SSTC HammerHead E18, The SSD With The Most Bang For The Buck

Source: TweakTown SSTC HammerHead E18, The SSD With The Most Bang For The Buck

$150 For 2TB Is A Good Deal

SSTC is a Vietnamese based computer retailer which is starting to show up on Amazon, and TweakTown had a chance to review the Hammerhead E18 NVMe 1.4 PCIe 4.0 SSD.   The controller is in the name, the well known Phison E18 and the savings comes from the flash, which is Media grade Micron B47R TLC.  Surprisingly, at this price point you do indeed get a DDR4 cache, though TweakTown doesn’t specify how much.

The drive is rated for 1600TBW and has a three year warranty, not the best in the business but more than reasonable at less than 10 cents per gigabyte.  Performance wise, the drive touts 7,400MB/s random read and 7,000MB/s writes and benchmarks show that to be accurate.  

If you need a bit more storage this is a solid choice, as you can see in the full review.

At $149.99 for 2TB of TLC flash capable of delivering up to 7,400/7,000 throughput, SSTC's HammerHead E18 is offering up some serious value.

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Jeremy Hellstrom

Call it K7M.com, AMDMB.com, or PC Perspective, Jeremy has been hanging out and then working with the gang here for years. Apart from the front page you might find him on the BOINC Forums or possibly the Fraggin' Frogs if he has the time.

10 Comments

  1. willmore

    Have prices gone back up or is this a ‘premium’ drive because of the DDR and PCI-E v4.0? Because we’re seeing $90 or less for a 2T NVME drive at NewEgg pretty reliably.

    Reply
    • Jeremy Hellstrom

      I’m guessing the $90 ones are cacheless QLC drives? If not I may have a pick of the week!

      Reply
      • willmore

        IIRC, TLC, but likely DRAMless. “cache” now has too many uses in SSDs because everyone and their brother has a pseudo-SLC ‘cache’.

        Reply
        • willmore

          You might want to check your spam filters, my reply with two NewEgg links got eaten.

          Reply
          • Jeremy Hellstrom

            Needed an approve apparently, not something I usually have to do. Both are good deals, you are saving because the PNY definitely doesn’t have a DRAM cache and while I couldn’t quickly find the specs on the SP002TBP34A60M28 I am pretty sure it’s the same.

            Don’t think it’ll make a huge difference for most usage. SK Hynix sent me a spiffy 2T drive I am trying to figure out how to test, maybe I can look at some tests to see what the cache does. Pretty sure my Intel 660p is cacheless, though that’s PCIe 3.0 QLC versus 4.0 TLC.

            Reply
            • willmore

              Yes, both are DRAMless. Which, as you mention, probalby won’t make much difference for most people. The one situation where it might matter is if you put it into an external enclosure where it won’t have access to a hosts memory. Then you might see a decrease in performance and longevity. But, that’s not where most drives will end up, I’d imagine.

              Is this spiffy drive one of the Solidigm P41 Plus drives?

              The Intel 660p has ‘cache’ in both meanings. For one, it does have DRAM and it also does the pseudo-SLC trick. It may have been one of the first drives to do that, even.

              Reply
      • willmore

        What about this? https://www.newegg.com/kingston-1tb-snv2s/p/N82E16820242730

        I just purchased the 1T version for $50. It seems Kingston is doing a silicon lottery on this drive in that you can get a variety of models that they’re selling under the same product–which is a terrible thing to do. I hope I get a good one.

        These are TLC, DRAMless, but PCI-E v4.0x4. The better models seem to have around 7GB/s read speeds. Writes are at best half that and–if not at best–much lower.

        I intend to stuff it into a server and use it to store software build environments. I hope I don’t run through the 360TWB lifetime too quickly.

        Reply
        • Jeremy Hellstrom

          Decent deal up here in Canuckistan too. Hate it when they do the silicon lottery but at those prices I don’t suppose I’d bitch too much.

          Reply
  2. willmore

    We’re down to $80 for an Intel QLC 2T NVME drive at Newegg, FWIW.

    Reply

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