Speed up any PC: Top 5 SSDs of 2017

 

High reading speed, very low cost.

 

 

There is no operational buffer, low write speed outside the SLC cache.

 

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Radeon R3 SSD is AMD's second attempt to gain a foothold in the solid–state drive market. The first one was called AMD Ruby and was nothing more than a renamed OCZ Arc 100 disk. Now we have an independent creation of AMD, albeit made on a widely distributed on the market bundle of Silicon Motion SM2256KX controller and 16 nm planar TLC memory SK Hynix.

Marking Radeon R3, by analogy with video cards, indicates belonging to the low-cost series of AMD products. And indeed, at the moment it is one of the cheapest, if not the cheapest, SSD on the market. It was possible to achieve low cost by using the simplest possible controller (SM2256KX replaced the even simpler SM2246EN, which could not work even with a fast-wearing TLC memory) and the rejection of buffer RAM, which, however, was expected with the advent of virtual SLC caching technology.

This technology programmatically combines several sections of slow TLC memory into one small in volume (from 1 to 4 GB), but much faster array (RAID 0). As a result, files that are smaller than the virtual SLC cache are written to disk quickly, and files that exceed the volume are written slowly. In the case of a Radeon R3 SSD, the sequential write speed of the SLC cache is 470 Mbps, and the TLC memory itself is only 50 Mbps. Therefore, we can recommend this SSD for purchase only for those who need the cheapest SSD exclusively for educational and office tasks, but not for resource-intensive games and, especially, professional applications.

Last year, the most popular SSD controller on the market was the Phison PS3110-S10. This year it was replaced by the updated PS3111-S11. It would seem that disks based on it should have become faster. But firstly, there is simply nowhere to increase the speed of linear reading, since it has long rested on the bandwidth of the SATA III bus. And secondly, the main trend in the SSD market is a total reduction in price. As a result, the Goodram CX300, one of the first drives with the S11 controller, turned out to be even simpler than the previous model CX200.

The CX300 is built on a 15nm Toshiba TLC planar flash memory. Its connection with the S11 controller is also used in other popular SSDs, for example Kingston A400 SA400S37/240G 240 GB Price from 1 049 up to 2 099 ₴ and Patriot Memory Spark PSK256GS25SSDR 256 GB . By the way, the claimed memory capacity of 240 GB for the CX300 and A400 instead of 256 GB for Spark is not at all a disadvantage. It's just that the companies Goodram and Kingston indicated the volume of disks without taking into account the backup 16 GB inaccessible to the user, and Patriot – taking into account. The actual capacity of all three disks is the same.

Unlike SSDs on a bundle of SMI-Hynix, Goodram CX300 and similar disks have buffer RAM. However, it is only 32 MB and it is built right into the Phison S11 controller. For comparison, the SSD on the S10 controller had from 128 to 512 MB of ultrafast buffer. The CX300 also has a virtual SLC cache, and at the end of it, the write speed is also significantly reduced — from 460 to 80 Mbps. However, Toshiba's TLC memory is still one and a half times faster than SK Hynix. That is why we recommend the Goodram CX300 to build an entry-level gaming PC.

 

High read speed, bonus 35 GB of space, large RAM buffer, large SLC cache.

 

 

Low write speed outside of the SLC cache.

 

The Crucial MX300 is a vivid example of how all cheap SSDs will look in the near future. The fact is that the planar (two-dimensional) flash memory ran into the physical limitations of the 15/16-nm process technology. Further reducing the size of flash memory transistors is too expensive, if at all possible. The only way out of the impasse is to switch to three-dimensional memory, the cells of which are packed in layers in the chip.

Thus, the 3D NAND TLC chips used in the Crucial MX300 produced by IMFT (a joint venture between Intel and Micron) have 32 layers of transistors (Samsung has 48 layers more complex in production) and a record 48 GB crystal capacity on the market (the competitor has only 32 GB). Precisely because of the atypical capacity of the crystal (there are two crystals in each memory chip), the volume of the disk is not the usual 240, but an increased 275 GB (three chips without taking into account the reserve area).

In addition to the IMFT 3D NAND flash memory, the MX300 has a Marvell 88SS1074 controller with support for 256-bit AES data encryption, 256 MB of buffer RAM and a virtual SLC cache significantly larger than most other TLC disks, the volume is 10 GB. Due to this, the problem of falling write speed on large files will annoy very rarely. All this plus the bonus 35 GB of capacity is clearly worth paying a little more for the Crucial MX300 than they ask for a very simple SSD with planar TLC memory.

Compact solid-state drives of the M format.2 finally began to gain popularity, which was facilitated by several factors at once. Firstly, relatively inexpensive motherboards with an Intel B250 chipset supporting M.2 went on the market (see the article "4+1 best motherboards for Intel Kaby Lake processors").

Secondly, even mid-price laptops, not to mention expensive ones, began to be equipped with an M slot.2 instead of the outdated mSATA. Thirdly, the SSDs themselves are M.2 have significantly fallen in price and are now only a little more expensive than conventional SATA. A good example is an inexpensive SSD M.2 is WD Green.

It is important to distinguish between two types of M.2 disks: AHCI and NVMe. The first ones work via the SATA bus, so they are limited to a speed of 550-560 Mbps. The latter function via the PCI-E interface and are capable of overclocking up to 2200 MB /s. WD Green is a representative of the first, slower, but also more accessible type.

WD Green is built on a conventional two-dimensional TLC memory with all the consequences: the need for an SLC cache and a significant drop in speed after its completion. However, now it's either that, or pay one and a half or two times more expensive for MLC. The target audience of WD Green is those who want to minimize the confusion of cables inside the PC (M.2 is attached directly to the motherboard without additional wires), as well as laptop owners who want to install an SSD without losing HDD.

 

High read and write speed, large operational buffer, durability.

 

 

There are no significant drawbacks.

 

The fastest consumer solid-state drive is Samsung 950 PRO M.2 MZ-V5P256BW 256 GB , but it is extremely problematic to find it on the market now. The fact is that Samsung is faced with a shortage, paradoxically, of its own flash memory. The 950 Pro uses the latest third generation of Samsung 3D V-NAND MLC memory with 48 transistor layers. Samsung is not yet able to produce such complex semiconductor products in large batches. As a result, the demand for the flagship Samsung 950 Pro exceeds the supply.

In search of an alternative, pay attention to the Samsung 850 Pro with a second-generation three-dimensional memory. It is produced in sufficient quantities: both TLC, which is used in Samsung Evo series SSD, and MLC for Pro models. Moreover, two-bit MLC memory can withstand three times more rewriting cycles than three-bit TLC.

The Samsung 850 Pro drive is made in the form of a classic 2.5-inch disk, unlike the 950 Pro model with the M.2 NVMe form factor. The SATA interface, of course, limits the read speed to 550 Mbps, but MLC memory remains equally fast when writing even large files (stable 520 Mbps).

The NVMe interface theoretically would allow the disk to accelerate even faster, but in fact, after a few minutes of active load, it would still slow down to the SATA level due to overheating of the controller. So there is little loss. Due to the high cost, we can only advise the purchase of Samsung 850 Pro to avid gamers and users of resource-intensive professional software who require a consistently high speed of operation and increased wear resistance from SSD.