare that to the mere 600TBW on the 960GB Samsung 845DC EVO. This puts the Samsung 845DC PRO in a very premium category of enterprise SATA SSDs designed for write intensive workloads.

Let’s take a closer look at the Samsung 845DC PRO.

Review: Samsung 845DC PRO 400GB SATA SSD - Custom PC Review

With Flash Memory Summit 2014 now underway, Silicon Motion is unveiling their latest SM2256 SSD controller, the successor to Silicon Motion’s SM2246 unveiled last year. According to Silicon Motion, the SM2256 will be the first commercially available, pre-packaged ASIC/firmware solution which supports 1x/1y/1z MLC/TLC NAND.

As far as specs go, the SM2256 is aimed at the low-cost/mainstream market, so we’re looking at a 4 channel controller with performance up to ~524 MB/s sequential reads and ~400MB/s sequential writes. Silicon Motion also pegs random read/write performance at 90K/70K IOPS, which is actually pretty good considering we’re working with significantly slower TLC NAND. Silicon Motion does specify that they’re testing TLC with Toshiba’s latest A19 NAND, so performance could be different depending on the NAND used.

In addition to support for TLC, Silicon Motion is also implementing new proprietary ECC techniques which use a combination of both LDPC Hard/Soft Decode and RAID to improve NAND endurance. Silicon Motion claims that according to internal testing, the ECC algorithms in the SM2256 is capable of enhancing TLC NAND endurance by up to 3x.

Silicon Motion SM2256 design kits are currently available and production drives from partners are expected to become available sometime before the end of the year.

FMS 2014 Update – 08-06-2014

At the Silicon Motion booth here at FMS 2014, Silicon Motion displayed engineering samples of their new SM2256 controller paired with Toshiba’s latest A19nm TLC Toggle Mode NAND.

Using current pre-production firmware along with Toshiba A19nm TLC, Silicon Motion is currently able to achieve up to 525.5/397.7 MB/s sequential reads/writes, which is quite impressive for a TLC based SSD.

Silicon Motion also pointed out that their new SM2256 is compatible with a wide variety of NAND on the market including Toshiba, SanDisk, SK Hynix and Samsung. Although not displayed here, the SM2256 should also support Micron ONFi NAND as well.

Silicon Motion Unveils SM2256 SSD Controller - Custom PC Review

According to a press release, HGST recently announced a new HHHL PCIe SSD, the FlashMAX III PCIe Accelerator designed for performance intensive enterprise applications such as databases, big data, video production applications, etc.

In terms of specs, the HGST FlashMax III is expected to be available in capacities of up to 2,200GB (2.2TB) with performance up to 531,000 IOPS random read and 59,000 IOPS random write. Sequential read/writes max out at 2,700/1,400 MB/s with the drive running off a PCIe 3.0 x8 interface.

The HGST FlashMax III will carry an endurance rating of 2 DWPD for 5 years and is expected to be available sometime in Q4 this year. No pricing is available at this time, but HGST is sampling drives to select OEMs at this time.

In addition to the FlashMax III, HGST is also unveiling ServerCache software, which is HGST’s latest caching software designed to help organizations make use of SSD caching to improve application performance. HGST claims their new ServerCache software can be implemented with no changes to existing infrastructure and is capable of improving performance up to 10x with any SSD, not just HGST branded SSDs.

HGST ServerCache is compatible with both Windows Server and Linux and is currently available for $995 per physical server. More information, including a free trial is available via HGST’s website.

HGST Announce FlashMAX III PCIe Accelerator, ServerCache Software - Custom PC Review

As previously hinted at during the Samsung SSD Summit last month, Samsung recently announced the world’s first TLC (3-bit per cell MLC) 32-layer V-NAND product at Flash Memory Summit 2014.

During the keynote presentation, Samsung claims that their TLC 3D V-NAND is capable of increased capacity scaling, improved cost scaling, 50% reduction in programming times compared to planar TLC, and ~40% reduction of power consumption compared to planar TLC.

What’s most exciting about this announcement is that Samsung also unveiled a future yet unnamed TLC based 32-layer 3D V-NAND SSD, which we can assume is going to be the Samsung 850 EVO. While specific timeframes haven’t been announced, Bob Brennan, Senior VP Memory Solutions Lab at Samsung, told us that the drive will be “coming soon”.

Although looking in the past Samsung doesn’t normally make big announcements after their Global SSD Summit, I can’t imagine them waiting a year until the 850 EVO announcement. My best guess is either CES or more than likely sometime before the holiday shopping season. If TLC 3D V-NAND is able to offer the same type of performance, endurance, and cost savings we saw going from planar 2-bit MLC to 3D V-NAND 2-bit MLC, Samsung has a huge opportunity to continue dominating both the mainstream and enthusiast SSD markets if they can get their TLC 3D V-NAND SSD out on store shelves this holiday season.

FMS 2014: Samsung Unveils TLC 32-Layer V-NAND, Possible 850 EVO? - Custom PC Review

With PCIe based SSDs quickly becoming all the rage, silicon giant Marvell recently announced their first NVMe 1.1 compatible PCIe 3.0 x4 controller, the Marvell 88SS1093.

Spec-wise, the Marvell 88SS1093 uses a tri-core CPU architecture and is designed for high performance enthusiast and datacenter use. With the full PCIe 3.0 x4 interface, the controller is capable of up to a 4GB/s link, but it’ll also be capable of a 2GB/s link as well. As for NAND, the Marvell 88SS1093 supports up to 2GB of a wide variety of NAND including upcoming 3D NAND as well as 15nm SLC/MLC/TLC. For applications using lower performance, lower endurance NAND, the Marvell 88SS1093 will also include proprietary 3rd generation LDPC ECC techniques, which will significantly improve NAND endurance.

The Marvell 88SS1093 is currently being sampled to partners although no products using the controller have been announced.

Marvell Announces 88SS1093 PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD Controller - Custom PC Review

Although Samsung stole the thunder last month when they launched the world’s first commercial 3D NAND product, memory giant SK Hynix definitely wasn’t sitting idly by as they’ve decided to also show off some of their latest 3D NAND here at FMS 2014. Speaking with SK Hynix representatives, SK Hynix is in active development of their 3D NAND product and is currently qualifying the NAND in house. They expect their 3D NAND product to be available to sample to partners by 2H 2015.

In addition to 3D NAND, SK Hynix also displayed some of their latest SSDs including their PC300 PCIe M.2 SSD. Utilizing an in-house LAMD based controller, a PCIe 3.0 x4 interface and supporting the next generation NVMe protocol, the PC300 is capable of up to a staggering 2,500MB/s sequential reads and 1,400MB/s sequential writes. Random read/write performance is rated at 400K/350K IOPS, which is phenomenal for a drive that’s designed for client use.

The SK Hynix PC300 will be available in capacities from 128GB up to 1TB in both M.2 2260 and M.2 2280 form factors. No word on pricing or availability at this time.

FMS 2014: SK Hynix Displays 3D NAND, 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD - Custom PC Review

While touring Toshiba’s booth here at FMS 2014, one product in particular caught our eye. Although still unannounced, Toshiba displayed their upcoming SG4 series SSD.

Taking a closer look at the spec sheet, the SG4 uses Toshiba’s latest A19nm Toggle TLC NAND which is the first time we’ve seen this NAND in an upcoming SSD. Although performance figures are currently unknown at this time, Toshiba is targeting the SG4 for read intensive applications. The controller technology is currently unknown at this time, but we’re expecting to see some form of Toshiba/Marvell collaboration as we’ve seen in Toshiba’s latest SSDs.

In addition to the 2.5″ SATA form factor, the Toshiba SG4 will also be available in both the M.2 and mSATA form factors as well. Toshiba tells us that the SG4 will be available soon although pricing hasn’t been revealed at this time.

Although a bit less exciting yet still exciting nonetheless is a display of Toshiba’s upcoming 15nm NAND. Toshiba had a full wafer on display, but no product announcements have been made at this time.

FMS 2014: Toshiba Displays SG4 A19nm TLC SSDs, 15nm NAND Wafer - Custom PC Review

High Quality Entry Level SSD

Over the past few years, we’ve seen the SSD market consolidate quite a bit with numerous 3rd party SSD vendors exiting the market due to shrinking margins or difficulty in acquiring NAND. Because of this, we’re left with a number of SSD vendors who are either huge companies with large OEM accounts or smaller, newer players with unique products that command a premium.

One of these newer players is Angelbird, a relatively new SSD company based out of Austria who recently sent us their latest Angelbird SSD wrk 512GB for review. Angelbird’s selling point on their entire line of products including the new SSD wrk is that they do not compromise on quality despite the fact that their latest SSD is aimed at the entry level market.

Angelbird SSD wrk Specifications

The Angelbird SSD wrk will be available in three capacities – 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB. Unfortunately, there won’t be a 1TB option, which we’ll be discussing later on in this review.

As far as internals go, the Angelbird SSD wrk will be rocking Silicon Motion’s SM2246EN controller. Although released last year, it’s a new controller for us so it’ll be interesting to see what the controller is capable of. NAND onboard will be some variation of Micron’s L85 20nm Synchronous NAND which we’ve seen on numerous drives before, but Angelbird does have the capability of packing their own NAND, which likely means higher quality NAND is being selected for these drives.

Warranty on the Angelbird SSD wrk is 3 years which is generally typical of a mainstream product however, Angelbird’s endurance ratings are among the best we’ve seen on any SSD – mainstream or enthusiast. Angelbird claims that their 512GB drive is capable of up to 1048TBW – a number typically associated with entry level enterprise drives designed for read heavy applications. Very interesting…

Let’s take a closer look at the drive.

Review: Angelbird SSD wrk 512GB - Custom PC Review

A couple years ago, AMD made an interesting move to expand their Radeon line of products to not only contain graphics cards, but memory modules as well. This made a lot of sense for AMD at the time as licensing their brand name brought in additional profit and having branded memory line helps consumers easily pick out the best memory for their AMD systems. Given that AMD doesn’t actually have a memory business, AMD decided to partner with Patriot Memory to produce specially validated AMD Radeon Memory, which would offer AMD system builders guaranteed compatibility with their systems.

Of course, there are a number of pieces that go into a great gaming PC, and as such AMD recently decided to hop into the SSD business with the help of SSD giant OCZ Storage Solutions. Considering OCZ makes fantastic high performance SSDs and a high quality NAND supply is no longer in question thanks to the Toshiba acquisition late last year, this is a perfect partner for AMD’s first branded SSD.

AMD’s first branded SSD will be called the AMD Radeon R7 SSD, which brings it in line with the new Radeon Rx naming scheme introduced by the Radeon R5, Radeon R7 and Radeon R9 GPUs last year. As far as internal hardware goes, the Radeon R7 SSD will come equipped with a high performance Barefoot 3 M00 controller and the latest Toshiba A19nm (2nd generation) Toggle Mode MLC, delivering read/write performance up to 550 MB/s and 530 MB/s respectively. Remember, despite a naming scheme that suggests otherwise, the Barefoot 3 M00 is actually a higher clocked, higher performance controller compared to the Barefoot 3 M10. Depending on how this goes, personally I wouldn’t be surprised to see a PCIe based R9 SSD and possibly a more mainstream R5 SSD down the line as well.

Taking a closer look at the spec sheet, the AMD Radeon R7 SSD will be available in capacities of 120GB, 240GB, and 480GB. In terms of performance, it’s actually almost identical in specs to the Vector 150 with the exception of slightly lower maximum random write performance ratings which is really just a mere 5,000 IOPS lower. Of course with the OCZ Vector 150 you also get a 5 year, 50GB/day warranty rather than the 4 year, 30GB/day warranty with the AMD Radeon R7 SSD. That said, on paper the AMD Radeon R7 SSD looks like a pretty solid SSD that should be great gamers and enthusiasts alike.

Pricing on the Radeon R7 SSD is expected to be $99.99 (~$0.83/GB) for the 120GB model, $163.99 (~$0.68/GB) for the 240GB model, and $289.99 (~$0.60/GB) for the 480GB model. Availability is currently unknown at this time, but it should be available at your favorite retailers in the upcoming weeks.

AMD Launches Radeon R7 SSD - Custom PC Review

According to a recent press release, SanDisk is pulling the wraps off their new Ultra II SSD – an entry level SSD designed for cost conscious consumers. This is the first time SanDisk has updated their entry level/mainstream client offering since the beginning of last year with their introduction of the SanDisk Ultra Plus.

The biggest change with the SanDisk Ultra II SSD is that SanDisk is now using their latest 19nm TLC (3-bit MLC) Toggle Mode NAND. TLC NAND has proven to be very successful for Samsung over the past couple years with their introduction of the 840 and 840 EVO SSDs, primarily thanks to TLC’s lower cost. SanDisk appears to be taking advantage of similar TLC cost savings as their Ultra II will be retailing for as low as $0.45/GB when it launches next month, making it one of the most cost competitive SSDs on the market.

As for performance, the SanDisk Ultra II isn’t a sloucher either. Using the same tried and true eight channel Marvell 88SS9187 Monet controller seen on various high performance SSD offerings along with SanDisk’s own “secret sauce” firmware, SanDisk is able to squeeze up to 550 MB/s reads and 500 MB/s writes across the board despite using inherently slower TLC. In order to achieve this, the Ultra II uses SanDisk’s proprietary nCache 2.0, which converts a portion of the onboard NAND into SLC mode to create a two tiered caching system that helps improve drive performance and endurance.

Additionally, with the release of the Ultra II, SanDisk is also rolling out their enhanced SSD Dashboard, which now feature the addition of Apricorn drive cloning software, Trend Micro antivirus software, and LoJack theft recovery.

The SanDisk Ultra II will be available in capacities of 120GB, 240GB, 480GB, and 960GB at MSRP prices of $79.99, $114.99, $219.99, and $429.99 respectively. Each drive will come with a 3 year warranty and will be available next month at your favorite retailers.

For more information, be sure to check out the product page here.

SanDisk Unveils Ultra II TLC Based SSD - Custom PC Review

According to a recent press release, flash memory giants Toshiba and SanDisk recently announced that they’ve completed the second phase of expansion of Fab 5 at Yokkaichi Operations. Toshiba/SanDisk began construction on the second phase of Fab 5 in August of last year and the newly expanded fab has begun producing 15nm NAND flash since the beginning of this month. Currently, we still haven’t come across a single product using the new NAND although Toshiba did show off 15nm NAND wafers at Flash Memory Summit earlier this year. Toshiba/SanDisk has been producing their 15nm NAND flash since around April/May this year.

Additionally, Toshiba/SanDisk also announced that they’ve begun construction of Fab 2 at Yokkaichi Operations. Earlier this year, Toshiba/SanDisk announced plans to tear down the old Fab 2 and replace it with a new Fab 2 designed to produce Toshiba/Sandisk’s upcoming 3D NAND product. According to the timeline, the new Fab 2 is expected to be completed in Summer of 2015 with mass production to begin sometime in 2016.

Source: Businesswire

Toshiba, SanDisk Complete Second Phase Fab 5, Begins Construction on Fab 2 - Custom PC Review

Crucial MX100 Revisited

Two months ago, we had the opportunity to be one of the first reviewers to take a look at the Crucial MX100 SSD. At the time, we came away very impressed with the drive as it delivered great performance, great features and is backed by Crucial’s fantastic track record for reliability while still being one of the least expensive SSDs on the market.

Unfortunately, Crucial only sent us the 256GB version of the MX100 at the time, which is a lower performing drive than the 512GB version of the product. While were more than happy to review the more commonly purchased 256GB capacity, the smaller capacity drive is at a substantial disadvantage when we compared to 480GB/512GB drives from competitors.

This is why today we’ll also be taking a look at the Crucial MX100 512GB SSD as well.

Crucial MX100 Specifications

Since I’m not going to waste time re-writing a previous review, I’ll go ahead and direct you to the review for the Crucial MX100 256GB for more details on the specifications and the features of the drive.

With that out of the way, let’s take a closer look at the Crucial MX100 512GB.

Review: Crucial MX100 512GB SSD - Custom PC Review

According to a press release, Micron recently announced the new M600 SSD, which is Micron’s latest entry into the client SSD space. Available to OEMs only, the Micron M600 will be Micron’s new flagship client SSD, succeeding the Micron M550 in both performance, power efficiency, and reliability.

Internally, the new Micron M600 is pretty similar to the recently launched Crucial MX100 we reviewed previously. It’ll be equipped with both Micron’s latest 128Gb 16nm Synchronous MLC NAND along with Marvell’s 88SS9189 controller. Nothing to shocking there.

What is surprising is the rated performance and endurance figures. Despite being nearly identical to the Crucial MX100 in terms of hardware, the Micron M600 is significantly faster. This is because Micron has made some significant improvements to the firmware to make the M600 far better than its retail cousin, the Crucial MX100.

The biggest improvement is a new feature that Micron calls Dynamic Write Acceleration, or DWA for short. The way DWA works is that it basically turns unused NAND in the drive into simulated SLC. This simulated SLC is then used as a write cache, similar to what we see in Samsung’s TuboWrite or SanDisk’s nCache. However, unlike Samsung or SanDisk’s solutions which only set aside a tiny portion of NAND, Micron’s DWA is far more powerful in that it’s capable of dynamically adjusting the size of the SLC cache, utilizing as much as all the free space available on the drive.

Illustrated above is a chart found in a tech brief for Micron’s DWA technology. We can see that the Micron M600 is capable of maintaining maximum performance until ~46% drive saturation. Then performance dips as the drive’s dynamic SLC cache begins converting itself into its original MLC form. Finally, the drive’s performance hits steady state where the drive’s SLC cache is converted entirely into MLC and all writes are written into the main MLC NAND. What this basically means is as long as you keep the drive relatively empty <50% full more or less, you’ll be able to enjoy ultra-fast performance thanks to the DWA cache.

Along with performance is also increased endurance. Although DWA does increase write amplification as it has to write data from the SLC cache to the main MLC NAND, Micron has compensated for this by using proprietary NAND trims to significantly improve NAND endurance. As such, the Micron M600 is capable of up to 100TBW on the 128GB version, 200TBW on the 256GB version, 300TBW on the 512GB version and 400TBW on the 1TB version of the drive despite the Crucial MX100 only capable of up to 72TBW across the board.

The Micron M600 will be available in a variety of form factors including 2.5″ SATA, mSATA, M.2 2280, and M.2 2260. The drives should be available to OEMs via Micron’s distributors. No word on pricing at this time.

Source: Micron

Micron Launches M600 SSD Touting Dynamic Write Acceleration Technology - Custom PC Review

Over the past few weeks, there’ve been tons of reports on various websites flying around the internet regarding a Samsung 840 EVO read performance degradation issue that’s been causing older files stored on the drives to be read at nowhere near the advertised speeds. As a huge proponent of the Samsung 840 EVO ever since its introduction, I’ve personally recommended hundreds of these SSDs, which is probably why in just the past week alone, I’ve received well over a dozen messages regarding this slow read performance bug.

Since I’m a Samsung 840 EVO user myself, I’ve been able to confirm this issue with many of you. As seen from my own File Bench results above, files that were recently updated are read at up to 473 MB/s while files that haven’t been modified in the past year are read at speeds as low as 17MB/s.

That’s slower than a mechanical hard drive!

This of course, shouldn’t be the case as illustrated by my Samsung 840 PRO, which is capable of consistent 460 MB/s+ reads no matter when the file was written.

I’ve reached out to Samsung who told me that they’re aware of this issue, but no details were shared during our conversation. That said, I was told that a fix is on its way and an official statement from Samsung can be expected as early as next week. Pending internal qualification, a firmware update will be released shortly after.

I’ll let you guys know as soon as I hear anything. In the meantime, are you guys experiencing this issue? Let us know in the comments below!

Samsung 840 EVO Read Performance Degradation Fix Coming Soon - Custom PC Review

According to a recent press release, Samsung announced that they’ve begun mass production of their new 3.2TB SM1715 PCIe NVMe SSD.

“Since 2013, Samsung has introduced a range of industry-first 3D V-NAND-based SATA SSDs for PCs and data centers. Now, it is rolling out the SM1715 to accelerate the transition to the NVMe interface in the premium server sector, while expanding its 3D V-NAND SSD business to offer drives with more than 3TB of storage.”

The Samsung SM1715, a SSD we first saw at the Samsung SSD Global Summit earlier this year, is a HHHL (Half Height, Half Length) form factor SSD based on Samsung’s new 3D V-NAND NAND technology. Samsung claims that the SM1715 is capable of sequential reads/writes up to 3,000/2,200 MB/s and random read/writes up to 750,000/130,000 IOPS respectively. In order to reach this level of performance, the drive features support for next generation NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) protocol which will allow users with compatible systems to take full advantage of the performance offered by the SM1715.

As expected from its performance specs, the SM1715 is designed for high end, write heavy enterprise applications and carries an endurance rating of up to 10 DWPD (Drive Writes Per Day) for five years. No pricing or availability information is available at this time, but I wouldn’t expect a 3.2TB HHHL PCIe NVMe SSD with a 10DWPD endurance rating to be cheap.

Samsung Begins Mass Production of SM1715 PCIe NVMe SSD - Custom PC Review