Internals, Testing Methodology and System Setup
Internals:
Disassembly:
Rear PCB, 4x Micron 20nm Sync Flash, custom packaged by ADATA:
Close-up of the RAM packages. Two are needed for additional table space when handling 1TB of flash. Smaller capacities of flash require proportionally less RAM use by the SMI controller:
PCB Front, showing an additional four flash pacakges, power handling circuitry, and the SM2246EN controller:
Close up of the SMI controller and one of the flash pacakges:
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 |
- PCMark Vantage and 7
- Yapt
- IOMeter
- HDTach
- HDTune
- PCPer File Copy Test
Dem charts.
Dem charts.
Like ’em?
Like 'em?
They are pretty, but I think
They are pretty, but I think once you get beyond three colors, you might consider shading them in to help differentiate between them.
The colour scheme and glow
The colour scheme and glow work really well together. Though some of the darker colours are harder to see in such a busy chart. Maybe slightly wider bars? Nice work Allyn _b
Thanks! The issue with the
Thanks! The issue with the darker colors boils down to there simply not being enough 'good' differentiating colors to choose from, especially when trying to span 10 (or more in the future) entries. Still working on these moving forward.
I do understand there just
I do understand there just aren’t enough colors to offer clear differentiation.
But, since you ensured the drives were listed in both the chart and the legend in the same order, I was able to easily figure out which drive was which when I couldn’t tell easily by the color.
Good attention to detail that other sites often mess up.
Sharp write speed limits at
The charts for the PCP file
The charts for the PCP file creation tests need to have their x-axis label updated. They are labeled “MB/s” but I suspect they should be “seconds”.
I’m not even sure why Random
I’m not even sure why Random Access Time is mentioned with SSDs anymore- they all look the same. At this point,they pwn HDs.
Nice product, but 5 year warranty would have been more appealing.
good to see lower prices
good to see lower prices
Thanks for doing the review.
Thanks for doing the review. I know you must be very tired of SSD right now, but it’s good to see you do them so we the consumer can see the price point and accessories that come with drive, keep it up Allyn 🙂