Ssd recommendation

[pasha83]

Which is best of these in 256 gb 

Addlink s70

Silicon power p34a80

Gammix s11 pro

[boggy77]

4 minutes ago, pasha83 said:

Addlink s70

Silicon power p34a80

one of these two. they are pretty much the same

 

the gammix one should in theory be good as well, but they have some issues with the newest firmware

[Juular]

48 minutes ago, boggy77 said:

the gammix one should in theory be good as well, but they have some issues with the newest firmware

What issues ? S11 Pro are just SX8200 Pro with heat spreader slapped on. But yeah, any of these would do, although if they cost the same i'd go with ADATA just because of bundled heat spreader.

[boggy77]

7 minutes ago, Juular said:

What issues ? S11 Pro are just SX8200 Pro with heat spreader slapped on. But yeah, any of these would do, although if they cost the same i'd go with ADATA just because of bundled heat spreader.

@Samfisher linked some articles on another post and claimed there are some issues with their controllers. maybe he can explain better.

[Juular]

9 minutes ago, boggy77 said:

@Samfisher linked some articles on another post and claimed there are some issues with their controllers. maybe he can explain better.

He linked soon to be 2 years old review (on ADATA SX8200\S11, not -Pro, with same family controller but older revision), it's safe to assume that these issues (low sequential read speed) with early firmware revisions were long fixed, and newer reviews confirm that.

https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/8850/adata-sx8200-pro-nvme-ssd-review-sm2262en-64-layer-tlc/index2.html

[Samfisher]

1 hour ago, Juular said:

He linked soon to be 2 years old review (on ADATA SX8200\S11, not -Pro, with same family controller but older revision), it's safe to assume that these issues (low sequential read speed) with early firmware revisions were long fixed, and newer reviews confirm that.

 

https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/8850/adata-sx8200-pro-nvme-ssd-review-sm2262en-64-layer-tlc/index2.html

Wat?  I was supposed to link to https://www.anandtech.com/show/13759/comparing-adata-sx8200-pro-vs-hp-ex950 and it isn't even a year old.

 

I forgot there wasn't a Pro version so I just typed that model number.  I have the Pro, I've experienced the issues first hand.  Sequential read means nothing.  They're not big issues, and I don't care much about them in my very specific use case, but that doesn't mean there aren't any issues.  I'm just saying there are some.  99% of the people who buy them will never even notice.

 

Quote

It is somewhat understandable that Silicon Motion would optimize for peak performance—client workloads are bursty by nature, and there are very few client workloads that resemble a long-running synthetic storage benchmark. Silicon Motion's customers - SSD vendors - have probably been asking for a controller solution that can let them advertise performance specifications that match or exceed the top drives from their competitors. Silicon Motion has delivered this, but in the process they've taken their optimization too far. The SM2262EN is essentially designed to offer the best possible scores on Crystal Disk Mark, with little concern for what happens to real-world performance.

The changes that the SM2262EN brings relative to the SM2262 are a net benefit to most real-world workloads, but that benefit is usually small enough to be basically imperceptible. The improvements definitely aren't worth the sacrifices made. Full-drive performance and long-term sustained writes are definitely corner cases when considering real-world use, but the point of a high-end NVMe SSD is to excel even in those tough scenarios

 

Edited January 22, 2020 by Samfisher

[kokosnh]

Addlink s70 and Silicon power p34a80 are the standard Phison E12 SSD, with Toshiba 3D 64l TLC NAND (more durable then micron 3D 64l TLC in Gammix s11 pro). depending on the firmware, there can be small diferencess. 

the Silicon power p34a80 are usually sold with the latest Phison firmware on them, don't know about Addlink s70. 

 

The Gammix s11 pro have larger pseudo SLC buffer,

 

The Addlink s70 have DDR3L DRAM (the little older design)

Silicon power p34a80 have DDR4 DRAM

there can be small diferencess, but nothing major.

 

I would go with the Silicon power

[NewMaxx]

28 minutes ago, kokosnh said:

The Addlink s70 have DDR3L DRAM (the little older design)

Silicon power p34a80 have DDR4 DRAM

Yep. Primary difference with DRAM type is not important, it just impacts power usage a little bit.

[pasha83]

5 hours ago, kokosnh said:

Addlink s70 and Silicon power p34a80 are the standard Phison E12 SSD, with Toshiba 3D 64l TLC NAND (more durable then micron 3D 64l TLC in Gammix s11 pro). depending on the firmware, there can be small diferencess. 

the Silicon power p34a80 are usually sold with the latest Phison firmware on them, don't know about Addlink s70. 

 

The Gammix s11 pro have larger pseudo SLC buffer,

 

The Addlink s70 have DDR3L DRAM (the little older design)

Silicon power p34a80 have DDR4 DRAM

there can be small diferencess, but nothing major.

 

I would go with the Silicon power

Yes silicon power has ddr4 ram  and faster sequental write speed but still addlink has better endurance and faster iops 

[pasha83]

8 hours ago, boggy77 said:

one of these two. they are pretty much the same

 

the gammix one should in theory be good as well, but they have some issues with the newest firmware

Thanks that is very helpful 

[pasha83]

6 hours ago, Samfisher said:

Wat?  I was supposed to link to https://www.anandtech.com/show/13759/comparing-adata-sx8200-pro-vs-hp-ex950 and it isn't even a year old.

 

I forgot there wasn't a Pro version so I just typed that model number.  I have the Pro, I've experienced the issues first hand.  Sequential read means nothing.  They're not big issues, and I don't care much about them in my very specific use case, but that doesn't mean there aren't any issues.  I'm just saying there are some.  99% of the people who buy them will never even notice.

 

 

What about smi 2263xt dram less controller on lexar nm610? 

You can get a 512gb one in same price

[Juular]

7 hours ago, Samfisher said:

Wat?  I was supposed to link to https://www.anandtech.com/show/13759/comparing-adata-sx8200-pro-vs-hp-ex950 and it isn't even a year old.

 

I forgot there wasn't a Pro version so I just typed that model number.  I have the Pro, I've experienced the issues first hand.  Sequential read means nothing.  They're not big issues, and I don't care much about them in my very specific use case, but that doesn't mean there aren't any issues.  I'm just saying there are some.  99% of the people who buy them will never even notice.

I'm confused, so what are those issues you're talking about ? I don't see any concrete points in the article, only a talk that Phison and SMI controllers are different but i don't see any significant performance differences.

[Samfisher]

5 hours ago, Juular said:

I'm confused, so what are those issues you're talking about ? I don't see any concrete points in the article, only a talk that Phison and SMI controllers are different but i don't see any significant performance differences.

Read and write latency under load, which translates into stuttering and lag.  Also full drive reads and writes.  More quotes from the article at the bottom.

 

Quote

The process of filling up a SM2262EN drive with sequential writes can be divided into three distinct phases. First is writing to the SLC cache at around 3 GB/s. The SM2262EN drives have the largest write caches we've seen in a TLC drive: where the 1TB HP EX920's speed first drops after about 136 GB, the 1TB SX8200 Pro lasts for about 150 GB and the 1TB HP EX950 goes slightly further with its first significant speed drop occurring after 156 GB. At this point, just shy of half of the drive's NAND cells are being treated as SLC.

 

Quote

Once that fills up, we see a middle phase where the writes mostly bypass the SLC cache and go straight to TLC, at around 1 GB/s for the 1TB models and 1.5 GB/s for the 2TB. During this middle phase there is some background work to flush the SLC cache which occasionally gets in the way of writing new data, but also means there are frequent momentary bursts back up to SLC write speed.

 

Quote

The final phase occurs when the TLC portion of the drive fills up and the drive has to start shrinking the SLC cache. Each new chunk of data the host sends requires the controller to free up some space by folding data in the SLC cache into TLC blocks, and these competing processes impose a significant performance hit now that the folding cannot be treated as low-priority. However, as the drive approaches 100% full, the SLC cache shrinks and performance creeps back up toward what we saw during the middle phase.

 

[Juular]

4 hours ago, Samfisher said:

Read and write latency under load, which translates into stuttering and lag.  Also full drive reads and writes.  More quotes from the article at the bottom.

That's interesting ... Newer Kingston KC2000 somewhat improves in this test but still, 99th percentile values are quite high. Althrough, i'm really curious if this really will be noticeable in real-life usage, i mean, i have Intel 660p and have noticed that the OS becomes quite unresponsive under write-heavy loads, and that test indeed shows insane values. But KC2000's values are roughly just twice of these for the sole Phison E12 SSD they've tested, SP P34A80, will there be a noticeable difference between them and other Phison E12 drives (which they don't test much for some reason) ? I see, there are reviews of 512GB versions of Team MP34 and Corsair MP510 also, and they show quite high 99th percentile latency values too, despite they have the same controller as SP P34A80 which performs good ... And to note, largely recommended SATA SSDs like Samsung 860 EVO and Crucial MX500 have the same issues, what we can even recommend then ? In other words, SSD controllers are difficult business, especially in write performance, and choosing a consumer SSD i'd recommend both SMI 2262(EN) and Phison E12 based SSDs equally as average home and even workstation workloads wouldn't be very write-heavy, and the only clear winner here are Samsung's overpriced-ass MLC SSD (which somehow beats even Intel Optane).

PS: Sorry for lotta edits.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/14601/the-kingston-kc2000-ssd-review/2

https://www.anandtech.com/show/14331/the-team-group-mp34-512gb-ssd-review/3

[NewMaxx]

29 minutes ago, Juular said:

Althrough, i'm really curious if this really will be noticeable in real-life usage

Generally, no.

 

For starters, take the SX8200 (Non-Pro) and EX920 on that list. I own both. I also own the EX950. These drives have effectively the same hardware: SM2262(EN) and 64L IMFT TLC, full DRAM. The -EN variant of the controller has a data path for faster writes (bypassing firmware/controller) but otherwise quite similar, in fact they all generally have a large SLC cache as well (excepting the EX920 as the smallest). So why the harsh penalty drop with the EN? Quite simply, the controller is a dual-core design optimized with help from Intel for consumer workloads - low queue depth, 4K, etc. The large SLC cache reflects this intent. These aren't made for heavy workloads. So when you bump up those writes when the drive is fuller, you're hitting its weakspot in several directions: exceeding the SLC cache, fuller drive state which taxes the weaker controller, and it's out-writing itself basically. To say this would be "worst case" is an understatement. The fact it doesn't hit the SM2262 drives that hard tells you that it's specifically the higher writes.

 

(this is a simplification - I actually agree with Tallis on these drives; many YouTubers have it rivaling a 970 Pro when quite clearly that is not the case, but neither is it at all slow for consumer usage and in fact is unrivaled)

[Juular]

Oh, so that's your spreadsheet, it's very useful ! Nice to meet you

Edit: can i ask to dig more into EU-based brands like IRDM\Goodram (there were smth else too, i can't remember).

[NewMaxx]

1 minute ago, Juular said:

Oh, so that's your spreadsheet, it's very useful ! Nice to meet you

Yes, I maintain that as well as two different guides and a subreddit devoted to flash news. Still working on the Wiki side of things, plus site/affiliate (would be nice to integrate with PCPP!) - and I might be doing videos and/or reviews soon but I won't get ahead of myself.

[NewMaxx]

13 minutes ago, Juular said:

Edit: can i ask to dig more into EU-based brands like IRDM\Goodram (there were smth else too, i can't remember).

Johnny Lucky covers these to some extent. They generally use a bill of materials approach so you can match the hardware to brands I do list. For example, the PX400 has the Phison E8 with 3D TLC. The CX400 is the Phison S11 + 3D TLC which is a typical DRAM-less combination. One exception might be the IRDM Pro Gen. 2 which I actually contemplated adding to my spreadsheet as it uses the S12 - but notably I have the Patriot S220 and BarraCuda 120 which will use that (it's an updated S10 w/LDPC).

[Juular]

22 minutes ago, NewMaxx said:

I might be doing videos and/or reviews soon but I won't get ahead of myself.

Absolutely looking into that, i find that there are some lack of good SSD reviews, most just run CrystalDiskMark or smth and call it a 'review'.

Edit: especially useful would be to have single page with graphs for all SSDs tested so you can just look at entire picture instead of jumping around the site looking at a multiple reviews which each include a different set of SSDs for some reason (SSD review folks, please, don't do that FFS, if you've tested smth, include it in each review if it's still relevant).

[Samfisher]

1 hour ago, Juular said:

 And to note, largely recommended SATA SSDs like Samsung 860 EVO and Crucial MX500 have the same issues, what we can even recommend then ? In other words, SSD controllers are difficult business, especially in write performance, and choosing a consumer SSD i'd recommend both SMI 2262(EN) and Phison E12 based SSDs equally as average home and even workstation workloads wouldn't be very write-heavy, and the only clear winner here are Samsung's overpriced-ass MLC SSD (which somehow beats even Intel Optane).

 

 

 

The MX500 is significantly cheaper than any Samsung drive, and they aren't far behind in terms of performance.  The Phison E12 drives and SMI2262EN drives are priced similarly.  Why would you go for the worse product for the same price?  The MX500 has price on it's side, the SX8200 Pro doesn't.

[Juular]

19 minutes ago, Samfisher said:

The MX500 is significantly cheaper than any Samsung drive, and they aren't far behind in terms of performance.  The Phison E12 drives and SMI2262EN drives are priced similarly.  Why would you go for the worse product for the same price?  The MX500 has price on it's side, the SX8200 Pro doesn't.

Additionally to what i already said (it's shouldn't be noticeable with average consumer usage IMO), we frankly just don't have a whole picture here, the situation with SM2262EN based SSDs could've improved with newer firmware versions but we don't know that and Anandtech only tested three Phison E12 based SSDs to date, one of them very old and obviously performs worse of all (Plextor M9PE) and other two (oh, it's Marvell), which have significant difference for some reason, with newer Team MP34 performing worse than older Corsair MP510 and SP P34A80 which have some difference between them too. There are a good amount of other SSDs based on these controllers which Anandtech didn't test (yet), we can't possibly say how they would perform in this particular test, it's inconsistent all across the board, i can't really recommend any of them over another, either of them are good choice considering the price and other than this Anandtech in-house benchmark, they perform very similarly otherwise judging by other reviews (from THG and Tweaktown among others).

Edit: obviously if all these SSDs are very similarly priced there are no reason not to go for SP P34A80 or Corsair MP510 but if there are at least ~10$ difference per 1TB version i'd go with cheapest one of these all (Phison E12 and SM2262 based).