The Western Digital Blue (1TB) SSD Review: WD Returns to SSDs

After completing the acquisition of SanDisk, Western Digital is entering the consumer SSD market under its own brand with new SSDs derived from existing SanDisk product lines. As with their hard drives, the Blue SSD is a mainstream mid-range product, in this case using the SanDisk X400’s combination of SanDisk 15nm TLC and Marvell’s 88SS1074 controller.

Today we’ll be taking a look at the 1TB drive, how it compares to its sibling, the X400, and whether it can find its place in the highly competitive mainstream SSD market.

Plextor Launches S2C SSDs: 16 nm SK Hynix TLC NAND and SMI SM2258

Plextor has introduced its new family of entry-level SSDs, which could become the most affordable drives in the company’s lineup in the coming months. The S2C SSDs use TLC NAND flash memory made by SK Hynix using 16 nm process technology as well as a controller from Silicon Motion.

Plextor has its own history with TLC NAND-based as well as SMI-powered SSDs and the S2C family is the first time, when the manufacturer combined the inexpensive memory and an affordable controller. The company originally planned to release its first SSD featuring TLC memory in mid-2015 and even demonstrated a drive featuring Marvell’s 88SS1074 controller as well as Toshiba’s TLC NAND at CES 2015. After months of evaluating the configuration, Plextor decided to proceed with Toshiba’s MLC memory and Silicon Motion’s SM2246EN controller for its M6V SSD. In April 2016, the company finally released the M7V, its first drive based on TLC NAND memory produced by Toshiba using its 15 nm process technology. The Plextor S2C is the second TLC-based SSD by the company, which targets the low-end of the market.

The S2C features Silicon Motion’s SM2258 controller (which has four NAND flash channels and supports LDPC ECC technology) as well as SK Hynix’s TLC NAND made using planar 16 nm process tech, a combination found in Intel’s 540s SSDs. SMI’s SM2258 controller is a relatively new IC, which is why some SSD makers plan to use it for 3D NAND-based drives (e.g., ADATA’s SU800) because of compatibility with the memory as well as presumable low cost. Being cautious and due to slow ramp of SK Hynix’s 3D NAND, Plextor decided to use the SM2258 controller with planar TLC NAND from the South Korean company.

Plextor’s S2C drives come in 2.5”/7mm form-factor with SATA interface and are available in 128 GB (PX-128S2C), 256 GB (PX-256S2C) and 512 GB (PX-512S2C) configurations. Plextor is specing the highest-capacity S2C at up to 520 MB/s for sequential reads and up to 480 MB/s for sequential writes, but more affordable models sport slightly lower write speeds. As for random performance, we are dealing with drives capable of 98,000/78,000K read/write IOPS. Unlike many low-cost SSDs today, the S2C features DRAM cache to guarantee decent performance of write operations. In addition, Plextor promises that its S2C drives will sustain their performance over prolonged periods.

The Plextor S2C will be joining in a pretty crowded party ot entry-level SSDs. The drives will naturally compete against Plextor’s own M6V, M7V and M6S Plus. In addition, they will have to rival Intel’s 540s drives, which are not only very affordable, but also come with a five-year warranty (Plextor only offers a three-year warranty with its S2C).

Plextor has not announced MSRPs for its S2C drives and right now the products are absent from large U.S.-based retailers. Given performance numbers declared by the manufacturer, the S2C should be cheaper than the other entry-level drives sold under this brand.

ADATA Launches XPG SX8000: High-End M.2 NVMe SSD Featuring 3D MLC NAND

ADATA on Thursday introduced its first lineup of SSDs powered by 3D MLC NAND flash memory. The XPG SX8000 drives promise up to 2.4 GB/s read speed as well as the enhanced reliability of 3D NAND.

ADATA’s XPG SX8000 lineup of SSDs will include 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB and 1 TB configurations, offering different levels of performance at different price points. The drives are based on Silicon Motion’s SM2260 controller (which sports two ARM Cortex cores, has eight NAND flash channels, LDPC ECC technology, 256-bit AES support and so on) and 3D MLC NAND flash from an unknown manufacturer (IMFT is the most likely supplier, but SK Hynix is a possible supplier as well). The drives come in M.2-2280 form-factor and use PCIe 3.0 x4 interface.

The manufacturer rates XPG SX8000’s sequential read performance at up to 2400 MB/s and its write performance at up to 1000 MB/s when pseudo-SLC caching is used. As for random performance, the new drives can deliver up to 100K/140K 4KB read/write IOPS.  It is important to note that the 128 GB model is considerably slower than other SKUs in the family and the drive needs 512 GB configuration to demonstrate all the capabilities of the SM2260 controller.

Since the SX8000 SSDs belong to ADATA’s flagship XPG lineup, the company ships such drives with a five-year warranty. Moreover, thanks to improved reliability of 3D NAND compared to traditional planar NAND made using ultra-small process technology, the manufacturer also rates the XPG SX8000 for two million hours MTBF, 0.5 million (or 33%) higher compared to previous-gen XPG SSDs.

For several years, Samsung has been the only supplier of high-end SSDs based on 3D MLC NAND flash memory, offering high performance and improved reliability. Recently companies like IMFT started mass production of their 3D NAND for SSDs and independent makers of drives can now release their own SSDs featuring 3D MLC flash. Being one of the largest suppliers of NAND-based storage devices, ADATA is naturally among the first to offer advanced SSDs powered by 3D MLC with its XPG SX8000 family. But what is noteworthy is that last month Micron (which co-owns IMFT with Intel) decided to cancel its 3D MLC/SM2260-based Crucial Ballistix TX3 M.2 SSDs for an undisclosed reason. As a result, ADATA gets to join a rather exclusive club of non-Samsung M.2 NVMe drive vendors. Unfortuantely however, prices have yet to be announced, so we’ll have to see if (and by how much) ADATA pushes prices below what Toshiba and Samsung have been charging for their own M.2 NVMe SSDs.

Finally, along with today’s release, ADATA is also prepping an upgraded version of the XPG SX8000 due in late October, which will feature increased performance. The upcoming SSDs are primarily geared towards desktop users and will require a heatsink, making them incompatible with the vast majority of notebooks.

Gallery: ADATA Launches XPG SX8000: High-End M.2 SSD Featuring 3D MLC NAND