Top SSD in the first quarter of 2018
Recently, not so many new solid-state drives have appeared, and the deployment of 64-layer 3D-NAND is happening very slowly.
The most notable newcomer to the SSD in recent months has become the Intel Optane SSD 900p. In almost all respects, it is the fastest SSD on the market, and its price is much lower than that of the Optane SSD DC P4800X, but there is one thing - the high price is 900p, and this still does not make the acquisition of this drive a reasonable choice when evaluating the price / price ratio speed.
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The above are recommendations on how to make a good choice in each market segment. Some offers are not of the cheapest options in their segment, but they are still high-quality products, which are worth paying a little more.
The table below is a brief overview of SSD drives, which, in our opinion, are a good choice for purchasing according to certain criteria in the current market.
As usual, these prices are valid only at the time of writing. We cannot predict when and by whom the best discounts will be offered. These data should be considered as a guide among the best deals on the market. All the drives presented here are the models we tested, they are of the same capacity or form factor, and in most cases we did not test each capacity and form factor. You can get information about drives that were not mentioned in this guide in our SSD Bench database.
The largest consumer segment of the SSD market is 2.5-inch SATA drives, which are used as the only storage device in the system or the main drive where the OS is stored, plus most of the programs and data. This market segment, of course, offers the largest number of options, and surely every SSD brand has at least one model in this segment.
Currently, the mainstream SATA-drive must be at least 240 GB. This is enough for the operating system, everyday applications and data, but it won't be enough space to store a large library of games, movies or photos. Therefore, for this segment, we recommend products that all use 3D NAND flash memory. Older models using planar NAND are usually much slower if they use TLC, or much more expensive (and sometimes just difficult to access) if they use MLC.
The Samsung 850 EVO is not the fastest SATA SSD, but it sets the standard for most solid-state SATA drives. SanDisk Ultra 3D and its twin WD Blue 3D NAND are almost as fast as the 850 EVO, and a bit cheaper. The Crucial MX300 is even cheaper, but it sacrifices performance for the price, especially on low volume drives.
Intel 545s are still a bit more expensive than most drives in its segment, which suggests that Intel and Micron were not able to manufacture enough of their 64-layer 3D-NAND on a sufficient scale. Although their prices are close to competitive, we probably should wait a few more months before Intel and Micron can match the prices of other 64L NAND products.
There are users who are interested only in "small" solid state drives. They know that their storage needs are modest, or they simply plan to store most of their data on a mechanical hard drive. As practice shows, the purchase of the cheapest solid-state drives with free space in the form of a couple of hundred GB may not be the best solution in terms of benefits: the ratio of the price of GB and the much lower performance (fewer parallel chips) are not encouraging.
This year, the 128 GB capacity class is a thing of the past. This volume is still enough for the operating system and a certain number of applications and documents, but such a disk is very quickly filled when storing games, movies or photos. The selected SATA drives with a capacity of 240 GB and higher are not available in ~ 128 GB versions, which requires a separate comparative table. Such a drive is most likely used in an almost full state, which leads to a decrease in performance.
The choice in this segment is very simple: Crucial BX300. This is the only accumulator that, for its cheapness, does not have serious drawbacks. Thanks to the Micron 3D MLC NAND and the high-quality Silicon Motion SM2258 controller, instead of the cheaper DRAMless, it outperforms regular budget drives. And its price is only a few dollars higher than for the cheapest TLC SSDs. On larger drives, its price is already less attractive.
The market for consumer solid-state drives NVMe has expanded so much that it can be divided into segments of entry-level and high-end. This separation will become more apparent in the next generation of products, where younger PCIe 3 x2 SSD controllers will debut, but even now you can see a noticeable difference between the Intel 600p and Samsung 960 PRO.
Almost all consumer NVMe SSDs use the form factor M.2 2280, and have many built-in PCIe cards. Heat sinks on many additional cards, as a rule, increase the price, without giving a real performance boost, so our recommendation for SSM NVMe is all solid-state drives of the form factor M.2.
The latest generation of 64-layer 3D-NAND has not yet hit the NVMe SSD market. It seems that Samsung is unlikely to provide a replacement for its 960 PRO and 960 EVO before the end of the year. The Toshiba XG5 is stingy with information about what 3D NAND has to offer, and the retail version hasn’t been announced. Western Digital / SanDisk also did not introduce any consumer PCIe SSD using 3D NAND. There is a 64-layer 3D-NAND from Intel, available for the consumer market in the form of a single SATA drive, but otherwise the technology is still aimed at the corporate SSD market.
There are some changes in the controllers for NVMe SSD. Marvell announced a non-critical update to its 88SS1093 controller at the beginning of this year, but it has not yet been applied to any of the supplied products. The new generation of NVMe controllers from Silicon Motion was announced at the Flash Memory Summit, and it seems that, although they can offer much-needed performance improvements over the current SM2260 controller, the product is still a few months from being ready for release. Drives using the Phison entry-level E8 controller are likely to appear as soon as the Toshiba 64L 3D NAND becomes a widely available product. Their new high-performance controller E12 will be released later.
Intel Optane SSD 900p raises the bar for high-performance SSD characteristics, but this speed is very expensive. The 900p price for a gigabyte is more than twice as expensive as the fastest SSD-drive based on flash memory. In almost all cases, the larger Samsung 960 drive, which is only slightly inferior in speed, would be a better choice. The performance advantage of the 960 PRO compared to the 960 EVO of the same capacity is impressive, but it hardly justifies the additional cost when choosing a drive for real use.
This high level of performance is unlikely to get when using a 256-gigabyte disk: 250GB 960 EVO is much slower than its larger counterparts, and the 256GB 960 PRO simply does not exist. The closest alternative would be a 256GB OEM SM961, available from some retail suppliers, but without the guarantee and support that Samsung official retail products receive.
Drives using PCIe x2 controllers or the NVMe memory buffer function have not yet entered the retail market, so the initial level of NVMe is mainly determined by the use of TLC NAND or planar MLC. These discs are generally divided into two categories: those using a Phison E7 controller with a Toshiba 15 nm MLC, or those using a Silicon Motion SM2260 controller with Intel / Micron 3D NAND. There are a few exceptions when drives using a Marvell controller offer products at an entry-level price.
MyDigitalSSD BPX, as usual, is one of the cheapest Phison E7 drives, and the 2.1 firmware version it comes with is a good choice for a real working machine. BPX is currently the cheapest NVMe 120 GB drive. Being one of the leaders in performance, the 1TB Intel 600p is unsurpassed. Yes, this is the slowest NVMe drive, but it is still faster than any SSATA SSD on lightweight workloads, and is only slightly more expensive than the best SATA SSDs, such as the Samsung 850 EVO. In the 256 GB class, the Samsung 960 EVO is one of the cheapest and fastest options, but for heavier workloads, the Phison disc with the MLC may be a better choice.
(Please note that the above performance data for the Patriot Hellfire should be indicative of MyDigitalSSD BPX and any other Phison E7 drive with firmware 2.1).
In M.2 laptops, SATA has almost completely replaced mSATA. Several laptops use shorter M.2 sizes of 2242 or 2260, but most support lengths up to 80 mm. There are far fewer options for M.2 SATA compared to 2.5 ″ SATA, but most modern SATA drives are also available in versions M.2. Currently, there are almost no premium products for M.2 versions of these discs, so the recommendations here are practically the same as for 2.5-inch discs: the affordable price and low power consumption of the Crucial MX300 among the high-capacity discs make it the best choice. On small volumes, it makes sense to pay a little more for better performance of WD Blue 3D.
Thank you for staying with us. Do you like our articles? Want to see more interesting materials? Support us by placing an order or recommending to friends, 30% discount for Habr users on a unique analogue of the entry-level servers that we invented for you: The whole truth about VPS (KVM) E5-2650 v4 (6 Cores) 10GB DDR4 240GB SSD 1Gbps from $ 20 or how to share the server? (Options are available with RAID1 and RAID10, up to 24 cores and up to 40GB DDR4 RAM).
Dell R730xd 2 times cheaper? Only we have 2 x Intel Dodeca-Core Xeon E5-2650v4 128GB DDR4 6x480GB SSD 1Gbps 100 TV from $ 249 in the Netherlands and the USA! Read about How to build an infrastructure building. class c using servers Dell R730xd E5-2650 v4 worth 9000 euros for a penny?
The most notable newcomer to the SSD in recent months has become the Intel Optane SSD 900p. In almost all respects, it is the fastest SSD on the market, and its price is much lower than that of the Optane SSD DC P4800X, but there is one thing - the high price is 900p, and this still does not make the acquisition of this drive a reasonable choice when evaluating the price / price ratio speed.
')
The above are recommendations on how to make a good choice in each market segment. Some offers are not of the cheapest options in their segment, but they are still high-quality products, which are worth paying a little more.
The table below is a brief overview of SSD drives, which, in our opinion, are a good choice for purchasing according to certain criteria in the current market.
As usual, these prices are valid only at the time of writing. We cannot predict when and by whom the best discounts will be offered. These data should be considered as a guide among the best deals on the market. All the drives presented here are the models we tested, they are of the same capacity or form factor, and in most cases we did not test each capacity and form factor. You can get information about drives that were not mentioned in this guide in our SSD Bench database.
Mainstream 2.5 "SATA: Samsung 850 EVO, WD Blue 3D / SanDisk Ultra 3D
The largest consumer segment of the SSD market is 2.5-inch SATA drives, which are used as the only storage device in the system or the main drive where the OS is stored, plus most of the programs and data. This market segment, of course, offers the largest number of options, and surely every SSD brand has at least one model in this segment.
Currently, the mainstream SATA-drive must be at least 240 GB. This is enough for the operating system, everyday applications and data, but it won't be enough space to store a large library of games, movies or photos. Therefore, for this segment, we recommend products that all use 3D NAND flash memory. Older models using planar NAND are usually much slower if they use TLC, or much more expensive (and sometimes just difficult to access) if they use MLC.
The Samsung 850 EVO is not the fastest SATA SSD, but it sets the standard for most solid-state SATA drives. SanDisk Ultra 3D and its twin WD Blue 3D NAND are almost as fast as the 850 EVO, and a bit cheaper. The Crucial MX300 is even cheaper, but it sacrifices performance for the price, especially on low volume drives.
Intel 545s are still a bit more expensive than most drives in its segment, which suggests that Intel and Micron were not able to manufacture enough of their 64-layer 3D-NAND on a sufficient scale. Although their prices are close to competitive, we probably should wait a few more months before Intel and Micron can match the prices of other 64L NAND products.
Small and Cheap SATA: Crucial BX300
There are users who are interested only in "small" solid state drives. They know that their storage needs are modest, or they simply plan to store most of their data on a mechanical hard drive. As practice shows, the purchase of the cheapest solid-state drives with free space in the form of a couple of hundred GB may not be the best solution in terms of benefits: the ratio of the price of GB and the much lower performance (fewer parallel chips) are not encouraging.
This year, the 128 GB capacity class is a thing of the past. This volume is still enough for the operating system and a certain number of applications and documents, but such a disk is very quickly filled when storing games, movies or photos. The selected SATA drives with a capacity of 240 GB and higher are not available in ~ 128 GB versions, which requires a separate comparative table. Such a drive is most likely used in an almost full state, which leads to a decrease in performance.
The choice in this segment is very simple: Crucial BX300. This is the only accumulator that, for its cheapness, does not have serious drawbacks. Thanks to the Micron 3D MLC NAND and the high-quality Silicon Motion SM2258 controller, instead of the cheaper DRAMless, it outperforms regular budget drives. And its price is only a few dollars higher than for the cheapest TLC SSDs. On larger drives, its price is already less attractive.
Solid State Drives NVMe
The market for consumer solid-state drives NVMe has expanded so much that it can be divided into segments of entry-level and high-end. This separation will become more apparent in the next generation of products, where younger PCIe 3 x2 SSD controllers will debut, but even now you can see a noticeable difference between the Intel 600p and Samsung 960 PRO.
Almost all consumer NVMe SSDs use the form factor M.2 2280, and have many built-in PCIe cards. Heat sinks on many additional cards, as a rule, increase the price, without giving a real performance boost, so our recommendation for SSM NVMe is all solid-state drives of the form factor M.2.
The latest generation of 64-layer 3D-NAND has not yet hit the NVMe SSD market. It seems that Samsung is unlikely to provide a replacement for its 960 PRO and 960 EVO before the end of the year. The Toshiba XG5 is stingy with information about what 3D NAND has to offer, and the retail version hasn’t been announced. Western Digital / SanDisk also did not introduce any consumer PCIe SSD using 3D NAND. There is a 64-layer 3D-NAND from Intel, available for the consumer market in the form of a single SATA drive, but otherwise the technology is still aimed at the corporate SSD market.
There are some changes in the controllers for NVMe SSD. Marvell announced a non-critical update to its 88SS1093 controller at the beginning of this year, but it has not yet been applied to any of the supplied products. The new generation of NVMe controllers from Silicon Motion was announced at the Flash Memory Summit, and it seems that, although they can offer much-needed performance improvements over the current SM2260 controller, the product is still a few months from being ready for release. Drives using the Phison entry-level E8 controller are likely to appear as soon as the Toshiba 64L 3D NAND becomes a widely available product. Their new high-performance controller E12 will be released later.
High-quality NVMe: Samsung 960 EVO and Samsung 960 PRO
Intel Optane SSD 900p raises the bar for high-performance SSD characteristics, but this speed is very expensive. The 900p price for a gigabyte is more than twice as expensive as the fastest SSD-drive based on flash memory. In almost all cases, the larger Samsung 960 drive, which is only slightly inferior in speed, would be a better choice. The performance advantage of the 960 PRO compared to the 960 EVO of the same capacity is impressive, but it hardly justifies the additional cost when choosing a drive for real use.
This high level of performance is unlikely to get when using a 256-gigabyte disk: 250GB 960 EVO is much slower than its larger counterparts, and the 256GB 960 PRO simply does not exist. The closest alternative would be a 256GB OEM SM961, available from some retail suppliers, but without the guarantee and support that Samsung official retail products receive.
NVMe entry level: MyDigitalSSD BPX, Intel 600p
Drives using PCIe x2 controllers or the NVMe memory buffer function have not yet entered the retail market, so the initial level of NVMe is mainly determined by the use of TLC NAND or planar MLC. These discs are generally divided into two categories: those using a Phison E7 controller with a Toshiba 15 nm MLC, or those using a Silicon Motion SM2260 controller with Intel / Micron 3D NAND. There are a few exceptions when drives using a Marvell controller offer products at an entry-level price.
MyDigitalSSD BPX, as usual, is one of the cheapest Phison E7 drives, and the 2.1 firmware version it comes with is a good choice for a real working machine. BPX is currently the cheapest NVMe 120 GB drive. Being one of the leaders in performance, the 1TB Intel 600p is unsurpassed. Yes, this is the slowest NVMe drive, but it is still faster than any SSATA SSD on lightweight workloads, and is only slightly more expensive than the best SATA SSDs, such as the Samsung 850 EVO. In the 256 GB class, the Samsung 960 EVO is one of the cheapest and fastest options, but for heavier workloads, the Phison disc with the MLC may be a better choice.
(Please note that the above performance data for the Patriot Hellfire should be indicative of MyDigitalSSD BPX and any other Phison E7 drive with firmware 2.1).
M.2 SATA: Crucial MX300 and WD Blue 3D
In M.2 laptops, SATA has almost completely replaced mSATA. Several laptops use shorter M.2 sizes of 2242 or 2260, but most support lengths up to 80 mm. There are far fewer options for M.2 SATA compared to 2.5 ″ SATA, but most modern SATA drives are also available in versions M.2. Currently, there are almost no premium products for M.2 versions of these discs, so the recommendations here are practically the same as for 2.5-inch discs: the affordable price and low power consumption of the Crucial MX300 among the high-capacity discs make it the best choice. On small volumes, it makes sense to pay a little more for better performance of WD Blue 3D.
Thank you for staying with us. Do you like our articles? Want to see more interesting materials? Support us by placing an order or recommending to friends, 30% discount for Habr users on a unique analogue of the entry-level servers that we invented for you: The whole truth about VPS (KVM) E5-2650 v4 (6 Cores) 10GB DDR4 240GB SSD 1Gbps from $ 20 or how to share the server? (Options are available with RAID1 and RAID10, up to 24 cores and up to 40GB DDR4 RAM).
Dell R730xd 2 times cheaper? Only we have 2 x Intel Dodeca-Core Xeon E5-2650v4 128GB DDR4 6x480GB SSD 1Gbps 100 TV from $ 249 in the Netherlands and the USA! Read about How to build an infrastructure building. class c using servers Dell R730xd E5-2650 v4 worth 9000 euros for a penny?
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/410903/
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