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Mushkin low-key removes DRAM cache from Vortex nvme SSDs...

y_zass
By y_zass
in Storage Devices
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Posted (edited)

I just RMA'd a 1TB Mushkin Vortex Gen 4x4 nvme SSD and my replacement is missing the DRAM cache. What's worse is they are still advertising them as having it!

 

EDIT: Upon further investigation I was able to verify a few things. I also have the 2TB model, I just pulled it and it has 2 DRAM chips. 1 on each side. My original 1TB model also had 2, 1 on each side. My replacement 1TB model does have 1 after all, on the top side in the same location hiding under the copper shim sticker. I'd bet the 512gb model only has 1 as well. So it appears 1 of 2 things is happening here. 1- they silently halved the DRAM capacity on the 1TB models or 2- they consolidated the 2 DRAM chips into 1 larger capacity chip. Maybe it varies drive to drive based on supply? What do you think?

 

 

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Edited by y_zass
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5 minutes ago, y_zass said:

and my replacement is missing the DRAM cache

What's on the back side of the drive? Seems like the controller is there, so I'm wondering if they consolidated two DRAM chips into one on the back side.

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Posted

did you come to this conclusion just because of a missing chip on an SSD compared to a marketing photo? the 'consolidating part count into one chip' approach seems more likely to me than blatant false advertising...

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4 minutes ago, AbydosOne said:

What's on the back side of the drive? Seems like the controller is there, so I'm wondering if they consolidated two DRAM chips into one on the back side.

agreed, show us the drive's booty. 

We can't Benchmark like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to shove more GPUs in your computer. Like the time I needed to NV-Link, because I needed a higher HeavenBench score, so I did an SLI, which is what they called NV-Link back in the day. So, I decided to put two GPUs in my computer, which was the style at the time. Now, to add another GPU to your computer, costs a new PSU. Now in those days PSUs said OCZ on them, "Gimme 750W OCZs for an SLI" you'd say. Now where were we? Oh yeah, the important thing was that I had two GPUs in my rig, which was the style at the time! They didn't have RGB PSUs at the time, because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big green ones. 

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2 hours ago, AbydosOne said:

What's on the back side of the drive? Seems like the controller is there, so I'm wondering if they consolidated two DRAM chips into one on the back side.

Just a thin copper shim / sticker. There is a DRAM chip hiding on the other side in the same spot though. It appears they either halved it or consolidated to 1 higher capacity chip. I'm guessing the 512gb model has 1 chip, the 1TB and 2TB both had 2 at launch but now the 1TB model only has 1. How it's looking to me...

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  • 3 weeks later...
Posted

Hi,

 

@y_zass may I ask, why you had to RMA the first drive in the first place?

 

I recently bought a 2TB version of the Mushkin Vortex and ran in all sort of strange problems with it

(to put it simple, it wouldn't run at all and get stuck/locked until reboot immediatly when writing to the drive @ pcie4 x4 when using the 1st slot that's linked to the lanes provided by the CPU ) ..had to return it to the store and luckily got my money back

 

it had SK hynix ram for cache iirc , and fw version was 3.H.J.21

posted my test results / detailed issues on a german board, hard to find users with that drive..

 

there was only one other person who owns one of these drives,

he had no issues on a different MSI AM4 board / CPU(both on the CPU slot and one that's linked via chipset). although he bought it around the same time from the same store,

his fw was completely different (3.H.F.6) so maybe even different components on it, who knows..

 

didn't want to RMA / replacement because it could still be that the issue is my MB/CPU which also could be faulty)

 

 I'm still tempted to buy another one and see if it was bad luck, because they're still quite cheap compared to Phison e18 / SM SM2264 based drives (not to mention samsung),

 

but am hesitant to do so..

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