JMicron and Phison in 120-128GB SSD drives. Is a real alternative to SandForce and Marvell?

JMicron and Phison in 120-128GB SSD drives. Is a real alternative to SandForce and Marvell?
– Today will will take a look at the Specs, Hashrate, CPU performance and also a testing of this SSD Drive. We will go into more details as it regards to the testing in the article below.

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Small Standard Foreword

The solid state flash storage (SSD) market is under pressure from price competition. As a result, companies are forced to constantly seek ways to reduce production costs.

Manufacturers of the first echelon and “close” ones with special contracts (Crucial-Micron, Intel, LiteON, Plextor, Samsung, SanDisk, Toshiba, Transcend, etc.), as a rule, more or less comply with the original specifications of the released model, maneuvering in pricing policy due to a higher margin, as well as the scale of production. Although they can also present surprises.

Companies that order finished products from ODM / OEM-manufacturers with their own brands (ADATA, PQI, PNY, Silicon Power, SmartBuy, etc.) are often deprived of this opportunity. Therefore, they apply a policy of making the price cheaper by choosing cheap hardware configurations (non-original flash memory, asynchronous flash memory instead of synchronous one, simplified controller, etc.). In this case, the formal name of the model of this or that drive during its hardware “modernization” most often remains the same.

Therefore, when reading the review, you should also check the availability of newer materials on this model (not necessarily of the same volume) in the corresponding section of articles – as far as possible, we try to track changes in hardware platforms. There is a separate section on drives on Phison controllers – there is a special conversation about this developer (for example, GoodRAM C100, SmartBuy Ignition 2 and Silicon Power V55 / S55 were at one time the same drive, just with different labels and packaging).

And an overview of a particular drive at a certain moment turns into a historical reference for advanced readers and those who, by the will of fate, became the owner of the old configuration, which is often no less valuable than a reflection of the current state of affairs in the solid-state drive market. This is normal in view of the rapid growth and development of the latter.

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Continuation.
Choosing SSD 120-128 GB: test of four models OCZ, ADATA, Kingston and Silicon Power.
Choosing SSD 120-128 GB: test of three models ADATA, Crucial and Transcend.
Choosing a 90-128 GB SSD: so different and all together. Kingston, Plextor, Samsung, SanDisk and SmartBuy.

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Introduction

Overclockers.ru and Regard company continue a joint project to test SSD drives. By unfortunate coincidence of circumstances, one of the ordered solid-state drives did not reach us, so only four models will be considered in this review.

List of participants:

Actually, the essence is the same: how good are drives based on other controllers than SandForce and Marvell?

On the example of 60-64 GB drives, it has already become clear that everything is not as scary as it might seem (especially, given the initially tarnished reputation of JMicron as a manufacturer of SSD controllers). The new JMicron JMF667H and Phison PS3108 controllers are quite capable of competing on equal terms, or even overtaking the SF-2281 – the most popular controller in the class of cheap drives today.

However, it is worth remembering that 60-64 GB models are usually slower than their older counterparts. Perhaps this rule does not apply to newcomers to the summary review? Or, at that time, the limit of their performance was obtained and the speed will not increase with the growth of the volume? Let’s try to figure it out a bit.

Test participants

Crucial V4 128 Гбайт (CT128V4SSD2)

This time, the drive was taken in the basic configuration (here you can learn about the principles of labeling and the different delivery of Crucial models; in that review, although it is talking about a more productive version, the labeling scheme is the same), that is, with its complete absence and minimum size packing.

The back of the box contains various information about the Crucial V4, including consumer specifications. There is no set, there is only a small booklet.

The design of the drive is modest.

But on the sticker on the back of the SSD, you can find information about the version of the firmware that was flashed into it at the factory. This might be helpful.

The drive is based on Micron’s 25nm MLC NAND memory and uses a Phison PS3105-S5 as a controller. The memory buffer is 128 MB.

On the official Crucial website, you can download a small program for creating a bootable USB media with a flasher that updates the device’s firmware:

This utility was created by the efforts of Phison itself – this is the standard software for drives on their microcontrollers.

SMART modest, temperature monitoring not available:

Only the number of starts and the number of hours worked are directly displayed from the statistics for the Crucial model.

After creating the file system (MBR, NTFS), 119.24 GB becomes available to the user.

Silicon Power S50 128 Гбайт (SP128GBSS3S50S25)

Most recently, the lab has already reviewed the junior model of the S50 Silicon Power line. And it turned out to be quite interesting in terms of the level of performance. What will the average model be? Average in the literal sense – the S50 line consists of three products, the most capacious of them received a volume of 256 GB.

The design of the box is traditional for the manufacturing company.

On the reverse side there was a place for a small (but not exhaustive) amount of information about the drive.

Inside the package is a plastic box with a solid state drive, a small instruction sheet, and four screws to secure the SSD.

You will not find any 2.5 ” – 3.5 ” adapters here, just as there is no frame for installation in a standard seat (after all, the considered Silicon Power S50 is made in Slim format, in other words, the thickness of the case is 7 mm, not 9.5 mm).

The drive body is anodized metal.

There is practically no information on it – only the name and volume are engraved. The bottom of the drive is also empty:

From a technical point of view, it is no different from the junior 64 GB model: the same JMicron JMF667H and MLC NAND memory manufactured by Intel. 256 MB DDR3-1333 is used as a buffer.

After creating the file system (MBR, NTFS), 119.24 GB becomes available to the user.

The disc is not supplied with proprietary software of the manufacturer.

PQI S522 SSD 120 GB (6522-120GR102A)

Before us is a drive from another manufacturer, whose name is by no means associated with the production of hard drives. PQI is more familiar with USB sticks, a little with RAM modules, and very little with external hard drives (the filling of which, again, is foreign). Apparently, the company decided to expand its product range by launching SSDs.

The box is dark red with a transparent window through which you can see the drive itself.

The reverse side of the package contains various information about it, including consumer characteristics.

It is quite possible to say that the contents of the box are already known, because the plastic box inside contains only the solid-state drive itself and a small warranty card.

The PQI drive is housed in a black, rough-to-touch metal case. On the front side there is a proprietary sticker indicating the model code and serial number.

On the other side, there is nothing.