The scatter plots on pages 6 and 7 may benefit from the addition of color to differentiate storage types. As they stand, they're difficult to extract meaningful data from for a few reasons, but the worst offenders are too many data points in the given space and poor contrast between data types.
The purpose of those scatter plots isn't to enable comparing the highlighted drive against any particular competitor, but to show where it falls relative to the limits of what is possible/normal. The data points for the non-highlighted drives are deliberately low-contrast because their exact value or identity aren't what's important for that graph. They're supposed to blend into a cloud.
Hmm, well I wasn't implying that there ought to be individual products highlighted. I was suggesting that using a categorical color in addition to the shape would help with overall visibility. For example, make TLC red, MLC green, and Optane black or something. It would allow us to extrapolate trend-like significance to the categories that were defined in the chart and position the Source among them.
Absolutely. In the SATA space, there is no reason to even look at anything other than the Samsung 860 EVO or the Crucial MX500. The 860 EVO is even cheaper than this piece of junk at the 1 TB level and only $7 less at 500 GB. There is no reason for this drive to exist unless they cut the price...a lot.
Yeah, the SSD market is filled with wrong decisions. I just basically go for a TLC Samsung drive that fits the budget, and pretty much ignore everything else.
Microcenter has their Inland 480GB SSD for $59.99. I have bought about 10 of the Inland SSDs so far, in various sizes (mostly the 240GB for $33). They have all worked great for normal everyday workloads, and most of these were installed as boot drives. The Microcenter SSDs are also DRAMless - maybe they don't bench as well, but they still have that SSD feel to them, and perform well doing normal tasks.
Well written article, thorough but not verbose, thank you Billy! Reminds me of Anand and Bruce... Recently bought a 480GB no name SSD that uses the same controller and NAND for only around $40 (singles day deal here in my home market in Taiwan). It has similar characteristics to the Source as you described (full disk SLC cache, etc.), but returned it because it makes a loud/hi-freq electrical noise when written to and read from. Forums here say that the 2258XT (or its ASMedia licensed copy) can overheat under heavy use and die before the NAND expires, so thermal design and general electrical design/component quality is critical. I'm not sure if you examined these design flaws or if you plan to add them to future routines? Granted it's probably specific to each production batch, but might be worth checking on each drive that you come across if it's not too much work.
I understand you include links to Destroyer methodology, but it will be helpful to briefly describe what constitutes a "full" and "empty" drive in brief, for faster reading without having to click through.
Also, a bit curious about SLC caching, its different types and what that means for real world usage. I imagine frequently accessed operating system files should be kept in SLC, and not moved into TLC, but unsure if any firmware is so smart about this. If if keeps moving files without discretion it will also be bad for write amplification.
I hadn't heard about 2258XT controllers dying or overheating. It hasn't happened to any of my drive samples yet. I also don't recall hearing coil whine coming off the Source, though I have heard it from a few SSDs during testing.
For the full-drive ATSB Heavy and Light test runs, the drive is filled with sequential writes of random data to every single sector, then given a five minute break to cool off and flush caches before the test begins.
TLC drives generally treat the SLC cache as a write buffer, and will aggressively migrate data from SLC to TLC blocks during idle times. The QLC drives on the market so far are much more willing to keep data in SLC until it is necessary to compact it into QLC blocks, so the SLC cache helps with write and read performance. I'm not aware of any drives that move frequently-read data from TLC/QLC blocks back to SLC to optimize read performance.
Billy - I don't get the indications of when the performance falls off after the SLC cache is full. The graphs indicate it drops off after around 170GB of data is written. How is this possible on a budget TLC drive? Does this mean there is 170GB of SLC cache on this drive? That couldn't be true for a budget DRAM-Less drive since it would add way much to the cost of the drive that the market it is targetting would not need. No one buying this type of drive would be doing workloads to push it past this threshold so it makes 0 business sense to equip it in this way. Basically no performance sense either since this large of a cache will never be used by customers buying bottom barrel drives.
I'm probably reading it entirely wrong - do you have a clearer explanation of what is going on?
The full-drive sequential write test is essentially a best-case scenario that illustrates the maximum possible SLC cache size for drives with variable-size caches. The drive starts out empty so the SLC cache is at its largest size, and sequential writes are easier for the controller to handle than random writes.
It looks like the Mushkin Source more or less runs all of its NAND as SLC initially, which is why it takes so long for the write speed to drop. It's also possible that the write throughput from the controller to the NAND is significantly faster than the SATA link, so the drive might have some slack to start folding data from SLC to TLC blocks in the background before the cache fills up.
The other SM2258 drives appear to start folding before the cache is full, but with the slower 32L TLC that did have an impact on the write speed.
At some point I may expand the SLC cache test to better show the range of behaviors for variable-size caches.
This could benefit for non-power user consumers who just want faster booting or everyday software loading. However the price is not reasonable for such a piece of junk - Intel's 660p already sucks, let alone this unknown brand who is likely to use "who knows" black/white flash chips, plus without DRAM cache. If I only have $30 budget for storage I'd rather go to ebay and search for a used older SATA2 MLC stuff(such as Intel X-25M) than this 120G QLC drive.
lol yea, are people not even reading these articles? It is using one of the best selling controllers with a great track record for a low cost one, with Micron's 64L 3D-NAND which also speaks for itself. There is nothing "risky" with this drive. Every aspect of it is very well known.
Yes, but how often do you really transfer more than 150GB at a time? Even putting a full OS+apps image onto the drive probably wouldn't do that much writing in one shot. If you're only writing tens of GB at a time, this drive is still twice as fast as a hard drive.
Personally? Often. I move video folders between drives often as the projects go to cold storage. Laughable that this would be slower than my 4tb HDD at this task. But I upgrade people from HDD storage, or even smaller SSD, ALL THE TIME. MX500 or 860 EVO will image an existing 250GB so much faster.
To be fair that's a TINY niche scenario no budget drive is trying to fill. Having a performance drop after >150GB of data is transferred is something most users will encounter a couple times a year at most. Even if they are doing a full drive migration, as Billy pointed it, for most users it won't past the threshold and this is the one and only time a typical user MIGHT encounter the problem. If it adds 5 minutes to the clone time for the handful of GB after 150GB is cloned, that's the least of most users problems.
The current prices make no sense either way though. It is way too close to the MX500, but the prices will have to settle into sensible patterns or these will just rot away in warehouses. I imagine the actual sell prices will end up significantly lower than MSRP. For any of my spare home rigs or office computers, the limitations of performance drop after 150GB would not bother me one bit as long as it saved enough cost to justify it. I would gladly take even a steep dropoff at 50GB if it saved several more bucks. The times I would be transferring more than this I would either A) be using my main computer or B) not sitting there waiting on the transfer/clone. I build or upgrade enough systems that anytime a workload even passes the 5 min mark, there's something else I could be working on (or sneaking in another OW match).
the price paid in the retail market , specifically Western Markets, is not indicative of the price OEM's pay or say LA/Far Eatern markets . I am noticing a bias against Chinese Brands simply based on their Chinesity?, is this how we stop them taking over the PC components world? HUAWEI e.g.
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30 Comments
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benedict - Wednesday, November 21, 2018 - link
This needs to be less than 10$/GB to make any sense.deil - Wednesday, November 21, 2018 - link
it might be, wait 3-4 months from initial start. Still its cheapest 500 GB I've seen so far, and that is good sign.Small Bison - Wednesday, November 21, 2018 - link
Yeah, charging over five thousand dollars for a 500GB DRAM-less drive *does* seem like a bit much.excelle08 - Thursday, November 22, 2018 - link
Well you aren't referring to US Dollars, right?😂PeachNCream - Wednesday, November 21, 2018 - link
The scatter plots on pages 6 and 7 may benefit from the addition of color to differentiate storage types. As they stand, they're difficult to extract meaningful data from for a few reasons, but the worst offenders are too many data points in the given space and poor contrast between data types.Billy Tallis - Wednesday, November 21, 2018 - link
The purpose of those scatter plots isn't to enable comparing the highlighted drive against any particular competitor, but to show where it falls relative to the limits of what is possible/normal. The data points for the non-highlighted drives are deliberately low-contrast because their exact value or identity aren't what's important for that graph. They're supposed to blend into a cloud.PeachNCream - Wednesday, November 21, 2018 - link
Hmm, well I wasn't implying that there ought to be individual products highlighted. I was suggesting that using a categorical color in addition to the shape would help with overall visibility. For example, make TLC red, MLC green, and Optane black or something. It would allow us to extrapolate trend-like significance to the categories that were defined in the chart and position the Source among them.Great_Scott - Wednesday, November 21, 2018 - link
SSD prices are so compressed right now that I'm considering getting a Samsung 860 EVO... as the 'cheap' option.There's really no point in getting a 'budget' 2.5" form-factor drive as every brand falls within about a 10% total price range.
Ratman6161 - Wednesday, November 21, 2018 - link
Absolutely. In the SATA space, there is no reason to even look at anything other than the Samsung 860 EVO or the Crucial MX500. The 860 EVO is even cheaper than this piece of junk at the 1 TB level and only $7 less at 500 GB. There is no reason for this drive to exist unless they cut the price...a lot.heffeque - Wednesday, November 21, 2018 - link
Well the BX500 is a pretty decent drive and is somewhat cheaper than both 860EVO and MX500.Amandtec - Wednesday, November 21, 2018 - link
On PC Partpicker you can chose a chinese brand 500GB for about $42 vs about $72 for the Samnsung. So it is a little more than 10% difference.piroroadkill - Wednesday, November 28, 2018 - link
So $30 to not lose your data? Sounds like a good deal.piroroadkill - Wednesday, November 28, 2018 - link
Yeah, the SSD market is filled with wrong decisions.I just basically go for a TLC Samsung drive that fits the budget, and pretty much ignore everything else.
kmmatney - Wednesday, November 21, 2018 - link
Microcenter has their Inland 480GB SSD for $59.99. I have bought about 10 of the Inland SSDs so far, in various sizes (mostly the 240GB for $33). They have all worked great for normal everyday workloads, and most of these were installed as boot drives. The Microcenter SSDs are also DRAMless - maybe they don't bench as well, but they still have that SSD feel to them, and perform well doing normal tasks.fmcjw - Wednesday, November 21, 2018 - link
Well written article, thorough but not verbose, thank you Billy! Reminds me of Anand and Bruce...Recently bought a 480GB no name SSD that uses the same controller and NAND for only around $40 (singles day deal here in my home market in Taiwan). It has similar characteristics to the Source as you described (full disk SLC cache, etc.), but returned it because it makes a loud/hi-freq electrical noise when written to and read from. Forums here say that the 2258XT (or its ASMedia licensed copy) can overheat under heavy use and die before the NAND expires, so thermal design and general electrical design/component quality is critical. I'm not sure if you examined these design flaws or if you plan to add them to future routines? Granted it's probably specific to each production batch, but might be worth checking on each drive that you come across if it's not too much work.
I understand you include links to Destroyer methodology, but it will be helpful to briefly describe what constitutes a "full" and "empty" drive in brief, for faster reading without having to click through.
Also, a bit curious about SLC caching, its different types and what that means for real world usage. I imagine frequently accessed operating system files should be kept in SLC, and not moved into TLC, but unsure if any firmware is so smart about this. If if keeps moving files without discretion it will also be bad for write amplification.
Thanks again!
Billy Tallis - Thursday, November 22, 2018 - link
I hadn't heard about 2258XT controllers dying or overheating. It hasn't happened to any of my drive samples yet. I also don't recall hearing coil whine coming off the Source, though I have heard it from a few SSDs during testing.For the full-drive ATSB Heavy and Light test runs, the drive is filled with sequential writes of random data to every single sector, then given a five minute break to cool off and flush caches before the test begins.
TLC drives generally treat the SLC cache as a write buffer, and will aggressively migrate data from SLC to TLC blocks during idle times. The QLC drives on the market so far are much more willing to keep data in SLC until it is necessary to compact it into QLC blocks, so the SLC cache helps with write and read performance. I'm not aware of any drives that move frequently-read data from TLC/QLC blocks back to SLC to optimize read performance.
gglaw - Saturday, November 24, 2018 - link
Billy - I don't get the indications of when the performance falls off after the SLC cache is full. The graphs indicate it drops off after around 170GB of data is written. How is this possible on a budget TLC drive? Does this mean there is 170GB of SLC cache on this drive? That couldn't be true for a budget DRAM-Less drive since it would add way much to the cost of the drive that the market it is targetting would not need. No one buying this type of drive would be doing workloads to push it past this threshold so it makes 0 business sense to equip it in this way. Basically no performance sense either since this large of a cache will never be used by customers buying bottom barrel drives.I'm probably reading it entirely wrong - do you have a clearer explanation of what is going on?
Billy Tallis - Saturday, November 24, 2018 - link
The full-drive sequential write test is essentially a best-case scenario that illustrates the maximum possible SLC cache size for drives with variable-size caches. The drive starts out empty so the SLC cache is at its largest size, and sequential writes are easier for the controller to handle than random writes.It looks like the Mushkin Source more or less runs all of its NAND as SLC initially, which is why it takes so long for the write speed to drop. It's also possible that the write throughput from the controller to the NAND is significantly faster than the SATA link, so the drive might have some slack to start folding data from SLC to TLC blocks in the background before the cache fills up.
The other SM2258 drives appear to start folding before the cache is full, but with the slower 32L TLC that did have an impact on the write speed.
At some point I may expand the SLC cache test to better show the range of behaviors for variable-size caches.
WasHopingForAnHonestReview - Thursday, November 22, 2018 - link
Great review, thank you.excelle08 - Thursday, November 22, 2018 - link
This could benefit for non-power user consumers who just want faster booting or everyday software loading. However the price is not reasonable for such a piece of junk - Intel's 660p already sucks, let alone this unknown brand who is likely to use "who knows" black/white flash chips, plus without DRAM cache. If I only have $30 budget for storage I'd rather go to ebay and search for a used older SATA2 MLC stuff(such as Intel X-25M) than this 120G QLC drive.Adramtech - Thursday, November 22, 2018 - link
what are you referring to? This uses Micron and it's TLCgglaw - Saturday, November 24, 2018 - link
lol yea, are people not even reading these articles? It is using one of the best selling controllers with a great track record for a low cost one, with Micron's 64L 3D-NAND which also speaks for itself. There is nothing "risky" with this drive. Every aspect of it is very well known.Lolimaster - Thursday, November 22, 2018 - link
Till now you can still get the Samsung 860 EVO for $130.Darcey R. Epperly - Friday, November 23, 2018 - link
Good drive to speed up my Gaming Console. I don't need a high write performance.Samus - Friday, November 23, 2018 - link
Always nice to see competition, but still hard to consider this over an MX500 that sells for virtually the same price.nwarawa - Friday, November 23, 2018 - link
70MB/s seq write?! REALLY?! Makes it garbage as an upgrade. This SSD would be the bottleneck transferring from a HDD... smh.Billy Tallis - Friday, November 23, 2018 - link
Yes, but how often do you really transfer more than 150GB at a time? Even putting a full OS+apps image onto the drive probably wouldn't do that much writing in one shot. If you're only writing tens of GB at a time, this drive is still twice as fast as a hard drive.nwarawa - Friday, November 23, 2018 - link
Personally? Often. I move video folders between drives often as the projects go to cold storage. Laughable that this would be slower than my 4tb HDD at this task. But I upgrade people from HDD storage, or even smaller SSD, ALL THE TIME. MX500 or 860 EVO will image an existing 250GB so much faster.gglaw - Saturday, November 24, 2018 - link
To be fair that's a TINY niche scenario no budget drive is trying to fill. Having a performance drop after >150GB of data is transferred is something most users will encounter a couple times a year at most. Even if they are doing a full drive migration, as Billy pointed it, for most users it won't past the threshold and this is the one and only time a typical user MIGHT encounter the problem. If it adds 5 minutes to the clone time for the handful of GB after 150GB is cloned, that's the least of most users problems.The current prices make no sense either way though. It is way too close to the MX500, but the prices will have to settle into sensible patterns or these will just rot away in warehouses. I imagine the actual sell prices will end up significantly lower than MSRP. For any of my spare home rigs or office computers, the limitations of performance drop after 150GB would not bother me one bit as long as it saved enough cost to justify it. I would gladly take even a steep dropoff at 50GB if it saved several more bucks. The times I would be transferring more than this I would either A) be using my main computer or B) not sitting there waiting on the transfer/clone. I build or upgrade enough systems that anytime a workload even passes the 5 min mark, there's something else I could be working on (or sneaking in another OW match).
dromoxen - Sunday, December 9, 2018 - link
the price paid in the retail market , specifically Western Markets, is not indicative of the price OEM's pay or say LA/Far Eatern markets .I am noticing a bias against Chinese Brands simply based on their Chinesity?, is this how we stop them taking over the PC components world? HUAWEI e.g.