Internals, Testing Methodology and System Setup
Internals:
After disassembly:
The housing and assembly is of good quality materials, and the aluminum doubles as a heatsink for both the Marvell controller and RAM.
PCB front reveals 8x Micron branded Synchronous MLC flash packages. This was the case for all four SSD capacity points, meaning capacity scaling is accomplished by die counts within the 8 packages, and ensuring the controller always communicates over 8 physical channels.
PCB rear is mostly blank, and again was the case for all four capacity points.
A close-up of the controller and near-by components. Extra post lighting was required to make the faint silk screening / etching of the part numbers legible.
Testing Methodology
Our tests are a mix of synthetic and real-world benchmarks. PCMark, IOMeter, HDTach, HDTune, Yapt and our custom File Copy test round out the selection to cover just about all bases. If you have any questions about our tests just drop into the Storage Forum and we'll help you out!
Test System Setup
We currently employ a pair of testbeds. A newer ASUS P8Z77-V Pro/Thunderbolt and an ASUS Z87-PRO. Variance between both boards has been deemed negligible.
PC Perspective would like to thank ASUS, Corsair, and Kingston for supplying some of the components of our test rigs.
| Hard Drive Test System Setup | |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-4770K |
| Motherboard | ASUS P8Z77-V Pro/TB / ASUS Z87-PRO |
| Memory | Kingston HyperX 4GB DDR3-2133 CL9 |
| Hard Drive | G.Skill 32GB SLC SSD |
| Sound Card | N/A |
| Video Card | Intel® HD Graphics 4600 |
| Video Drivers | Intel |
| Power Supply | Corsair CMPSU-650TX |
| DirectX Version | DX9.0c |
| Operating System | Windows 8.1 X64 |
- PCMark05
- Yapt
- IOMeter
- HDTach
- HDTune
- PCPer File Copy Test
Great to see a new entry in
Great to see a new entry in the 512GB/1TB market. I would argue that now the major data-destroying bugs have been worked out of the SSD controllers, the major factor in the consumer market is price/GB. I’m hoping this new entry helps to force prices down further.
we are ever so close to the
we are ever so close to the ssd sweet spot, which i think is about $0.30-$0.35. $300-$350 1TB , or more importantly $175-$200 for 500GB is the point where fast silent ssd technology will be viable in every mainstream system, leaving the spinning drives for ultra budget systems and those of us who need crazy TBs of storage.
It’s good to finally see a
It’s good to finally see a competitor for the Samsungs and that there is actually a trend to give a price break to go larger. However, the main thing I worry about is reliability with these things. Only time tells the truth there. Glad you led off with the controller.
The 512GB version would be
The 512GB version would be fantastic in my new SFF build but it is a bit overkill considering I have a 2TB WD Black in there. These seem very promising.
I’ll take two 256 GB ones
I’ll take two 256 GB ones (instead of 1 512 GB one) please. #IfYouKnowWhatIMean
Despite the slightly slower
Despite the slightly slower writes at that capacity, it's still a better way to go if you can go RAID-0.