• Which ssd is better to choose for a laptop. The controller used in the disk. How much SSD capacity will you need?

    IntroductionSolid-state drives or SSD (solid-state drive), that is, those based not on magnetic plates, but on flash memory, have become one of the most impressive computer technology the last decade. Compared to classic hard drives, they offer noticeably higher data transfer rates and orders of magnitude lower response times, and therefore their use takes the responsiveness of the disk subsystem to a whole new level. As a result, a computer that uses a solid-state drive offers the user a truly responsive response to common actions such as booting the operating system, launching applications and games, or opening files. And this means that there is no reason to ignore progress and not use SSDs when building new or upgrading old personal computers.

    The emergence of such a breakthrough technology was appreciated by many users. The demand for consumer-grade solid-state drives has grown exponentially, and more and more companies have begun to join the SSD production, trying to grab their share of the growing and promising market. On the one hand, this is good - high competition gives rise to favorable prices for consumers. But on the other hand, in the client market solid state drives chaos and confusion arises. Dozens of manufacturers offer hundreds of SSDs with different characteristics, and finding a suitable solution for each specific case in such a variety becomes very difficult, especially without a thorough knowledge of all the intricacies. In this article we will try to highlight the main issues regarding the choice of solid-state drives, and we will give our recommendations that will allow you to purchasing an SSD make a more or less informed choice and get at your disposal a product that will be a completely worthy option in terms of the combination of price and consumer qualities.

    The selection algorithm we preach is not too difficult to understand. We suggest not getting hung up on the features of hardware platforms and controllers used in various SSD models. Moreover, their number has long gone beyond reasonable limits, and the difference in their consumer properties can often be traced only by specialists. Instead, it is preferable to base the choice on the basis of really important factors - the interface used, the type of flash memory installed in a particular drive, and which company produced the final product. It makes sense to talk about controllers only in certain cases, when this is really of decisive importance, and we will describe such cases separately.

    Form factors and interfaces

    The first and most noticeable difference between solid-state drives available on the market is that they can have different external designs and be connected to the system via different interfaces that use fundamentally different protocols for data transfer.

    The most common SSDs with an interface SATA. This is exactly the same interface that is used in classic mechanical hard drives. That's why most SATA SSDs look similar to mobile HDDs: they are packaged in 2.5-inch cases with a height of 7 or 9 mm. Such an SSD can be installed in a laptop in place of an old 2.5-inch hard drive, or you can use it in a desktop computer instead of (or next to) a 3.5-inch HDD without any problems.

    Solid state drives using the SATA interface have become a kind of successor to the HDD, and this determines their widespread distribution and wide compatibility with existing platforms. However, the modern version of the SATA interface is designed for a maximum data transfer rate of only 6 Gbit/s, which seems prohibitive for mechanical devices. hard drives, but not for SSD. Therefore, the performance of the most powerful SATA SSD models is determined not so much by their capabilities as by the interface bandwidth. This does not particularly prevent mass-produced solid-state drives from revealing their high speed, but the most productive SSD models for enthusiasts try to avoid the SATA interface. However, SATA SSD is the most suitable option for a modern, commonly used system.

    The SATA interface is also widely used in SSDs designed for compact mobile systems. In them additional restrictions overlap with the size of the components, so drives for such applications can be produced in a specialized form factor mSATA. Solid state drives of this format are a small daughter card with soldered chips and are installed in special slots found in some laptops and nettops. Advantage mSATA SSD lies solely in its miniature size, mSATA has no other advantages - these are exactly the same SATA SSDs as those produced in 2.5-inch cases, but in a more compact design. Therefore, such drives should be purchased only for upgrading systems that have mSATA connectors.



    In the same cases when bandwidth offered by the SATA interface seems to be insufficient; you can pay attention to solid-state drives with an interface PCI Express . Depending on what version of the protocol and how many lines are used by the drive to transfer data, the throughput of this interface can reach values ​​that are five times greater than those of SATA. Such drives usually use the most powerful hardware, and they are significantly faster than more conventional SATA solutions in speed. True, PCIe SSDs are significantly more expensive, so most often they end up in the most high-performance systems in the highest price category. And since PCIe SSDs usually come in the form of expansion cards installed in PCI Express slots, they are suitable exclusively for full-size desktop systems.



    It is worth noting that recently drives with a PCI Express interface operating using the protocol have become popular. NVMe. This is a new software protocol for working with data storage devices, which further increases system performance when interacting with a high-speed disk subsystem. Due to the optimizations made in it, this protocol really has better efficiency, but today NVMe solutions need to be treated with caution: they are compatible only with the newest platforms and work only in new versions of operating systems.

    While the bandwidth of the SATA interface is becoming insufficient for high-speed SSD models, and PCIe drives are bulky and require a separate full-size slot for installation, drives made in the form factor are gradually entering the scene M.2. It seems that M.2 SSDs have a chance to become the next generally accepted standard, and they will be no less popular than SATA SSDs. However, you need to keep in mind that M.2 is not another new interface, but only a specification of the standard size of cards and the layout of the connector required for them. M.2 SSDs operate via the quite familiar SATA or PCI Express interfaces: depending on the specific implementation of the drive, either one or the other option is allowed.



    M.2 cards are small daughter boards with components soldered onto them. The M.2 slots required for them can now be found on most modern motherboards, as well as in many new laptops. Considering that M.2 SSDs can also operate via the PCI Express interface, it is precisely these M.2 drives that are most interesting from a practical point of view. However, on at the moment The range of such models is not very large. However, if we are talking about assembling or upgrading a modern high-performance system, in particular, a gaming desktop or laptop, we advise you to pay attention first of all to M.2 SSD models with a PCI Express interface.

    By the way, if your desktop system is not equipped with an M.2 connector, but you still want to install such a drive, this can always be done using an adapter card. Such solutions are produced both by motherboard manufacturers and by numerous small manufacturers of all sorts of peripherals.

    Types of flash memory and drive reliability

    The second important question, which in any case will have to be sorted out when choosing, concerns the types of flash memory that can be found in current models of solid-state drives. It is flash memory that determines the main consumer characteristics of SSDs: their performance, reliability and price.

    Until recently, the difference between different types of flash memory was only how many bits of data were stored in each NAND cell, and this divided the memory into three varieties: SLC, MLC and TLC. However, now that manufacturers are introducing new approaches to cell packaging and improving cell reliability in their semiconductor technologies, the situation has become much more complex. However, we will list the main flash memory options that can be found in modern solid-state drives for ordinary users.



    You should start with SLC NAND. This is the oldest and simplest type of memory. It involves storing one bit of data in each flash memory cell and, thanks to this, has high speed characteristics and an exorbitant rewriting resource. The only problem is that storing one bit of information in each cell actively consumes the transistor budget, and flash memory of this type turns out to be very expensive. Therefore, SSDs based on such memory have not been produced for a long time, and they simply do not exist on the market.

    A reasonable alternative to SLC memory with higher data storage density in semiconductor NAND crystals and a lower price is MLC NAND. In such memory, each cell already stores two bits of information. The operating speed of the logical structure of MLC memory remains sufficiently good level, but endurance is reduced to about three thousand rewrite cycles. However, MLC NAND is used today in the vast majority of high-performance solid-state drives, and its level of reliability is quite sufficient for SSD manufacturers to not only give a five- or even ten-year warranty on their products, but also promise the ability to rewrite the entire capacity of the drive several hundred times .

    For those applications where the intensity of write operations is very high, for example, for servers, SSD manufacturers assemble solutions based on special eMLC NAND. From the point of view of operating principles, this is a complete analogue of MLC NAND, but with increased resistance to constant overwriting. Such memory is made from the best, selected semiconductor crystals and can easily carry approximately three times the load than ordinary MLC memory.

    At the same time, the desire to reduce prices for their mass products is forcing manufacturers to switch to cheaper memory compared to MLC NAND. In budget drives of the latest generations it is often found TLC NAND– flash memory, each cell of which stores three bits of data. This memory is approximately one and a half times slower than MLC NAND, and its endurance is such that it can be rewritten about a thousand times before the semiconductor structure degrades.

    However, even such flimsy TLC NAND can be found quite often in today's drives. The number of SSD models based on it has already exceeded a dozen. The secret to the viability of such solutions is that manufacturers add a small internal cache to them, based on high-speed and highly reliable SLC NAND. This is how both problems are solved at once - both with performance and with reliability. As a result, TLC NAND-based SSDs achieve speeds sufficient to saturate the SATA interface, and their endurance allows manufacturers to provide a three-year warranty on the final products.



    In pursuit of reducing production costs, manufacturers are striving to compress data inside flash memory cells. This is what caused the transition to MLC NAND and the now widespread distribution of TLC memory in drives. Following this trend, we could soon encounter an SSD based on QLC NAND, in which each cell stores four bits of data, but we can only guess what the reliability and speed of such a solution would be. Fortunately, the industry has found another way to increase data storage density in semiconductor chips, namely, by converting them to a three-dimensional layout.

    While in classic NAND memory the cells are arranged exclusively planar, that is, in the form of a flat array, in 3D NAND a third dimension has been introduced into the semiconductor structure, and the cells are located not only along the X and Y axes, but also in several tiers above each other. This approach allows us to solve the main problem - the information storage density in such a structure can be increased not by increasing the load on existing cells or by miniaturizing them, but by simply adding additional layers. The issue of flash memory endurance is also successfully resolved in 3D NAND. The three-dimensional layout allows the use of production technologies with increased standards, which, on the one hand, provide a more stable semiconductor structure, and on the other hand, eliminate the mutual influence of cells on each other. As a result, the resource of three-dimensional memory can be improved by approximately an order of magnitude compared to planar memory.



    In other words, the three-dimensional structure of 3D NAND is ready to make a real revolution. The only problem is that producing such memory is somewhat more difficult than regular memory, so the start of its production has been significantly extended in time. As a result, at the moment only Samsung can boast of an established mass production of 3D NAND. Other NAND manufacturers are still only preparing to launch mass production of 3D memory and will only be able to offer commercial solutions next year.

    If we talk about three-dimensional Samsung memory, then today it uses a 32-layer design and is promoted under its own marketing name V-NAND. According to the type of organization of cells in such memory, it is divided into MLC V-NAND And TLC V-NAND– both are three-dimensional 3D NAND, but in the first case, each individual cell stores two bits of data, and in the second, three. Although the principle of operation in both cases is similar to conventional MLC and TLC NAND, due to the use of mature technical processes its endurance is higher, which means that SSDs based on MLC V-NAND and TLC V-NAND are slightly better in reliability than SSDs with conventional MLC and TLC NAND.

    However, when talking about the reliability of solid-state drives, it is necessary to keep in mind that it only indirectly depends on the resource of the flash memory used in them. As practice shows, modern consumer SSDs assembled on high-quality NAND memory of any type are actually capable of storing hundreds of terabytes of information. And this more than covers the needs of most personal computer users. The failure of a drive when it exhausts its memory resource is rather an out-of-the-ordinary event, which can only be associated with the fact that the SSD is used under too intense a load, for which it was not originally intended. In most cases, SSD failures occur for completely different reasons, for example, from power outages or errors in their firmware.

    Therefore, along with the type of flash memory, it is very important to pay attention to which company manufactured a particular drive. The largest manufacturers have more powerful engineering resources at their disposal and take better care of their reputation than small firms that are forced to compete with the giants using primarily the price argument. As a result, SSDs from major manufacturers are generally more reliable: they use known high-quality components, and thorough debugging of the firmware is one of the most important priorities. This is confirmed by practice. The frequency of warranty claims (according to publicly available statistics from one of the European distributors) is lower for those SSDs that were manufactured more than large companies, which we will talk about in more detail in the next section.

    SSD Manufacturers You Should Know About

    The consumer SSD market is very young and has yet to see consolidation occur. Therefore, the number of manufacturers of solid-state drives is very large - at least there are at least a hundred of them. But most of them are small companies that do not have their own engineering teams or semiconductor production, and in fact only assemble their solutions from off-the-shelf components and provide marketing support for them. Naturally, SSDs produced by such “assemblers” are inferior to the products of real manufacturers who invest huge amounts of money in development and production. That is why, with a rational approach to choosing solid-state drives, you should only pay attention to solutions produced by market leaders.

    Among these “pillars” on which the entire solid-state drive market rests, only a few names can be named. And first of all this is - Samsung, which at this moment owns a very impressive 44 percent market share. In other words, almost every second SSD sold is made by Samsung. And such successes are not at all accidental. The company not only makes flash memory for its SSDs on its own, but also does without any third-party participation in design and production. Its SSDs use hardware platforms designed from start to finish by in-house engineers and manufactured in-house. As a result, Samsung's advanced drives often differ from competing products in their technological advancement - they can contain such advanced solutions that appear in products from other companies much later. For example, drives based on 3D NAND are currently present exclusively in Samsung's product range. And that is why enthusiasts who are impressed by technical novelty and high performance.

    Second largest consumer SSD manufacturer – Kingston, holding approximately 10 percent market share. Unlike Samsung, this company does not independently produce flash memory and does not develop controllers, but relies on offers from third-party NAND memory manufacturers and solutions from independent engineering teams. However, this is precisely what allows Kingston to compete with giants like Samsung: by skillfully selecting partners on a case-by-case basis, Kingston offers a very diverse product line that well meets the needs of different user groups.

    We would also advise you to pay attention to those solid-state drives that are produced by companies SanDisk and Micron, which uses the trademark Crucial. Both of these companies have their own flash memory production facilities, which allows them to offer high-quality and technologically advanced SSDs with an excellent combination of price, reliability and performance. It is also important that when creating their products, these manufacturers rely on cooperation with Marvell, one of the best and largest controller developers. This approach allows SanDisk and Micron to consistently achieve fairly high popularity of their products - their share of the SSD market reaches 9 and 5 percent, respectively.

    To conclude the story about the main players in the solid-state drive market, mention should also be made of Intel. But, unfortunately, not in the most positive way. Yes, it also produces flash memory independently and has at its disposal an excellent engineering team capable of designing very interesting SSDs. However, Intel is focused primarily on developing solid-state drives for servers, which are designed for intensive workloads, have a fairly high price and are therefore of little interest to ordinary users. Its client solutions are based on very old hardware platforms purchased externally, and are noticeably inferior in their consumer qualities to the offers of competitors, which we discussed above. In other words, we do not recommend using Intel solid-state drives in modern personal computers. An exception for them can be made only in one case - if we are talking about highly reliable drives with eMLC memory, which the microprocessor giant does very well.

    Performance and prices

    If you carefully read the first part of our material, then choosing an intelligent SSD seems very simple. It is clear that you should choose from V-NAND or MLC NAND based SSD models offered by the best manufacturers - market leaders, that is, Crucial, Kingston, Samsung or SanDisk. However, even if you narrow your search to the offers of only these companies, it turns out that there are still a lot of them.

    Therefore, the search criteria will have to involve additional options– performance and price. In today's SSD market, there has been a clear segmentation: the products offered belong to the lower, middle or upper level, and their price, performance, as well as warranty service conditions directly depend on this. The most expensive solid-state drives are based on the most powerful hardware platforms and use the highest quality and fastest flash memory, while the cheaper ones are based on stripped-down platforms and simpler NAND memory. Mid-level drives are characterized by the fact that manufacturers try to maintain a balance between performance and price.

    As a result, budget drives sold in stores offer a specific price of $0.3-0.35 per gigabyte. Mid-level models are more expensive - their cost is $0.4-0.5 for each gigabyte of volume. Specific prices for flagship SSDs may well reach $0.8-1.0 per gigabyte. What's the difference?

    Solutions in the upper price category, which are primarily aimed at the enthusiast audience, are high-performance SSDs that use the PCI Express bus for inclusion in the system, which does not limit the maximum throughput for data transfer. Such drives can be made in the form of M.2 or PCIe cards and provide speeds that are several times higher than the performance of any SATA drives. At the same time, they are based on specialized Samsung, Intel or Marvell controllers and the highest quality and fastest memory types MLC NAND or MLC V-NAND.

    In the middle price segment, SATA drives play a role, connected via a SATA interface, but capable of using (almost) all of its bandwidth. Such SSDs can use different controllers developed by Samsung or Marvell and various high-quality MLC or V-NAND memory. However, in general, their performance is approximately the same, since it depends more on the interface than on the power of the drive. Such SSDs stand out from cheaper solutions not only because of their performance, but also because of their extended warranty terms, which are set at five or even ten years.

    Budget drives are the largest group, in which completely different solutions find their place. However, they also have common features. Thus, controllers that are used in inexpensive SSDs usually have a reduced level of parallelism. In addition, these are most often processors created by small Taiwanese engineering teams like Phison, Silicon Motion or JMicron, rather than by world-renowned development teams. In terms of performance, budget drives naturally do not match higher-class solutions, which is especially noticeable during random operations. In addition, flash memory included in drives in the lower price range is also not of the highest level, naturally. Usually you can find here either cheap MLC NAND, produced according to “thin” production standards, or TLC NAND in general. As a result, the warranty period for such SSDs has been reduced to three years, and the declared rewriting resource is also significantly lower. High performance SSDs

    Samsung 950 PRO. It is quite natural that best SSDs consumer level should be sought in the assortment of a company that occupies a dominant position in the market. So if you want to get a premium-class drive that is obviously superior to any other SSD in speed, then you can safely purchase newest samsung 950 PRO. It is based on Samsung's own hardware platform, which uses advanced second-generation MLC V-NAND. It provides not only high performance, but also good reliability. But you should keep in mind that the Samsung 950 PRO is included in the system via the PCI Express 3.0 x4 bus and is designed as an M.2 form factor card. And there is one more subtlety. This drive operates using the NVMe protocol, which means it is compatible only with the latest platforms and operating systems.



    Kingston HyperX Predator SSD. If you want to get the most trouble-free solution, which is certainly compatible not only with the newest, but also with mature systems, then you should choose the Kingston HyperX Predator SSD. This drive is a little slower than the Samsung 950 PRO and uses the PCI Express 2.0 x4 bus, but it can always be used as a boot drive in absolutely any system without any problems. At the same time, the speeds it provides are in any case several times higher than those provided by SATA SSDs. And another strong point of the Kingston HyperX Predator SSD is that it is available in two versions: as M.2 form factor cards, or as PCIe cards installed in a regular slot. True, the HyperX Predator also has regrettable disadvantages. Its consumer properties are affected by the fact that the manufacturer purchases basic components externally. The HyperX Predator SSD is based on a Marvell controller and Toshiba flash memory. As a result, without full control over the hardware of its solution, Kingston is forced to give its premium SSD a warranty that has been reduced to three years.




    Testing and review of Kingston HyperX Predator SSD.

    Mid-Range SSDs

    Samsung 850 EVO. Based on Samsung's proprietary hardware platform, which includes innovative TLC V-NAND flash memory, the Samsung 850 EVO offers an excellent combination of consumer performance features. At the same time, its reliability does not cause any complaints, and TurboWrite SLC caching technology allows you to fully utilize the bandwidth of the SATA interface. We find it especially attractive Samsung options 850 EVO with a capacity of 500 GB and above, which have a larger SLC cache. By the way, in this line there is also a unique SSD with a capacity of 2 TB, the analogs of which do not exist at all. To all of the above, it should be added that the Samsung 850 EVO is covered by a five-year warranty, and owners of drives from this manufacturer can always contact any of the numerous service centers of this company scattered throughout the country.



    SanDisk Extreme Pro. SanDisk itself produces flash memory for its drives, but purchases controllers externally. So, Extreme Pro is based on a controller developed by Marvell, but you can find a lot of know-how from SanDisk itself. The most interesting addition is the nCahce 2.0 SLC cache, which in Extreme Pro is implemented inside MLC NAND. As a result, the performance of the SATA drive is very impressive, and in addition, few will be indifferent to the terms of the warranty, which is set at 10 years. In other words, SanDisk Extreme Pro is a very interesting and relevant option for mid-range systems.




    Testing and review of SanDisk Extreme Pro.

    Crucial MX200. There is a very good mid-level SATA SSD in the Micron range. The Crucial MX200 uses the company's MLC memory and, like the SanDisk Extreme Pro, is based on a Marvell controller. However, the MX200 is further enhanced by Dynamic Write Acceleration SLC caching technology, which pushes SSD performance above average. True, it is used only in models with a capacity of 128 and 256 GB, so they are primarily of interest. The Crucial MX200 also has slightly worse warranty conditions - its duration is set at only three years, but as compensation, Micron sells its SSDs a little cheaper than its competitors.




    Budget models

    Kingston HyperX Savage SSD. Kingston offers a budget SSD based on a full-fledged eight-channel controller, which is what captivates us. True, HyperX Savage uses Phison’s design, not Marvell, but the flash memory is normal MLC NAND, which Kingston purchases from Toshiba. As a result, the level of performance provided by the HyperX Savage is slightly below average, and it comes with a three-year warranty, but among budget offerings this drive looks quite confident. In addition, HyperX Savage looks impressive and will be nice to install in a case with a window.




    Testing and review of Kingston HyperX Savage SSD.

    Crucial BX100. This drive is simpler than the Kingston HyperX Savage, and it is based on a stripped-down Silicon Motion four-channel controller, but despite this, the performance of the Crucial BX100 is not bad at all. In addition, Micron uses its own MLC NAND in this SSD, which ultimately makes this model a very interesting budget proposal offered by a renowned manufacturer and does not raise user complaints about reliability.



    SSD drives are increasingly used in modern laptops, tablets, smartphones and even desktop computers. In this article we will tell you about the features of these devices and help you choose the right SSD drive for your laptop.

    An SSD disk, or solid state drive, is a computer non-mechanical storage device based on memory chips, which has replaced HDD hard drives. It has no moving mechanical parts, so it is more reliable and less susceptible to mechanical damage.

    Advantages of an SSD drive:

    • high speed;
    • low power consumption;
    • low level noise;
    • small weight and size;
    • impact resistance;
    • low probability of failures;
    • ability to work at low temperatures.

    All these advantages are due to the non-mechanical design and modern technologies used in production.

    Thus, the advantages are obvious. But before you choose this important device for any laptop, you need to know about its disadvantages.

    Disadvantages of an SSD drive:

    • High price. Decide for yourself whether this point can be classified as a disadvantage, but it obliges us to be as careful as possible in choosing the right SSD device.
    • Limited number of rewrite cycles. The number of such cycles can range from several thousand to several hundred thousand, depending on the manufacturer and model. However, a drive with a number of cycles of 100 thousand lasts for 3–4 years full-fledged work- this is a good time for a device with such efficiency and reliability indicators. When using a laptop only as a home computer, the service life of the SSD can increase several times.
    • Difficulty or impossibility of recovering information after electrical damage.

    Selecting an SSD drive

    Volume

    The first thing you should pay attention to when choosing an SSD device is its capacity. Which one should you prefer? It starts from 32 GB and, increasing the price, grows to 1000 GB or more. At this stage, you should decide what properties and, as a result, results you want to obtain. Let's make a reservation that devices less than 60 GB should not be considered - they were in demand several years ago, but not now.

    If you plan to use the laptop only for work and storing not too much information, you can choose the 120 GB option. It will be enough to accommodate the system and documents and ensure good speed.

    If you are going to not only work, but also play or store a considerable amount of information, pay attention to the 500 GB options. They will provide not only space, but also much greater speed than 120 GB options.

    A capacity of 1000 GB will allow you to load the laptop to the maximum and at the same time enjoy high speed. But here the price of the issue arises: other devices of this size themselves cost as much as a full-fledged computer, and most of them are not suitable for use on laptops.

    Size

    The sizes of SSD drives differ from each other. Obviously, you should pay attention to size when choosing a device for a particular gadget. A desktop computer can be equipped with a 3.5-inch drive, and a laptop with a 2.5 or 1.8. Some drives may be even smaller in size, such as mSATA for a SATA slot and M2 for a PCI-E slot.

    Interface

    The standard interface for modern SSD drives is SATA 3 and PCI-E. If your laptop is no longer as new as you would like, and it has a motherboard with SATA 1 or SATA 2 controllers, you should replace them with SATA 3. Otherwise, the speed and efficiency of the drive will be significantly lower than stated. For PCI-E you will also need a corresponding connector.

    Memory type

    There are 3 types of such types:

    • 100,000 rewrite cycles, the highest speed and reliability and, accordingly, price. Typically used for servers.
    • 3,000 rewrite cycles, fairly high performance and reliability, reasonable price. The most recommended option for a home or work computer.
    • 1,000 rewrite cycles, the speed is low, but such a drive lasts quite a long time. Has the lowest price.

    How more quantity cycles, the longer the device will last.

    Manufacturer

    Such drives are produced by a huge number of companies, well-known and not so well-known. Here are some tips on what parameters you can use to choose a manufacturer:


    Installing an SSD drive on a laptop

    First of all, you need to decide how you will install it - inside the laptop or outside.

    For outdoor installation, both a special external device connected via USB and a regular disk, but packed in a special case, are suitable. This option is used if it is impossible to install the drive inside.

    To put the SSD inside, you need to remove the bottom cover of the laptop and perform one of the installation options:

    • place the device in a free place;
    • put it in place of the HDD disk;
    • put it together with a HDD (option for SSD with M2 form factor).

    We use an SSD drive

    The best option is to install the operating system and the most used programs on the new drive. This will speed up its operation and extend its service life.

    The disk should not operate at its capacity limit, so you should periodically empty it of unused files. This simple action also affects the speed and service life. The maximum recommended occupancy is 70%.

    Removing unnecessary files

    Deleting information from drives of this type is a little more difficult than from HDDs. This is done in 2 steps:


    Ensuring smooth operation

    As we wrote above, electrical damage can cause irreparable damage to a device, ranging from loss of information to breakdown of the device itself. To prevent this from happening, you need to fulfill 2 conditions:

    • When operating on battery power, ensure that the charge level is always at the proper level;
    • When operating from the network, use an uninterruptible power supply.

    Operating system optimization

    To better configure your OS, it is advisable to use software from the SSD manufacturer. It will help you effectively align partitions (if you are using the drive for more than just the OS) and will even provide your laptop with the latest firmware. If the manufacturer is little known or does not offer its own software, you can use the AS SSD utility. It will no less successfully help with partition alignment and notify you if it detects a problem.

    Now you know what to look for when choosing an SSD-disk for a laptop, which option to prefer, how to handle it and what to expect. We will be glad if you share your experience in using this type of drive in the comments!

    • Small M.2 (NGFF) or mSATA SSD
    • Need an SSD for your laptop?
    • How to transfer an operating system to an SSD?

    How to choose an SSD for a computer?

    If your computer is modern or completely new, then be sure to pay attention - these are the fastest drives with a logical interface specially designed for SSDs. Details below in the appropriate section. But most often, we are talking about a 2.5” disk with SATA 6Gb/s. In any case, a solid-state drive is several times faster than any hard drive, and an NVMe SSD is tens of times faster. The case may not have a bay for 2.5" drives - this is not a problem, you just need an adapter from 2.5" to 3.5". To save money, you can use.

    The best high-performance SSD drives

    It is almost impossible to distinguish a fast drive from a slow one by eye, even old SATA-II from SATA-III. But sometimes speed is important. Who needs tests of solid-state drives - we have plenty of them, NICS tests drives. Comparing SSD performance will help you choose and buy an SSD with the fastest speed characteristics.

    Choosing the optimal size of SSD drive

    It's easy! Windows 10 will take you 30-40 GB, 8-16-32 GB for hibernation, 8-16 GB for the swap file, office programs 5-10 GB and each game another 10-50 GB. In fact, the minimum volume is 120 or 128 GB, comfortable, allowing you not to save every gigabyte - 240 or 256 GB. On SSD drives of 480 - 512 GB, you can install applications and games without looking back, but if you need to dump everything in a row - photos, music, movies, etc. - there are SSDs of terabytes and higher, if necessary. It is worth remembering that prices for SSD drives directly depend on their capacity, and the larger the memory capacity, the higher their cost.

    Small M.2 SSD (NGFF) and mSATA

    The fastest growing SSD market, thanks to NVMe Boot technology - instantly launches modern PCs using the fastest M.2 NVMe SSDs with a PCIe interface. Plus, you can install the drive directly on a compatible motherboard, which is important for compact systems. The corresponding M.2 connector and its parameters should be indicated in the description of the motherboard. When installing an NVMe SSD, be sure to ensure that the motherboard supports this technology, otherwise you will not be able to install the OS on the SSD. The situation is the same in laptops, but there may not be information about M.2, mSATA and NVMe, and if there is, it will be scanty - see below about SSDs for a laptop. The mSATA form factor is gradually fading into the background and is practically not found on new motherboards and laptops.

    Choosing a reliable SSD for a server or workstation

    Such drives require reliability, increased write and rewrite life, and the ability to easily handle multiple input/output operations (IOPS). The most difficult situation is a database server, where data can be constantly rewritten by several SSD volumes per day. For such cases, you need to purchase SSDs suitable for database servers. Usually the same 2.5” SSDs are installed in servers, but if Hot Swap baskets are designed only for 3.5”, then you will have to either replace the basket with a compatible one, or use special adapters that replicate the dimensions and location of the 3.5” HDD interface. Prices for SSD drives for corporate systems based on NAND flash are much higher, and it is best to choose them based on resource (TBW) and the number of rewrites of the entire SSD volume per day (DWPD). Separately, it is worth mentioning the Intel Optane SSD based on 3D XPoint - this is a completely new level of speed and resource. Based on this technology, Intel makes fast and reliable SSDs for workstations, for gamers and enthusiasts, and, of course, high-speed server solid-state drives.

    How much SSD resource will be enough to solve your problems?

    It's very simple: "life" solid state drives shrinks every time you write new information to it. If you have a personal computer that you turn on once a day in the evening, after work, then you can buy... any SSD drive, because any modern SSD has sufficient resource for household use and simple office tasks, regardless of the type of memory cells (3D MLC, 3D TLC and others). Low prices for SSD drives make them accessible to every PC or laptop user. If the work involves creating large files, working with photos/videos, then you can and should choose more resourceful SSDs. For example, half the SSD capacity per day for recording (0.5 DWPD) is already a very good indicator of reliability for workstations, computers for designers or photographers.

    Need an SSD for your laptop?

    Usually we are talking about replacing a 2.5” HDD with a solid-state drive. Just make sure that the hard drive is accessible, that the hard drive has a SATA interface, and measure the thickness of the drive. If it's 9 mm, any will do. If the thickness is 7 mm, then it is better to choose a thin 7 mm SATA SSD to fit exactly. More complex cases do not have a clear solution - you need to find out which solid-state or hard drive is installed and whether it can be replaced, and this is not always easy. If your laptop has an optical drive, you can replace it with an SSD using it - this is very convenient and allows you to leave the old drive in the laptop.

    How to transfer an operating system to an SSD drive?

    The easiest way is to buy an SSD drive with special software for transferring the OS. You can also use third-party software to clone the drive, for example, Acronis True Image.

    Drives for testing were provided by the company "Regard ", where there is always a wide choiceSSDat competitive prices

    Flash memory-based solid state drives have become a part of our lives. They provide high speed data access - which is why they are used in a large proportion of personal computers today. In fact, any modern productive configuration requires an SSD with a capacity sufficient at least to install the operating system and basic programs.

    However, prices for flash memory-based drives remain high enough to completely displace classic hard drives from use. For a flash drive with a capacity of 2 TB, for example, you will have to spend about $800, and a HDD of the same volume will cost 6-7 times less. Therefore, today the unspoken standard has become a two-level organization of the disk subsystem, implying the simultaneous presence of a high-speed, small-capacity solid-state drive and a capacious mechanical hard drive. In this combination, the SSD plays the role of a system disk, and the HDD is intended for storage user files and multimedia library.

    More recently, users who decided to join the SSD were guided by this particular scheme and purchased mainly solid-state drives with a capacity of 60 to 128 GB, which contained only the operating system and a couple of the most actively used programs. And sometimes even Intel’s Smart Response technology was used, which allows using a small SSD to organize caching of any requests to a relatively slow HDD. That is, due to the high prices for solid-state drives, users had to resort to certain tricks and try to get by with SSDs as small as possible.

    However, recently the situation has changed somewhat. Improvements in the design of flash memory chips, the development of new technological processes, as well as increased competition among solid-state drive manufacturers have had a very large impact on the prices of consumer SSD models. Just since the beginning of 2015, the cost of popular models of client flash drives has fallen by more than one and a half times. And this, naturally, changed customer preferences. Of course, in most cases it has not yet been possible to get away from the two-level disk subsystem, but quite capacious models have often begun to be used as system drives, which allow storing not only the operating system and main software packages, but also a certain number of games on fast media. Therefore, it is not surprising that 256 GB models have become the best-selling SSDs today. Actually, it is for this reason that our laboratory pays special attention to SSD tests with such a capacity: we almost always get acquainted with the performance of new products using the example of modifications with a capacity of 256 GB.

    However, this does not mean that 128 GB SSDs became completely unpopular overnight. In fact, their sales are only slightly inferior to sales of drives with twice the capacity. And this is understandable: for low-cost configurations, a 128 GB SSD is more affordable, and many users simply do not need high-speed storage devices with a larger capacity. Therefore, our readers often turn to us for advice: which of the modern SSDs is better to purchase if they have to choose from among offers with a capacity of 128 GB.

    Unfortunately, our regular testing of drives with a capacity of 256 GB or more does not allow us to give an unambiguous answer to the question of how SSDs with a capacity of 128 GB perform in real life. The fact is that such models differ from their older brothers in internal architecture - and this inevitably affects their performance. In order to pack a relatively small 128GB flash memory array, fewer NAND devices than usual are required, which reduces the level of parallelism of the entire NAND array inside the drive. And this not only makes the 128 GB SSD noticeably slower than offerings of larger capacity, but at the same time the load on the controller is also reduced, which somewhat smoothes out the differences between high-end and budget SSD platforms. In total, all this means that in small-volume drives the primary influence on the final performance is the speed of the flash memory used, while a powerful controller is not at all necessary to obtain good performance. Therefore, when comparing SSDs with a capacity of 128 GB, the leaders may not be those models that are usually considered flagship solutions. And therefore, the question of the optimal choice of drives of this volume is by no means idle.

    Considering all that has been said, our laboratory decided to turn to research on the performance of 128 GB SATA SSDs and conducted a large combined test, which should clearly answer the question of which small-capacity SSDs make sense to purchase today. It is worth noting that this testing is valuable not only because we tested a large number different models SSD. A separate advantage of the study is that it was carried out simultaneously. That is, all performance indicators were taken on an unchanged test system with the latest version of the Windows 10 operating system with the latest drivers and the latest firmware versions. Moreover, all the drives included in the comparison were taken by us from retail sales immediately before conducting tests, that is, the results obtained characterize exactly those versions of SSDs that can currently be bought in stores.

    Brief overview of tested SSDs

    ADATA Premier SP550 120 GB

    ADATA is famous for its love for various experiments with SSDs. In its product line you can find very rare combinations of controller and memory, and the new Premier SP550 model is just one of such products that has no analogues among the offerings of other manufacturers. The fact is that ADATA decided to be one of the first to try out the new Silicon Motion SM2256 controller, which is next version popular SM2246EN controller with added hardware error correction algorithm based on LDPC ECC (low-density code). This algorithm is more efficient than the usually used BCH ECC, which allows you to combine the rather capricious TLC NAND with the new controller and at the same time guarantee a level of data storage reliability acceptable for client SSDs.

    This is exactly how the ADATA Premier SP550 is made. In it, the SM2256 chip works with TLC NAND from SK Hynix, produced using 16 nm technology. The flash memory array of this drive consists of eight NAND devices connected to the controller via four channels. And this means that the Premier SP550 is budget solution with relatively low productivity.

    However, the SP550 implements special technologies aimed at masking the low speed of the flash memory array. Thus, it provides SLC caching technology for write operations. This means that a small part of the memory array is switched to fast SLC mode and serves as a Write-Back cache. Effective size This area for the 120 GB version of the SP550 is about 2.5 GB.

    There are no complaints about the declared reliability: the SP550 comes with a standard three-year warranty, and its declared endurance is 90 TB of records.

    ADATA Premier SP610 128 GB

    The older brother of the previous drive, the Premier SP610, is based on the older Silicon Motion SM2246EN controller, which does not have TLC NAND support. Therefore SP610 belongs to more high class- it uses full-fledged MLC NAND, produced by Micron using a 20-nm process technology.

    However, despite this, the SP610 still remains an inexpensive solution. The SM2246EN controller is a typical budget chip: it has a single-core design and RISC architecture, and communicates with flash memory via four channels. In addition, the Premier SP610 uses 128-gigabit MLC NAND devices. Consequently, the ADATA Premier SP610's flash array parallelism is relatively low, which significantly limits performance this decision, especially on write operations.

    ADATA Premier Pro SP920 128 GB

    The ADATA Premier Pro SP920 model has been on the market for quite a long time, however, it continues to enjoy steady demand and therefore is in no hurry to become obsolete. The secret of its popularity is the use of the Marvell 88SS9189 controller, which has won the title of one of the best platforms for SATA SSD. This is a full-fledged and high-performance eight-channel controller, which is usually based on the most advanced SSDs.

    But the Premier Pro SP920 still cannot be called a flagship product. The fact is that it is actually manufactured by Micron, and ADATA only distributes it through its channels. Micron did not create competitors with similar characteristics for its own Crucial MX100/MX200 series with its own hands, but proposed using its own MLC NAND, produced using the old 20 nm process technology, in the Premier Pro SP920. Moreover, the capacity of flash memory devices that fit into the SP920 is 128 Gbit, that is, the degree of parallelism of the memory array is not too high - only one NAND device is connected to each controller channel.

    As a result, the ADATA Premier Pro SP920 can only claim to be a mid-range offering. However, his noble birth allows us to hope for high reliability. For example, although this SSD only has a three-year warranty, it claims a relatively good recording resource of 72 TB. In addition, the electrical circuit of the Premier Pro SP920 provides hardware protection of the address translation table from power surges, which is usually not implemented in consumer-level offerings.

    ADATA XPG SX930 120 GB

    XPG SX930 is one of ADATA's most original drives. And it's not just that it's based on the rare JMicron JMF670H controller. What’s much more interesting is that, having relied on this budget four-channel platform, ADATA engineers tried to create a product out of it that could look decent on a par with flagship SATA SSDs.

    To solve this problem, two different methods were used at once. The reliability of the ADATA XPG SX930 has been increased due to special flash memory, which the manufacturer calls MLC+. In essence, this is almost ordinary 16-nm MLC NAND manufactured by Micron, but with important addition in the form of FortisFlash technology. This technology extends the life of flash memory cells through the use of intelligent algorithms for their management and special software settings of the controller. Unfortunately, ADATA does not disclose specific details regarding the effectiveness of using FortisFlash MLC, however, the XPG SX930, unlike all other drives from this manufacturer, comes with a full five-year warranty.

    The second method for improving drive performance is pseudo-SLC caching. Typically, this strategy is typical for drives using TLC NAND, but in the case of the XPG SX930, a similar approach is applied to SSDs based on MLC memory. And here it is quite appropriate, because the level of parallelism of the memory array in this SSD is minimal, since the NAND devices used in the XPG SX930 have a 128-gigabit capacity, and the JMicron JMF670H controller works with the flash memory array only through four channels. The effective size of the SLC cache in the 128 GB version of the XPG SX930, according to our estimates, is about 3 GB, and its presence allows ADATA to indicate fairly high performance indicators for this drive in the specifications.

    Crucial BX100 120 GB

    Under the Crucial brand, two lines of solid-state drives are traditionally supplied: the older one, MX, and the younger one, BX. However, only cheap Crucial BX100 drives have a capacity of 120 GB, while the flagship MX200 series has a minimum capacity of 250 GB. This is due to the fact that Micron, which owns the Crucial brand, puts flash memory with a core size of 128 Gbit in its modern SSDs. Accordingly, the memory array in the 120 GB modification of the drive receives a low level of parallelism, and it does not make much sense to use a powerful hardware platform with it.

    Crucial BX100 120 GB is a typical budget SSD, which is based on a four-channel single-core Silicon Motion SM2246EN controller. It works with a flash memory array, which is assembled from Micron chips produced using 16 nm technology. And this means that in terms of hardware, the BX100 is very similar to many other similar SSDs, for example, the same ADATA Premier SP610.

    However, there is one important difference. Micron has a strong engineering team, so the Crucial BX100 is not built using the reference design provided by the controller developers. It has its own layout and its own firmware, by optimizing which Micron engineers have achieved improved performance compared to most SSDs based on the SM2246EN chip.

    Intel SSD 535 120 GB

    Intel has long ceased to be one of the leading manufacturers of consumer-grade SSDs. Now it is almost entirely focused on the server segment and for ordinary users it offers only slightly adapted server models. With one exception, which is the Intel SSD 535 and its earlier versions. However, SSD 535 is produced by Intel rather out of inertia, and simply because many buyers pay attention to Intel SSDs based on old memory. In fact, this is a modern variation of the Intel SSD 520 - an ancient Intel drive that was released at the very beginning of 2012.

    In other words, the Intel SSD 535 is almost the only current drive that uses the ever-memorable SandForce SF-2281 controller. And this is a very unflattering characteristic, since, firstly, the SF-2281 is outdated, and secondly, it is characterized by a lot of problems, starting with low speed when working with poorly compressed data and ending with performance degradation over time. However, Intel engineers developed their own firmware for the SF-2281 and were able to significantly improve the efficiency of this hardware platform. Of course, this did not make the SF-2281 controller modern or flagship, but at least Intel’s 500 series SSDs are by far the best embodiment of the SandForce platform.

    As for memory, the Intel SSD 535 uses inexpensive MLC NAND chips from SK Hynix, produced using a 16-nm process technology. Moreover, the capacity of these chips is 128 Gbit, and due to the low level of parallelism of the flash memory array, the Intel SSD 535 is clearly slower than the original Intel SSD 520. However, to compensate for the negative impact of large NAND cores on performance, the developers implemented an accelerated pseudo mode in the SSD 535. SLC recordings, and as a result, the Intel SSD 535 manages to compete almost equally with modern budget drives from other manufacturers.

    Nevertheless, the Intel SSD 535 is far from a flagship, but, on the contrary, a solution with rather mediocre performance parameters and an unreasonably high price. There is only one consolation in this situation: the Intel SSD 535 has not lost Intel’s vaunted reliability and inherited a full five-year warranty from its predecessors.

    Kingston SSDNow V300 120 GB

    Apparently, Kingston SSDNow V300 can be considered one of the most popular solid state drives. However, he managed to become so not at all thanks to technological superiority. The secret to the popularity of the SSDNow V300 is its low price and the marketing policy of its manufacturer.

    Let's start with the fact that the Kingston SSDNow V300 is based on an outdated SandForce SF-2281 controller with a lot of unresolved problems: performance degradation and low speed when working with poorly compressed data. But it is cheap and, provided it is equipped with high-quality flash memory, can compete with modern four-channel controllers in the lower price range.

    Actually, the SSDNow V300 was originally equipped with fast MLC NAND, which allowed it to gain a reputation as a fairly attractive solution in terms of price and performance. However, about a year ago, Kingston changed the filling without any warning of this drive, and the place of good flash memory was taken by less good one. As a result, today's SSDNow V300 uses 20nm MLC flash memory from Micron with asynchronous access. It is worth recalling that such memory could be found in cheap solid-state drives several years ago, but then the industry completely abandoned it. But not Kingston, which, in order to reduce the price, decided to return to using this memory and gave its current drive features, for example, the old Kingston SSDNow V+200 (if you still remember the existence of such a model).

    However, in fairness it should be said that asynchronous MLC NAND is approximately equivalent in speed to TLC NAND, so against the backdrop of a new wave of budget solid-state drives based on three-bit Kingston memory SSDNow V300 looks quite normal.

    Kingston HyperX Fury 120 GB

    Essentially, Kingston HyperX Fury is a redesigned SSDNow V300, sold by the manufacturer under the more prestigious HyperX gaming brand. However, if we talk about the hardware platform, then, just like in the SSDNow V300, it consists of an SF-2281 controller from 2011 and MLC NAND with asynchronous access, manufactured by Micron using 20 nm technology. The configuration is not fast, but it is extremely cheap, simple and reliable.

    Actually, it is precisely the declared reliability that distinguishes HyperX Fury among ultra-budget solutions. Giving this drive a three-year warranty, the manufacturer indicates an absolutely fantastic recording resource - 354 TB. This means that Kingston is confident in the ability of the asynchronous MLC NAND chosen for this SSD to endure at least 3 thousand rewrite cycles. And if not for this, then HyperX Fury could be considered a solution on the same order as numerous SSDs on TLC memory.

    Kingston HyperX Savage 120 GB

    Kingston, it must be said, is engaged not only in promoting inexpensive solutions - its model range also includes quite technologically advanced SSDs. One example is the new HyperX Savage drive, which is based on the fairly recent Phison PS3110-S10 controller. This controller is notable for its eight-channel architecture, which is practically not found in low-cost SSD platforms.

    However, the main advantage of the HyperX Savage lies not so much in the controller as in the memory. For this SSD, Kingston chose MLC NAND produced by Toshiba using the second generation 19nm process technology. Such a memory not only can show off fast external interface Toggle 2.0, but also has 64-gigabit cores. This gives the HyperX Savage twice the flash array parallelism of most other 128GB SSDs. There are two NAND devices in each controller channel, and this puts HyperX Savage in a slightly more advantageous position among its competitors.

    As a result, the Kingston HyperX Savage 120 GB is able to perform in the same weight category as high-performance drives, even though the Phison PS3110-S10 controller is suitable for platforms top level does not apply. However, it should be borne in mind that HyperX Savage is still not quite a full-fledged flagship. The warranty for this Kingston offer is given for only three years, albeit with a fairly high declared recording resource of 113 TB.

    OCZ Trion 100 120 GB

    Although Trion 100 bears the OCZ name, its participation in the creation of this SSD is minimal. In fact, the development and production of Trion 100 is carried out by Toshiba, which owns OCZ, and OCZ itself is responsible only for the final stages in the production chain - final validation, marketing and warranty service. But this only makes the Trion 100 more interesting, since Toshiba was able to use not the outdated Barefoot 3 controller for this drive, but the new Phison PS3110-S10.

    It is worth noting that the Phison PS3110-S10 controller is good for its flexibility - it can work not only with MLC, but also with TLC memory. True, Phison engineers were never able to implement error correction based on LDPC ECC, and to ensure information integrity when using low-quality memory, solutions based on PS3110-S10 use traditional BCH ECC code. But this turns out to be enough, because parity control is enhanced by proprietary SmartECC technology, which organizes a RAID-5 array at the level of flash memory pages. As a result, the Phison PS3110-S10 turns out to be a completely acceptable platform for creating budget TLC drives. Actually, OCZ Trion 100 is exactly such an embodiment of this platform.

    In the OCZ Trion 100 SSD, Toshiba uses its own TLC NAND, which is produced using the second generation 19nm process technology. Yes, this makes the Trion 100 not fast at all, since the TLC memory has a core capacity of 128 Gbit and has an extremely low write speed, but this drive is very inexpensive. The problem with speed is partially solved by the introduction of SLC caching, but the effective cache size of the Trion 100 is quite small - about 0.5 GB.

    As for reliability, the OCZ Trion 100 120 GB comes with a three-year warranty and promises a recording resource of 30 TB, which is quite enough for a modern client SSD operating as a system drive.

    OCZ Arc 100 120 GB

    Arc 100 is, unlike Trion 100, OCZ's own drive. That's why it's based on the Barefoot 3 controller, designed by the engineering team at Indilinx, which OCZ acquired in 2011. It must be said that by modern standards Barefoot 3 cannot be called productive, although it works with a flash memory array over eight channels. But it effectively implements accelerated SLC recording technology, and due to it, SSDs on Barefoot 3 stand out among competitors with high write speeds. The essence of the technology is that free MLC cells are first programmed in one-bit SLC mode, and their transfer to the usual two-bit MLC mode is performed either when necessary or when the drive is idle.

    However, the main advantage of the OCZ Arc 100 is not high speeds records, but that its flash memory array is formed from Toshiba's MLC NAND chips, manufactured using the second-generation 19-nm process technology, which have a capacity of 64 Gbit. This increases the degree of parallelism of the array and allows you to obtain relatively high performance indicators not only when writing, but also when reading data.

    At the same time, the Arc 100 does not at all pretend to be a top-level solution, since it uses a slower frequency version of the basic Barefoot 3 M10 controller. And the terms of the warranty are not at all typical for a flagship: its duration is 3 years, and the recording resource is set at 22 TB, that is, the Arc 100 is inferior even to its TLC brother Trion 100 in terms of declared endurance.

    OCZ Vector 180 120 GB

    Simply put, the Vector 180 is an accelerated version of the Arc 100 with a claim to some elitism. The fundamental differences between these drives are the operating frequency of the base controller. The Barefoot 3 M00 processor used in the Vector 180 is overclocked by about 13 percent. Otherwise, there is almost no difference: the memory in the Vector 180 is the same - Toshiba A19-nm MLC NAND with 64-gigabit cores.

    But there is one nuance: Vector 180, unlike Arc 100 (and all other OCZ SSDs), received a redesigned power circuit. Previous OCZ drives often failed due to power failures and address translation table corruption. To combat this problem, the supply circuits in the Vector 180 were strengthened, and in addition, they added a capacitor that can provide energy for the correct completion of work with the translation table. This does not save data that is being processed at the time of a power failure, but it effectively protects the SSD from total loss performance.

    As a result, OCZ presents its Vector 180 as a flagship and expensive solution. In accordance with this positioning, the warranty conditions are also given: its period for this drive has been extended to five years, and the allowed recording resource is 91 TB.

    Plextor M6V 128 GB

    Given the gradual decline in prices for consumer SSDs, manufacturers are forced to look for new approaches to reduce production costs. For example, Plextor, which until recently relied only on cooperation with Marvell for controllers, was forced to switch to cheaper SSD platforms. And Plextor M6V is the first example of introducing an inexpensive platform. This drive uses a four-channel budget controller Silicon Motion SM2246EN. However, this is not such a bad choice. Today this processor can be found in a lot of products, and even leading SSD manufacturers do not disdain it.

    The uniqueness of the Plextor M6V lies in the fact that, paired with the SM2246EN controller, it uses 15 nm MLC NAND from Toshiba. This is a relatively new flash memory, for the production of which a technological process with advanced standards is used, and the transition to such a technological process has not only led to a near-record level of information storage density, but also made it possible to increase the speed of the NAND chip interface. As a result, subject to proper firmware optimization and a balanced marketing policy, the Plextor M6V can become one of the fastest and cheapest SSDs based on the Silicon Motion SM2246EN controller.

    However, you still shouldn’t expect global performance records from the Plextor M6V. The memory used in it has 128-gigabit cores, which makes the flash memory array of this drive endowed with a relatively low level of parallelism. Naturally, SSDs using 19nm MLC memory with 64-gigabit cores, or SSDs built on eight-channel controllers, will be faster.

    Plextor M6S 128 GB

    But the M6S is just an inexpensive Plextor drive of the “old school”: it is built on the basis of a controller developed by Marvell. However, in in this case The drive is based not on one of the performance platforms, but on an inexpensive solution - a four-channel Marvell 88SS9188 controller. However, this is still a high-quality and solid platform that is capable of delivering good speed results, especially in the 128 GB embodiment, where the number of controller channels does not play a very significant role.

    However, unlike other drives on four-channel controllers, the Plextor M6S has a clear advantage: it uses flash memory with 64 Gbit capacity crystals. More specifically, it uses Toshiba's MLC NAND, manufactured using the second generation 19nm process technology. As a result, the degree of parallelism of the flash memory array of the M6S is the same as that of the best solutions of a similar size, and four NAND devices work in each of the four controller channels. Further strengthening the M6S is a suite of technologies implemented by Plextor engineers at the firmware level, such as TrueSpeed, which provides flash garbage collection in environments without TRIM support. In general, we have before us a strong middle peasant, which, even if it is quite old, still does not lose its position.

    The only frustrating thing about the M6S is that the start of sales of this SSD was overshadowed by numerous cases of its failure during attempts to routinely update the firmware. But by now, it seems that the problem has been successfully resolved. And today, the Plextor M6S is a product with the usual three-year warranty and typical levels of reliability.

    Plextor M6 Pro 128 GB

    The M6 ​​Pro is Plextor's flagship drive, and it uses a full eight-channel Marvell 88SS9187 controller. Moreover, thanks to the choice of such a platform for a 128 GB drive, Plextor came up with a unique solution in many ways. The fact is that other manufacturers dealing with Marvell controllers, such as Crucial or SanDisk, do not use such powerful hardware in 128 GB SSDs. Therefore, the Plextor M6 Pro 128 GB quite reasonably claims to be one of the fastest SSDs in its weight category.

    The position of this drive is further strengthened by the flash memory chosen for it - the M6 ​​Pro uses fast MLC NAND with 64 Gbit cores, produced by Toshiba using a second-generation 19-nm process technology. Thanks to this, the memory array has the highest possible level of parallelism: each controller channel contains two NAND devices.

    The M6 ​​Pro is not without Plextor's proprietary magic - TrueSpeed ​​technology, which allows you to replenish the pool of blank flash memory pages even in environments where TRIM technology is not supported. Add to this a five-year warranty that is not limited by any amount of data recorded, and the result is that the Plextor M6 Pro is one of the flagship solutions, at least among 128 GB SSDs.

    Samsung 850 EVO 120 GB

    Due to the fact that Samsung offers technologically advanced and high-quality SSDs, it has currently managed to gain almost 50 percent market share of consumer solid-state drives. And the main weapon thanks to which Samsung was able to quickly achieve such convincing results in its activities is precisely the 850 EVO. The secret lies in the fact that Samsung drives are formed entirely from components designed and manufactured in-house. Accordingly, these components are perfectly matched to each other and produce end products with an advantageous combination of price and performance.

    The uniqueness of the Samsung 850 EVO also lies in the fact that it uses proprietary TLC V-NAND, the analogues of which are not yet available from any flash memory manufacturer. Such memory is fundamentally different from conventional TLC: it has not a flat, but a three-dimensional layout with 32 layers and is produced using a conservative 40-nm process technology. As a result, in this memory Samsung manages to combine both high density data storage, that is, low cost and high reliability: in terms of endurance parameters, TLC V-NAND is not inferior to conventional planar MLC NAND. This is confirmed by the terms of the guarantee. Its lifespan for the 850 EVO is set at five years, and the recording resource is limited to the typical level for MLC drives of 75 TB.

    Compared to conventional TLC memory, 3D TLC V-NAND has significantly better performance indicators. Despite the fact that the volume of crystals used in the 850 EVO TLC V-NAND is 128 GB, this drive is positioned as a good mid-level solution. To achieve high performance and unlock the full potential of the memory, the 850 EVO uses a proprietary eight-channel dual-core Samsung MGX controller, on the basis of which, in addition to standard algorithms, the proprietary TurboWrite technology is also implemented, which further improves writing speed. Its essence lies in caching write operations in a dedicated SLC cache, the effective capacity of which in the 120 GB version of the 850 EVO is about 3 GB.

    Samsung 850 Pro 128 GB

    For those users who find the 850 EVO based on TLC V-NAND not fast enough, not reliable enough or not charismatic enough, Samsung can offer its flagship - 850 Pro. This is an even more outstanding SSD for personal computers, which can offer a set of characteristics that no other competitor has yet been able to surpass.

    The most important Samsung feature 850 Pro is that this SSD is based on proprietary MLC V-NAND - flash memory with a three-dimensional 32-layer structure in which cells store two bits of information. MLC V-NAND is produced using the same technical process with 40 nm standards as similar three-dimensional TLC. Therefore, the speed and reliability of such memory obviously exceeds similar indicators of planar MLC used in SSDs from other manufacturers. At the same time, the capacity of the MLC V-NAND devices used in the 850 Pro is 86 Gbit, which gives the flash memory array not the maximum, but a sufficient degree of parallelism to generate the entire bandwidth of the SATA interface.

    Basically, to create an advanced Samsung solutions MLC V-NAND alone would be enough, but for the 850 Pro a special high-performance Samsung MEX controller was developed, which is based on three cores with ARM Cortex-R4 architecture and has eight channels for communicating with the flash memory array. As a result, the 850 Pro packs a huge amount of power, which allows this SSD to be used successfully even under intense loads that are not typical for typical personal computers.

    Separately, it should be said about the unique warranty conditions. The warranty period for the Samsung 850 Pro is set at 10 years, and there are simply no other 128 GB drives on the market with such a generous warranty. As for the allowed recording resource, for the 128 GB model it is 150 TB, which means, for example, the possibility of daily complete rewriting of this drive for at least three years.

    It is also worth mentioning that Samsung SSDs (both 850 Pro and 850 EVO), unlike most competitors, can offer hardware data encryption compatible with the Microsoft eDrive standard. This means that the hardware encryption of these SSDs can be controlled from the Windows operating system using the built-in BitLocker tool.

    SanDisk SSD Plus 120 GB

    SanDisk, like Crucial, has excluded 120 GB SSDs from its direct interests, so in the volume of consumer drives we are interested in, it only has budget models based on TLC memory. SSD Plus is the youngest of all available options, which should attract supporters with an exceptionally low price.

    The entire design of the SanDisk SSD Plus is permeated with the desire to simplify and reduce the cost. To begin with, it is based on the Silicon Motion SM2246XT controller, which is an additional stripped-down version of the already budget four-channel processor SM2246EN. In SM2246XT, the DRAM interface has been eliminated, which does not allow SSDs based on it to use a buffer RAM, which is usually needed to store a quick copy of the address translation table.

    As for the flash memory array, it is assembled in SSD Plus with 128-gigabit capacity TLC NAND devices, which are produced by SanDisk itself on 19-nm technological process second generation. Three-bit memory is slower than MLC NAND, so drives based on it usually use various SLC caching technologies. But SSD Plus lacks even this.

    Thus, under the SSD Plus brand, SanDisk offers an ultra-budget drive with slow memory without an SLC cache and a DRAM buffer, the performance parameters of which seemed so depressing to the manufacturer that he was even embarrassed to indicate them on his website. However, real testing showed that the SSD Plus is not as hopeless as it seemed at first, and it is by no means the slowest SSD in today's test.

    SanDisk Ultra II 120 GB

    Apart from Samsung, until recently there was only one other manufacturer that was able to mass produce SSDs based on TLC NAND. SanDisk released its first TLC drive a year ago - it was the Ultra II. But this SSD is interesting not only because of the use of three-bit memory - it is also intriguing because SanDisk engineers were able to develop it at a time when specialized controllers designed to work with TLC NAND were not yet on the market. A Marvell 88SS9190 controller was adapted for Ultra II, for which SanDisk engineers wrote firmware creatively adapted for TLC. Her key element RAID-like Multi Page Recovery (M.P.R) technology introduced at the level of flash memory pages, designed for enhanced correction possible errors reading.

    SanDisk’s experience in creating a TLC drive from scrap materials turned out to be very successful: over the year that has passed since the release of this model, no critical problems have been discovered with it, and SanDisk Ultra II has won the title of a fairly good entry-level SSD. Moreover, the new generation of TLC drives, produced on platforms originally designed for this type of memory, turned out to be no better than Ultra II.

    In SanDisk Ultra II, the Marvell 88SS9190 controller works with a flash memory array over four channels, this array itself is made up of 128-gigabit TLC NAND devices produced by SanDisk itself, which are produced using a second-generation 19-nm process technology. However, SanDisk Ultra II also has a special ingredient that makes this SSD faster than all new-wave TLC-based drives - proprietary nCache 2.0 technology. The essence of this technology is quite standard: it adds an additional SLC cache to the drive’s operating scheme. However, the specific implementation is not so simple. Firstly, this cache itself has a relatively large effective volume, reaching 4 GB for a 120 GB SSD. Secondly, caching within nCache 2.0 is two-level, it also uses the DRAM buffer, which regular SSD used only to store a copy of the address translation table.

    Smartbuy Ignition 4 120 GB

    Smartbuy is not the name of another SSD manufacturer, but simply trademark, under which the Russian distributor Top Media sells various products from unknown (and not so unknown) Chinese companies. The real author of Smartbuy drives is Phison, a Taiwanese developer and manufacturer of controllers used in budget SSDs. One of Phison’s operating models involves delivering fully assembled SSDs to customers on its own platform, and Top Media takes advantage of this by supplementing the drives purchased from Phison with stickers and boxes with the Smartbuy logo. That is why a couple of Smartbuy drives were included in our tests, because in fact these are not incomprehensible products of unknown origin, but real reference platforms designed by engineers of one of the leading developers of consumer-level SSD controllers.

    Smartbuy Ignition 4 is an MLC drive based on the latest Phison PS3110-S10 eight-channel controller. In terms of its hardware platform, Ignition 4 could become an analogue of the Kingston HyperX Savage, however, it does not have high-speed Toshiba memory, but a slightly slower and cheaper MLC NAND from Micron, which uses the ONFI 3.0 interface, is produced using a 16-nm process technology and has a capacity 128 Gbit cores. As a result, Ignition 4 is inferior to Kingston's solution in terms of the degree of parallelism of the flash memory array and is positioned as a fairly ordinary mid-level drive.

    Smartbuy Revival 120 GB

    Smartbuy Revival is one of the cheapest SSDs present on the domestic market. The secret to the low price is simple: this drive uses the Phison PS3110-S10 platform, equipped with inexpensive TLC memory. This makes the Revival an analogue of, for example, the OCZ Trion 100 or the Kingston UV300, which has not yet appeared on sale.

    Since Smartbuy Revival is a pure reference platform, everything in it functions exactly as intended by the controller developers. In particular, error correction is performed through BCH ECC algorithms, which are further enhanced by RAID-like SmartECC technology. And SLC caching of write operations is responsible for improving the speed parameters of the TLC memory array. Moreover, the Revival cache has an effective volume of 1 GB, that is, it is twice as spacious as that of the OCZ Trion 100.

    As for the flash memory itself, Revival uses TLC NAND from Toshiba, produced using the second-generation 19-nm process technology. It must be said that Phison has a very close partnership with Toshiba, so the PS3110-S10 controller contains special optimizations for working with this particular memory. And this allows us to believe that Smartbuy Revival is a completely reliable product, at least capable of competing in its durability with budget drives from real SSD manufacturers. Confidence in this is reinforced by the fact that Revival in most stores is given a full three-year warranty without any restrictions on the maximum recording volume.

    Transcend SSD370S 128 GB

    Transcend SSD370S is an updated version of the fairly popular SSD370 model, the most noticeable change in which is the appearance of an aluminum case. However, the changes are not limited to this.

    Like its predecessor, the SSD370S is based on the budget four-channel Silicon Motion SM2246EN controller, which can be found in many modern SSDs in the lower price range. However, Transcend's proposal does not completely replicate the reference design - the company's engineers have worked on optimizing the firmware. But the main feature of the SSD370S model lies in the flash memory used: this drive uses inexpensive 16-nm MLC NAND from Micron. That is, from the point of view of the filling, the Transcend drive has become similar to the Crucial BX100.

    The core capacity of the flash memory used in the SSD370S is 128 Gbit, and this is converted into a low degree of parallelism of the MLC NAND array. A four-channel controller, when working with a flash memory array, uses only double interleaving of devices. However, the use of two-bit memory puts the Transcend SSD370S a step higher than the latest generation SSDs based on TLC NAND.

    SSD Specifications Table

    It is impossible to imagine a modern gaming or multimedia computer without an SSD drive. SSD drives provide a significant increase in computer speed, and their prices are falling every year. You will learn how to choose an SSD drive from this article.

    Let me remind you that the SSD drive should be used as a system drive on which the operating system, programs and resource-intensive games will be installed.

    Main characteristics of an SSD drive

    Volume

    First of all, when choosing an SSD drive, you need to decide on its capacity. SSD drives are more expensive than regular HDD drives. When choosing the size of your SSD drive, look at how much your partition with the operating system currently takes up. Think about how much more space you may need to install the program. If you play games, then add another 20 - 30 GB to this so that you can install several modern and resource-intensive games on the SSD drive.

    Optimal volume ranges from 60 to 128 GB, depending on the expected amount of data stored. Prices for drives with this capacity are quite reasonable.

    Form factor

    There are SSD drives that are located in a “box” like regular HDDs. Form factor of which drives is 2.5”. There are SSD drives made in the form of a card (board), just like sound cards. Such drives are inserted into the motherboard into the PCIe slot.

    SSD drives with a 2.5" form factor are more common. They should be chosen. When buying a drive with a 2.5” form factor, make sure that the kit includes a 2.5” – 3.5” adapter. If there is no such adapter, you will have to buy it separately, otherwise you will not insert the SSD drive into the system unit case.

    An SSD drive can also be installed in a laptop as a main or second hard drive.

    Interface

    Depending on the form factor, SSD drives can be connected via PCIe or SATA (II or III) interface.

    The maximum data transfer speed of the drive also depends on the interface. If you connect the hard drive via the SATA interface. It is better to connect it via SATA III (up to 6Gb/s). The speed of such a hard drive will be much faster than SATA II (up to 3Gb/s). Hence the conclusion - buySSDdrives with interface SATA III (up to 6Gb/s).

    Speed

    An SSD drive, just like any data storage device, has a read speed and a data write speed. When buying an SSD drive, pay attention to the specified speed parameters. Naturally, the higher the speed, the better.

    But there is one caveat. Sellers often indicate in the speed parameters maximum value speed, not actual (real). And it may turn out that a hard drive whose declared speed is higher will work slower than a drive whose declared speed was lower.

    To find out the real speed, look for reviews or read what they write about this drive on forums. Real speed indicators will probably be presented there.

    Failure time

    Due to the features SSD technology drives operate for a certain number of read/write cycles. Typically this setting is 10,000 cycles. Manufacturers may indicate in the drive specifications how many hours the drive will operate. The characteristic is quite controversial, since the lifetime of the disk depends on many factors. So don’t rely too much on this parameter when choosing an SSD drive.

    In addition, before installing an SSD drive into a computer, it must be flashed and configured. This will increase the speed of the drive and its lifespan.

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