SSD Performance Test: Thorough Disclosure of 11 Well-Known SSDs

Since the need of thin and light laptops such as Ultrabooks, Ultrathin Notebooks and portable devices has been growing, Solid State Drive (SSD) has become the mainstream storage media for tablets, and also the standard storage alternative for high-level notebooks, as a replacement for Hard Disk Drive. The great amount of implementation hence increases SSD’s annual growth rate as a whole. With the prevailing trend of thin and light design and the decent of SSD’s unit price, consumers have shown higher interests in SSD than before. IHS iSuppli even predicts that there would be more than 227 million shipment volume of SSD in 2017.

SSD Quality and Performance Comparison - A Testing and Evaluation Report for SSDs in the Market Today (2)

Since the last article “Exploring the Quality of SSD – A Testing and Evaluation Report for SSDs in the Market Today” was released in the end of 2010, we have received a large amount of positive feedback from readers and followers. In order to response to all the requests from our followers, we are releasing a follow up test report with latest SSD products. Hoping this report could provide valuable information when you purchasing a SSD drive.

mSATA SSDs Capitalize on Budget Market

With consumers looking to take advantage of the power and performance benefits of solid state drives (SSDs), several players have introduced product lines targeting value-conscious consumers. While some customers want the most powerful SSD money can buy, others are looking for a product that gives them the benefits of SSD without breaking the bank. For manufacturers looking to appeal to the more budget-conscious consumer, one option is designing SSDs using the mini-SATA, or mSATA, interface.

The Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO) announced last year that it was developing a specification for a mSATA interface connector, allowing for more effective SATA integration in small form factor applications. mSATA leverages the speed and reliability of the SATA interface, providing high-performance and cost-effective storage for smaller devices and enabling more compact integration into a wide variety of applications. As a result, companies can increase their storage and performance offerings without compromising on space.

mSATA SSDs are approximately the size of a business card and reside in a smaller PCI slot than standard SSDs. Instead of replacing a hard disk drive (HDD), mSATA-based SSDs work in conjunction with HDDs. For example, the computer can use the mSATA SSD for the OS and other primary functions, while the HDD stores the data, music and photos. Manufacturers such as Toshiba and SanDisk currently offer mSATA SSDs, and Intel is reported to be developing its own line.

“Initial adoption of most SATA solid state drives has followed the HDD form factor. Using new mSATA modules enable a smaller, internal module connected to the system board for notebooks, mobile and other embedded storage applications to enable designers greater design flexibility,” Scott Nelson, VP Memory, Toshiba America Electronic Components, said in the original press release.

No concrete timeline has been given for when the mSATA test specification will be available, but Allion has many years of experience with SATA testing and working with manufacturers through SSD development and validation, and looks forward to helping deploy mSATA-compliant products.

OWC Offers a New Level of SSD Performance

While most solid-state drive (SSD) manufacturers have been attracting new customers by lowering prices, Other World Computing (OWC) is taking a different approach: delivering the most powerful product on the market. OWC announced its new line of Mercury Extreme Pro SSDs, offering exciting performance features in the largest capacity of any current OWC SSD.

The line of prosumer SSDs takes all the benefits of SSDs – faster speeds, greater reliability and lower power consumption – to a whole new level. The Mercury Extreme Pro line delivers up to 285MB/s sustained data rates with no speed degradation, making it one of the fastest SSDs available. In a side-by-side comparison test, the Mercury Extreme Pro SSD booted an OS and loaded six apps in just over 30 seconds, compared to the nearly two minutes it took the factory standard hard drive. The SSDs feature seven percent over-provisioning to offer the highest level of data reliability, offering up to 100x greater data protection than ordinary SSDs. To top it off, the SSDs use up to 1/7 less power than standard SSDs, enabling longer notebook battery runtime and a more energy efficient system.

The SSDs are available for pre-order for both PC and Mac platforms and can be easily installed into notebooks as well as desktop systems with an adapter. They are available in capacities of 60GB, 120GB, 240GB and 480GB for $219.99, $379.00, $699.99 and $1,579.99, respectively.

OCZ’s Enyo Portable SSDs Deliver Top Speeds

This week, OCZ Technology unveiled an exciting new line of Enyo Portable solid-state drives (SSDs) featuring SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0) technology. The SSDs incorporate all the advantages of an internal SSD – better speed, performance and durability with lower power consumption – into a portable external storage device. This allows consumers to transfer data between multiple computers using one of the fastest backup drives to date.

The Enyo series enables impressive read and write speeds that are sure to please even the most demanding consumers. With up to 260MB/s read, 200MB/s write and 150MB/s sustained write capabilities, the Enyo SSD can copy a 6GB DVD in 20 seconds and a 25GB Blu-ray in 70 seconds. These speeds allow the SSDs to take full advantage of the 5Gbps speeds offered by SuperSpeed USB, a significant speed boost over traditional rotating media. “Background garbage collection” helps maintain optimized performance throughout the product’s lifespan by addressing the fragmentation caused by combined writes while the system idles. The Enyo SSDs are ultra-portable, weighing just 87.7g, are fully backwards-compatible with legacy ports and do not require external power supplies. The SSD line is based on multi-level cell (ML) NAND flash memory and is available in 64GB, 128GB and 256GB varieties for $229.99, $409.99 and $819.99, respectively.

SSDs and SuperSpeed USB are continuing to broaden their market reach as products push technological boundaries. As more manufacturers adopt SuperSpeed USB and as SSDs continue to gain traction, manufacturers are capable of delivering the highest level of quality and functionality to their customers. With customers demanding greater speed and performance, we can expect more SSDs and SuperSpeed USB certified devices on the market in the near future.

Verifying SSD Quality and Performance through Testing

As Solid State Drives (SSDs) become widely available and popular with consumers, manufacturers are striving to meet high levels of performance and interoperability. With more operating systems (OS) being supported, along with faster speeds and higher performance requirements, manufacturers need their products to undergo a variety of tests to ensure quality and interoperability before they enter the market.

To help manufacturers meet the highest level of performance and compatibility, Allion has developed a series of tests to ensure the quality of SSDs:

• Hardware Testing: This series of testing provides basic interface conformance and thermal impact benchmarks. It includes high-speed electrical testing, interface protocol testing, thermal testing and mechanical testing.
• Reliability Testing: These fundamental tests help ensure user data will not be compromised due to drive failure. It includes data integrity testing, IO stress testing, power cycle testing, endurance testing and data retention testing.
• Compatibility Testing: These tests ensure that the SSD is compatible with most of the systems available on the market. The SSD is installed in various systems to verify that the different functions of the drive and system work and data is transferred properly. Full compatibility testing includes system compatibility testing and RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) compatibility testing.
• Performance Testing: Complete performance testing detects possible firmware flaws and allows developers to benchmark the market competitiveness of their solution. This series of tests measures performance stability, composite performance, OS installation time, Windows boot/suspend performance, WinSAT, power consumption, and performance on Linux and Mac systems. Manufacturers receive a competitive report to show how their product compares with other SSDs on the market.
• Trim Testing: Trim is a feature available on Windows 7 that reduces the amount of data that is deleted, increasing SSD speed and lifespan by allowing it to delete unnecessary data in advance before it is rewritten. Allion tests Trim support, Trim command performance, I/O latency with Trim, performance degradation and Windows Volume Shadow Service (VSS), which allows users to revert a networked file back to a previous version.

Thorough SSD testing can help both system OEMs and SSD manufacturers guarantee product quality and compatibility. By combining the complete SSD testing process into one facility, Allion is able to deliver the most cost-effective testing environment for developers, providing valuable feedback that can speed up development cycles. Faster development in turn speeds deployment of the product to market while also allowing manufacturers to deliver a device that they can stand behind.