Server SSDs from ADATA, Intel and Seagate at the price of regular vs OCZ Vector

server SSDs from ADATA, Intel and Seagate at the price of regular vs OCZ Vector
– 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.

Most recently, the laboratory has swung into acquaintance with server solid-state drives, however, the choice for the first time was not very successful: the OCZ Deneva 2 C Async drive did not demonstrate anything impressive or interesting in terms of performance. On the other hand, it was taken by accident and unscheduled – simply because it was in the same price category with other test SSDs.

It was decided not to leave this topic aside, and Regard, at our request, provided three so-called Enterprise SSDs for testing, and for comparison, the familiar and well-known OCZ Vector was taken. All drives have a physical capacity of 128 GB – almost a classic today. True, the manufacturers disposed of this volume somewhat differently.

So, let’s introduce our new members:

Prices are indicated at the time of this writing.

Test participants

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ADATA SX1000L 100 Гбайт (ASX1000LS3-100GM-C)

The ADATA drive is designed for use in server systems. Without knowing this, it can easily be confused with a regular solid-state drive from the same company:

A standard box with a transparent window through which you can see the SSD case.

On the reverse side, an unobtrusive design. Is the package contents different? Yes, not at all!

It includes a plastic blister that contains the drive itself, a sealing frame for installation in seats designed for a 9.3 mm SSD case thickness (ADATA SX1000L thickness is 7 mm), an adapter for installation in a seat designed for a standard 3.5 ”HDD, and mounting screws. The set includes instructions and a license key for the Acronis True Image backup software.

Let me give you some fun. Really, funny: this program is intended solely for home use and, according to the Acronis license agreement, its use for corporate and / or business purposes is illegal. A present for the sysadmin for his home computer? Not at all: only the buyer of the SSD has the right to use this license key, which the system administrator is not formally. An incident, however. So the meaning of the bundled Acronis True Image key remains a mystery.

The design of the SSD case was not surprising either: we have the same ADATA in front of us.

In terms of filling, the disk is boring and simple to the point of disgrace: it uses 20 nm memory labeled 29F64G08ACMF3 manufactured by IMFT. The standard version 5.0.7 LSI SandForce is used as a firmware. I have already encountered such a bundle when testing Silicon Power S70 120 GB and V70 120 GB.

Additionally, the drive is equipped with data protection in the event of an unexpected power outage.

Intel DC S3500 120 Гбайт (SSDSC2BB120G401)

This is the most interesting among the solid-state drives considered in this review. And it is also the newest, since it was presented to the general public only a little over three months ago.

The drive was delivered to the OEM package for testing.

The set includes only a sticker for the case of the system unit.

Unlike conventional “household” SSDs, the DC S3500 model is tamper-resistant: access to one of the screws is blocked by a sticker with technical information about the product.

There is quite detailed information about a specific drive instance (serial number, release date, factory version of the firmware, etc.).

It should be noted that the information on the label is not entirely reliable: the characteristics indicate that the SSD is powered by two lines with different voltages of 5 V and 12 V. As measurements have shown, in reality (at least with this instance) the line with voltage of +5 V is not used in operation (even at the moment of switching on) and the drive works fine even with a physically open power circuit. Only + 12V is involved. If you open this line, leaving only +5 V, the solid state drive is not detected by the system.

But the bottom of the drive often plunges inexperienced users into bewilderment, if not shock. Intel’s proprietary SSD design – get used to it.

The solutions of the DC S3500 series (codenamed “Wolfsville”), although they received a model number close to the DC S3700, use the usual MLC NAND, produced according to the 20 nm process technology at the joint venture of Intel and Micron (IMFT) and, accordingly, have a lower declared resource. which is still noticeably higher than conventional models. So, for example, a guaranteed rewriting resource of at least 70 TB is promised (let me remind you that the OCZ Vector has half it).

The Intel PC29AS21CA0 controller was initially aimed at the corporate market, but judging by the latest news, it has recently gotten the prospect of making its way to retail. It is he who supports overclocking (its base frequency can be increased by more than one and a half times), while the current Intel solutions present in the retail market now are based on LSI SandForce controllers and do not have such functionality. This is why this SSD is interesting: most likely, the controller underlying it will become the base of Intel’s new retail drives.

A single 256 MB DDR3-1600 Micron D9PFJ buffer memory chip works in conjunction with the controller. On the drive board, you can find two capacitors manufactured by Nippon Chemi-Con, each with a capacity of 47 microfarads – this drive, among other things, supports Power Lost Data Protection technology, which ensures the saving of SSD cache data during power outages. Thus, in the event of a sudden power outage, data will not be lost: the disk will automatically correctly complete all file operations, having lost any power from the outside.

Despite the fact that Intel DC S3500 is a server drive, it is fully supported by the usual custom Intel SSD Toolbox:

Secure Erase, TRIM, performance tests, search for bad flash memory locations, one-click firmware updates. At the same time, the program interface is fully and competently translated into Russian, there is also a full-fledged help system, and also in Russian:

However, there is a small subtlety: after executing Secure Erase, it is recommended to run the “Intel SSD Optimizer” command, which somewhat increases the speed of read operations (it was after its execution that the results of the Intel model were recorded).