[section_title title=Specifications and Overview]
With current storage controllers having no problem saturating the SATA interface, a different kind of race emerges; one that is unusually focused towards the bottom with an eye on delivering the lowest per GB cost. The previously reviewed ADATA SX930 with its 4-channel JMicron JMF670H controller paired with 16nm Micron MLC NAND is fairly affordable already at $0.33-per-GB, but using 16nm TLC NAND with Silicon Motion’s SM2256, the price is driven even more affordable at less than $0.25-per-GB.
The ADATA SP550 is offered at a much wider range than the ADATA SX930, available from 120GB up to 950GB. Within ADATA’s Premier SSD line, the SP550 is at the bottom of the stack, offered as an entry level storage solution directly beneath the SP600 which uses a JMicron controller with MLC NAND. Extending the Premier SP550’s value even further, ADATA bundles a free SSD Toolbox software for disk health management and free Acronis True image HD disk migration utility.
[sc:sponsor sponsor=”ADATA” product_link=”http://adata.com/us/ssd/feature/333″ product_name=”SP550 240GB SSD” product_price_link=”http://amzn.to/1VOA3lS” product_price=”$58.99″ ]
The ADATA Premiere SP550 comes in a fairly compact box with a windowed preview of the SSD’s front label. Direct access to the free software is provided via QR code at the back.
While there is no 2.5” to 3.5” adapter bundled like there was in the SX930, a 2.5mm thick spacer is included for the 7mm thick drive to fit where 9.5mm 2.5” drives are required. A quick start booklet is also included.
Capacity 120GB / 240GB / 480GB / 960GB Form Factor 2.5″ NAND Flash TLC Controller SMI Dimensions (L x W x H) 100.45 x 69.85 x 7mm Interface SATA 6Gb/s Performance(Max) 120GB Performance (ATTO)
Read: Up to 560MB/s
Write: Up to 410MB/s
Maximum 4K random R/W IOPS: 60K/70K240GB Performance (ATTO)
Read: Up to 560MB/s
Write: Up to 510MB/s
Maximum 4K random R/W IOPS: 75K/75K480GB Performance (ATTO)
Read: Up to 560MB/s
Write: Up to 510MB/s
Maximum 4K random R/W IOPS: 75K/75K
960GB Performance (ATTO)
Read: Up to 520MB/s
Write: Up to 490MB/s
Maximum 4K random R/W IOPS: 80K/35K
*Performance may vary based on SSD capacity, hardware test platform, test software, operating system, and other system variables. Operating temperature 0~70°C Storage temperature -40~85°C Shock resistance 1500G/0.5ms MTBF 1,500,000 hours Warranty 3 years
The 240GB SP550 drive itself is very lightweight at only 37grams. The shell is one part plastic and the other part is aluminum, latched together with a screw in the middle holding both shells with the PCB sandwiched in between.
Naturally, removing the center screw voids the warranty because users have to go through the front label first. There is also a warranty void label on the side.
Just like the ADATA SX930, the PCB is only half-length for the 240GB model. There are eight 16nm Micron TLC NANDs labeled NW782 with part number MT29F256G08EECBBJ4. ADATA has announced partnership with Micron last year although some earlier ADATA SP550 models use 16nm SK-Hynix flash which has strategic partnership with Silicon Motion.
The Silicon Motion SM2256 controller is paired with a 256MB Samsung K4B2G1646Q DDR3L-1600 DRAM populating one socket close to the controller although the PCB has a slot for another one directly behind it. The PCB is also a lot less busy than the SX930 with less components providing power failure protection which is unfortunate although understandable as a cost-saving effort.
[section_title title=Test System and Benchmarks]
Test System and Benchmark Results for the ADATA SP550 240GB SSD
Test SSD was connected via Intel SATA with Intel RST iaStorA 14.8.0.1042 drivers installed. C-states and EIST disabled for the Intel Core i7-6700K CPU and Windows power saving set to high-performance. The system is left to idle for a period of time after each run. Benchmarks are provided “as-is” in screenshot form for full transparency. As with the rest of our reviews, performance behaviour is the goal instead of simply direct comparisons. All the benchmarks here are easily reproducible and requires no special hardware that cannot be purchased by the public.
To simulate typical consumer drive performance, the operating system was loaded on the test drive and is written at least 5x its total size and settled to 75% capacity which will be compared with the fresh out of box/secure erased performance. All tests were performed at least three times for accuracy.
Processor Intel Core i7-6700K (ES) Motherboard EVGA Z170 FTW (1.08 BIOS) CPU Cooler
Noctua NH-D15S Graphics 2x8GB HyperX Savage 2666MHz DDR4 Video Card Gigabyte GTX 960 2GB Drive OCZ Vertex 4 (OS-Fresh out of box)
ADATA SX930 240GB 5.9E BIOS (OS-75%)
Case DimasTech Mini v1 Power Supply Corsair HX850W Operating System Windows 10 Pro
ADATA has an SSD Toolbox software free for download for monitoring, updating firmware and secure erasing an ADATA SSD. The drive info page shows a graphical overview of the drive health including temperature, bytes written and estimated life remaining.
While the SSD Toolbox and its utilities are compatible with Windows 10, secure erase can only be performed on a Windows 7 system. The toolbox version and firmware can be updated here as well as OS optimizations for those running a non-Windows 10 OS.
Crystal Disk Mark benchmarks read and write tests for sequential, 512K, 4K and queue depth 32 4K:
AIDA64 (formerly Everest) has a disk benchmark suite that measures read performance (in MB/s) and shows average read access. The test is set to 1MB block size.
ATTO disk benchmark is a 32-bit compressible data benchmark that measures read and write speeds across various file transfer sizes from 0.5KB to 8192KB to show SSD behaviour.
Unlike ATTO, AS SSD uses incompressible data for benchmarking and can measure read/write performance in MB/s or in iops. AS SSD also has a Copy Benchmark which simulates ISO, Game and program performance, providing both speed and access time results.
Anvil Storage Utilities is a comprehensive storage testing program that provides plenty of information and option for each test. For this review, 100% incompressible, 46% incompressible (simulating Applications) and 0-fill compression data were used to observe behaviour across.
PCMark 8 from Futuremark is a semi-synthetic testing suite that has a specialized Storage testing performance feature. It simulates storage performance while playing games, running productivity and creative programs and generates a total score based on how long each test took and the storage device behaviour during its 3-set run.
[section_title title=Final Thoughts about the ADATA SP550]
Interestingly, the ADATA SP550 performs fast and there is no doubt that for most people it is difficult to tell it apart from the likes of the more expensive ADATA SX930 in a blind test. For $0.25-per-GB, it certainly is an impressive performance-price ratio. For those with older SandForce based SATA drives, the SM2256+TLC NAND combo effectively replaces those now in the SSD product stack and there are a lot more options to choose from as well.
Performance is not everything however and ultimately the user buying this will be spending the most time with it and not the reviewer so it’s just fair to delve into what buyers are actually going to get instead of just showing benchmarks. It is often what the benchmarks cannot show that are more important. With that said, is the use of TLC still a concern, even for budget drives?
TLC has been around for a while now but it has higher error-rate by nature compared to other types so it required a proper controller pairing. Samsung was first with their 840 SSD because they have the muscle to produce it, but for other manufacturers who rely on third party controllers, they simply had to wait. Despite the lower cost of production, this lack of proper controller negated any possible value of creating a TLC based SSDs until Silicon Motion came around with their SM2256 controller.
The SM2256 is the first commercially available controller supporting TLC. Oddly, while most other controllers are using multi-core ARM controllers, the SM2256 is a single-core 32-bit Argonaut RISC processor. While this is an efficient design, it presents the downside of bottle-necking multiple IOs. Silicon Motion introduces the NANDXtend feature on these controllers. That is the marketing name for their own brand of error-correcting technology which fits well with the TLC concerns. This NANDXtend feature combines Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) ECC bit correction into LDPC hard/soft decode then finally RAID data recovery to overcome the TLC limitations. This method, Silicon Motion claims, extends TLC NAND program-erase cycle up to 3x. ADATA claims a total-bytes written of 90TB for the 240GB model with a 3-year warranty so they have enough confidence in this technology to give it more than one year.
*ADATA SX930 Benchmarks for comparison: http://www.modders-inc.com/adata-xpg-sx930-240gb-sata/2/
The SM2256+TLC NAND combo used on the ADATA SP550 is also shared with the Crucial BX200, as well as Mushkin’s Eco3 and is being adopted further by others. OCZ also has a TLC offering but uses a Toshiba controller. ADATA even offers the SP550 up to 960GB but be aware that while the performance in the benchmarks shows decent performance, this solution is not ideal for those looking for low-cost video production storage or other activities where large file sizes are involved as that is where this solution is weaker. Once the cache is full, the write-rates will drop considerably. In fact, the write speeds on a regular 7200RPM HDD are a lot faster in comparison when this happens. Read speeds are unaffected and relatively strong so it still is a very good option otherwise if speed and value is a necessity such as fast storage for programs and games, but it is not recommended if using a TLC drive in a production system.
Currently, the SP550 offers the best price-performance among its SM2256+TLC NAND peers. ADATA extends the value further with Acronis True Image HD and management software with a spacer adapter which helps it even further. At only $58.99, it is the lowest priced TLC solution currently in the market.
[sc name=”recommended_hardware_award” ]
ADATA SP550 240GB SATA SSD Review: $0.25-per-GB Reality With current storage controllers having no problem saturating the SATA interface, a different kind of race emerges; one that is unusually focused towards the bottom with an eye on delivering the lowest per GB cost.
