The fastest ssd for the operating system. Should you upgrade from a hard drive to an SSD? Which memory is better: MLC or TLC

Many of the computer users periodically think about upgrading their equipment, and one of the modern and effective methods of upgrading is to install a solid state drive or SSD in tandem on a personal computer or laptop, and, as an option, instead of the already familiar HDD (hard drives or hard drives) .

But since bulk solid-state drives have become widespread not so long ago, many users are rather poorly oriented in them. Should I buy an SSD drive for my computer? Which is better? There are a number of key differences that characterize SSDs. We will try to tell you about them. And then we will consider individual models of the main manufacturers.

SSD is an abbreviation that translates into Russian, roughly like "solid state drive". It is a non-mechanical data storage device. It has no moving parts, unlike the mechanical and familiar to all of us HDD. An SSD consists of memory chips and a control controller. On average, the exchange rate when working with data (data read and write operations) for an SSD drive is 100 times higher than for an HDD. So, for example, the response speed of hard drives is in the range of 10 - 19 milliseconds, and solid state drives operate in the range of 0.1 - 0.4 milliseconds. For the SSD user, there are several strengths and weaknesses of such equipment.

Positive points:

• High data processing speed - both reading and writing.
• Low power consumption and low heating during operation.
• Complete absence of noise during operation.
• Small dimensions of the device.
• Resistance to mechanical damage, electromagnetic fields, temperature extremes.
• Stable data processing speed, independent of the level of data fragmentation.

Negative points:

• The high cost of the device.
• Exposure to electrical influences.
• Limited number of data overwrite cycles.
• The possibility of losing information without the possibility of its recovery.

Key figures of SSD

Drive capacity

When purchasing an SSD, first of all, we pay attention to its capacity and must select it depending on the tasks that we plan to perform on such a device.

When working in the standard user mode as a home multimedia device with small toys and basic simple tasks, you can choose a small SSD - it will install the operating system and software, and archives of data such as photos, movies, documents, etc. can be stored on the second device - the good old HDD. A 60-64 GB SSD is fine.

If the user sets tasks for the equipment a little more difficult, such as working with video editors, project software and other professional applications, you will have to purchase a larger SSD. In this case, we can recommend drives with a capacity of 120-128 GB of memory.

In turn, the gamer will need an even larger drive, because modern games occupy quite large sections of disk space. Here it would be better to look at the SSD with a capacity of 240-256 GB.

In the case of a complete transition of the user from HDD to SSD, there are already high-capacity SSD models on the device market - 480, 960 GB and higher.

Of course, first of all, you will have to focus on the financial capabilities and tasks that you personally set for your personal computer. The cost of solid state drives directly depends on their volume. Simple storage of data that is not dealt with daily is still more expedient to store on more capacious and cheaper, albeit slower, HDDs.

It is worth knowing about the following nuance of an SSD: the larger the capacity of the drive, the higher the speeds it will work. The difference in the speed of reading and writing data can increase two to three times depending on the amount of memory. For example, SSDs of the same model range, produced by the same company, with a capacity of 128 GB will give us speeds up to 200 Mb / s, and with a capacity of 512 Gb - more than 400 Mb / s. This is due to the fact that during its operation, the SSD controller accesses all the memory crystals in parallel and, accordingly, the higher the capacity - the higher the number of crystals - more parallel operations.

You can also pay attention to the fact that different manufacturers indicate different volumes of disks with, it would seem, the same capacity group. For example, 120 and 128, 480 and 512. The fact is that on these disks the volume is 128 and 512 GB, respectively, but the manufacturer, for one reason or another, reserves part of the memory of their drives (this reserve is usually intended to even out the wear of flash memory cells and to replace those cells that fail).

Drive connection interface

The speed of work when upgrading a computer by installing an SSD drive on it directly depends on its interface for connecting to the motherboard.

Many current SSDs come with a SATA 3 interface. In the event that your motherboard has SATA 1 or SATA 2 controllers, the SSD connected to them will not be able to work with the full output and speeds declared by its manufacturer. To solve this problem, you need to install a SATA 3 controller on the motherboard, otherwise the upgrade will be insufficient, if not almost imperceptible. Modern SSDs are ready to give speeds when writing data up to 400 Mb / s, and when reading up to 500 Mb / s. This speed can only be ensured by working with the SATA 3 connection interface, since SATA 2 is designed for data exchange rates up to about 270 Mb / s, and SATA 1 is even lower - no more than 150 Mb / s.

In addition to the usual connection of a drive to SATA ports, there are SSD drives with a PCI-express connection interface, which are installed in the corresponding ports.

There are M.2 form factor drives that can also be connected to PCI-express and PCI ports through an additional adapter.

drive controller

Flash memory cells do all their work with the rest of our computer systems through the controller chip built into the SSD. Many performance indicators of the drive depend on this controller, such as: speed, memory life, resistance to data corruption in cells, as well as support for various technologies that improve SSD performance. There are many controllers currently available, and even one manufacturer of solid state drives uses different controllers in different models. It should be noted that controllers from such manufacturers as Marvell, Samsung, Intel have proven themselves in the best way. Phison and SandForce SSD controllers show themselves worthy in the middle class. It is worth paying attention to SSDs with reliable Indilinx controllers.

It is not always easy to deal with the models of certain controllers, so you should pay attention first of all to a well-known brand (due to the fact that quality control of production from well-known manufacturers is still much higher), to actually conducted tests of a specific selected drive model and to declared manufacturer specifications.

Drive memory type

One of the most important technical indicators of an SSD is on which the drive is built. Modern manufacturers create their devices on three main types of memory, which differ in the number of memory bits per physical cell:

• NAND TLC - 3 bits of information per 1 physical cell
• NAND MLC - 2 bits of information per 1 physical cell
• NAND SLC - 1 bit of information per 1 physical cell

Both the cost of the drive and the duration of its “life”, that is, the possible number of rewriting cycles, directly depend on the technology used to create the memory. The cost of memory decreases as the number of bits per physical cell increases, but this reduces the possible number of rewrite cycles that a given cell can withstand. That is, in simple terms, a 128 GB SSD with a TLC memory type will cost much less than an SSD of the same capacity, but with an MLC memory type, but it will also survive a relatively small number of rewrite cycles. Approximate figures are as follows: the write limit on drives built on TLS memory is only 1000 cycles; on MLC memory - up to 3 thousand cycles; and the SLC type, in turn, can withstand from 5 to 10 thousand rewriting cycles.

When buying an SSD, it seems to be the best option with a NAND MLC type of drive memory, since NAND SLC type of memory is usually used in the most expensive segment of solid state drives and, rather, is necessary for work at server stations where data is constantly overwritten. At the same time, delighting us with their cheapness, NAND TLC SSDs can upset us by losing their performance much earlier than we expect.

Modern technologies do not stand still, and to replace the previous types of memory, leading companies are already starting to produce types of memory for SSDs built on new types of architecture. After the previous in-plane memory cells, Samsung, followed by Toshiba, together with SanDisk and Intel, together with Micron, are developing 3D NAND technology, which can significantly improve the performance of previous bit-cell construction models. Currently, SSDs with 3D NAND memory technology are among the most expensive segment of the solid state drive market.

Drive Clipboard

The presence of a clipboard (cache) based on DDR3 memory speeds up the SSD somewhat, but also makes it more expensive for the buyer. The calculation is simple - for 1 GB of disk space for optimal operation of a drive with this type of cache, there should be 1 MB of DDR3 memory. That is, an SSD with a capacity of 120-128 GB should have 128 MB DDR3 memory, with a capacity of 480-512 GB - 512 MB DDR3, and so on.

Cheaper models of SSD drives have a clipboard based on older types of memory - DDR2. The difference in the speed of drives on different types of clipboard is not a significant indicator.

Drive blackout protection

SSD drives based on DDR3 clipboard should ideally be equipped with power outage protection technology. The technology is called "Power Protection" and allows you to save data from the clipboard to memory in case of a sudden blackout. The same function is performed by an ordinary UPS (UPS), allowing you to gracefully shut down the data. So if you have a UPS or a non-DDR3 SSD clipboard, this feature does not really matter.

TRIM function

Depending on the manufacturer, SSDs support a wide variety of technologies that are created to improve their functionality. The most important of these technologies for SSDs is the . A non-TRIM-equipped solid state drive will operate at a reduced speed when working with memory locations that have previously been saved and then deleted. This is due to the fact that before a new write to previously used memory cells, the SSD is forced to clear them first. While the TRIM function clears previously used memory cells in advance at the time of not very active disk use. So the TRIM function is a "garbage collection" function and it is important for maintaining the overall speed of the SSD during the second and subsequent rewrites of data to memory cells. Without TRIM, the speed of the drive drops very noticeably.

Understanding SSD Manufacturers

Consider further the main manufacturers of SSD drives. Does it make sense to buy not-so-cheap new equipment made by completely unknown manufacturers, albeit at more attractive prices? It is rightly believed that well-known brands make higher demands on their production and care about product quality much more than those who do not have to maintain a decent level of equipment put on the market. When buying a drive from an unknown company, we simply get a "pig in a poke".

Let's list the manufacturers under whose brand reliable products are produced, which have long and firmly established themselves in the market of electronic devices.

• Toshiba is one of the oldest and most famous SSD brands. They do not simply assemble devices, but also have their own production of flash memory and have adequately proven themselves in the long-term production of HDDs.
• Samsung is a well-known company, one of the leaders in the SSD market. They have made and continue to do many developments in the field of solid-state drives. The company completes SSD flash memory and controllers of its own production.
• Intel is also a leading company in the production of modern equipment and the latest technological developments. Devices manufactured by Intel, as a rule, belong to the expensive price segment, but are usually distinguished by extreme reliability. Some of the SSD models are produced by it on its own controllers, and flash memory is created at its own production facilities (jointly with other well-known companies). A five-year warranty from Intel also perfectly characterizes the equipment from this company.
• Crucial is a brand name used by the well-known company Micron in the production of SSD drives. Many users have long been familiar with Micron products and are used to trusting them. Micron's flash memory is produced in conjunction with Intel, and the controllers it installs in its equipment are Marvell controllers. At the same time, Crucial drives, in terms of their cost category, are focused on the budget segment of the market.
• Corsair is a manufacturer that has long proven itself in the electronic equipment market. SSD drives produced by them are somewhat more expensive, but they fully support the high quality of their model lines. Corsair is attentive to the components of its solid state drives and uses in the production of SSD controllers from manufacturers that have proven themselves in this market - Phison, SandForce, LAMD. They produce several lines of SSDs.
• SanDisk is a fairly popular brand that cares about the quality of its products. SSDs are equipped with flash memory, which is used by Toshiba, which we have already named. The company has long been engaged in the production of equipment one way or another related to solid state drives - USB flash drives, memory cards.
• Plextor - SSD for this brand is manufactured by Lite-On. The quality, however, is very decent. Plextor SSDs are equipped with Intel-Crucial (Micron) or Toshiba flash memory, and controllers are all installed from the same Marvell. Drives marketed under the Plextor brand have some of the best performance in speed and reliability.
• Kingston is a company that has been firmly entrenched in the electronic equipment market for a long time. On the market, it is represented by a fairly wide range of SSD drives, which are equipped with controllers from well-known manufacturers - Phison, SandForce.

As we have already said, when purchasing a solid state drive, you need to focus, first of all, on your budget and the tasks that you set for new equipment. But the fact that the equipment must be of a proven manufacturer, with a sufficiently long warranty is beyond doubt. The market for solid state drives is large, however, we summarize our recommendations.

1. It is better to purchase a well-known brand with a reliable long-term warranty.
2. The manufacturer of the controller is no less important than the manufacturer of the memory cells.
3. The higher the total volume of the disk, the higher its speed performance.
4. The lifespan of an SSD primarily depends on the technology used to create the memory cells. Optimal technology - MLC type of drive memory.
5. When purchasing an SSD, you need to consider how new equipment will be connected, that is, the interface for connecting it to the system should be clear to you.
6. TRIM support is important.

Dealing with SSD prices

Here are some of the best, in our opinion, SSD options.

Among models designed for the average user with a capacity of 120/128 GB, you can pay attention to SSD data, they can be purchased from 3.5 to 4.5 thousand rubles:

• Intel SSDSC2KW120H6X1
• Kingston SUV400S37/120G
• Toshiba THN-S101Z1200E8

Acceptable models with a capacity of 250 GB will cost from 5 to 10 thousand. You can pay attention to such as:

• Samsung MZ-75E250BW
• Kingston SV300S37A/240G

A good choice would be larger SSD models (480/512 GB), the cost will be from 10 to 15 thousand:

• Samsung MZ-75E500BW
• Plextor PX-512M8PeY
• Intel SSDPEKKW512G7X1

Large-capacity drives will cost more - the cost starts on average from 20 thousand:

• Samsung MZ-7KE1T0BW
• Intel SSDSC2BX012T401
• Samsung MZ-75E2T0BW

If you have already begun to decide on specific SSD models for purchase, you should find detailed user reviews on the Internet about them, try to evaluate all aspects of specific models, even from well-known manufacturers.

In conclusion, a few quick tips on how to extend the life of your SSD.

• Do not fill the disk "to the eyeballs" - 20-30% of free space is necessary for it to work normally;
• Take care of uninterrupted power supply - a sudden shutdown is harmful to the SSD;
• Thermal conditions - SSD, like any electronic equipment, does not like overheating - take care of cooling.

Drives for testing provided by the company "Regard where there is always a wide choiceSSDat favorable prices

Flash-based solid-state drives have firmly entered our lives. They provide high speed data access - which is why they are used in a large proportion of personal computers today. In fact, any modern productive configuration implies the presence of an SSD with a volume sufficient at least to install the operating system and basic programs.

However, prices for flash-based drives remain high enough to completely replace classic hard drives. For a flash drive with a volume of 2 TB, for example, you will have to spend about $ 800, and an HDD of the same volume will cost 6-7 times cheaper. Therefore, to date, the two-level organization of the disk subsystem has become an unspoken standard, which implies the simultaneous presence of a high-speed solid state drive of a small volume and a capacious mechanical hard disk. In this combination, the SSD plays the role of a system drive, and the HDD is designed to store user files and a multimedia library.

More recently, users who decided to join the SSD were guided by this particular scheme and purchased mainly solid-state drives from 60 to 128 GB, which contained only the operating system and a couple of the most actively used programs. And sometimes even Intel's Smart Response technology was used, which allows using a small SSD to organize caching of any accesses to a relatively slow HDD. That is, due to the high prices for solid state drives, users had to go to certain tricks and try to get by with an SSD as small as possible.

However, recently the situation has changed somewhat. Improvements in the design of flash memory chips, the development of new technological processes, as well as increased competition among manufacturers of solid state drives have had a very large impact on the prices of consumer SSD models. Since the beginning of 2015 alone, the cost of running models of client flash drives has fallen by more than one and a half times. And this, of course, changed the preferences of buyers. Of course, in most cases it has not yet been possible to get away from the two-level disk subsystem, but rather capacious models have often been used as system drives, which allow you to save not only the operating system and basic software packages, but also a number of games on a fast medium. Therefore, it is not surprising that 256-gigabyte models have become the best-selling SSDs to date. Actually, it is for this reason that our laboratory pays special attention to tests of SSDs with such a capacity: we almost always get acquainted with the performance of new products using the example of modifications with a volume of 256 GB.

However, this does not mean that 128-gigabyte SSDs have become completely unpopular overnight. In fact, their sales are only marginally inferior to those of twice the capacity drives. And this is understandable: for inexpensive configurations, a 128 GB SSD is more affordable, and many users simply do not need high-speed storage devices with more capacity. Therefore, our readers often turn to us for advice: which of the modern SSDs is better to buy if you have to choose from among offers with a capacity of 128 GB.

Unfortunately, our regular tests of drives with a capacity of 256 GB or more do not allow us to give an unambiguous answer to the question of how SSDs with a capacity of 128 GB perform in real life. The fact is that such models differ from their older counterparts in terms of internal architecture - and this inevitably affects their performance. A relatively small 128 GB flash array requires fewer NAND devices than usual, resulting in a reduction in the level of parallelism of the entire NAND array within the drive. And this not only makes the 128 GB SSD noticeably slower than larger offerings, it also reduces the load on the controller, which somewhat smooths out the differences between productive and budget SSD platforms. In sum, all this means that in small drives, the speed of the flash memory used has the primary impact on the final performance, while a powerful controller is not necessary to get good performance. Therefore, when comparing SSDs with a capacity of 128 GB, the leaders may not be the models that are usually considered flagship solutions. And consequently, the question of the optimal choice of drives of such a volume is by no means an idle one.

With all that said, our lab decided to turn to the 128GB SATA SSD performance study and did a lot of pooled testing that should definitively answer the question of which small-capacity SSDs make sense to buy today. It is worth noting that this testing is valuable not only because we tested a large number of different SSD models. A separate advantage of the performed study lies in the fact that it was carried out simultaneously. That is, all performance measurements were taken on an unchanged test system with the latest version of the Windows 10 operating system with the latest drivers and on the latest firmware versions. Moreover, all the drives featured in the comparison were taken from retail immediately before the tests, that is, the results obtained characterize exactly those SSD versions that you can currently buy in the store.

A Brief Overview of Tested SSDs

ADATA Premier SP550 120 GB

ADATA is famous for its passion for experimenting with SSDs. Very rare combinations of controller and memory can be found in its product line, and the new Premier SP550 model is just one of those products that has no analogues among other manufacturers' offerings. The fact is that ADATA decided to be one of the first to test the new Silicon Motion SM2256 controller, which is the next version of the popular SM2246EN controller with an added hardware error correction algorithm based on LDPC ECC (low density code). This algorithm is more efficient than the commonly used BCH ECC, which allows you to combine the rather capricious TLC NAND with the new controller and at the same time guarantee an acceptable level of data storage reliability for client SSDs.

It is according to this scheme that the ADATA Premier SP550 is made. In it, the SM2256 chip works with SK Hynix's TLC NAND, manufactured using 16nm technology. The flash memory array of this drive consists of eight NAND devices connected to the controller via four channels. And this means that the Premier SP550 is a budget solution with relatively low performance.

However, the SP550 uses special technologies to mask the low speed of the flash array. So, it provides for the technology of SLC caching of write operations. This means that a small part of the memory array is put into fast SLC mode and serves as a Write-Back cache. The effective size of this area in the 120 GB version of the SP550 is about 2.5 GB.

There are no complaints about the declared reliability: the SP550 is given a standard three-year warranty, and its declared endurance is 90 TB of records.

ADATA Premier SP610 128 GB

The older brother of the previous drive, the Premier SP610, is based on the older Silicon Motion SM2246EN controller, which does not have TLC NAND support. Therefore, the SP610 belongs to a higher class - it uses a full-fledged MLC NAND, manufactured by Micron using a 20-nm process technology.

However, despite this, the SP610 is still an inexpensive solution. The SM2246EN controller is a typical budget chip: it has a single-core design and RISC architecture, and communicates with flash memory via four channels. In addition, the Premier SP610 uses 128 Gigabit MLC NAND devices. Therefore, the level of parallelism of the flash memory array in ADATA Premier SP610 is relatively low, and this significantly limits the performance of this solution, especially on write operations.

ADATA Premier Pro SP920 128 GB

The ADATA Premier Pro SP920 model has been on the market for a long time, however, it continues to be in steady demand and therefore is in no hurry to move into the category of obsolete products. The secret of its popularity is the use of the Marvell 88SS9189 controller, which has won the title of one of the best platforms for SATA SSDs. This is a complete and powerful eight-channel controller, which is usually based on the most advanced solid state drives.

But Premier Pro SP920 still can not be called a flagship product. The fact is that in fact it is produced by Micron, and ADATA only distributes it through its own channels. Micron, on the other hand, did not create competitors with similar characteristics for its own Crucial MX100 / MX200 series with its own hands, but suggested using its own MLC NAND in the Premier Pro SP920, manufactured using the old 20-nm process technology. Moreover, the capacity of flash memory devices that fall into the SP920 is 128 Gbit, that is, the degree of parallelism of the memory array is not too high - only one NAND device is connected to each controller channel.

As a result, the ADATA Premier Pro SP920 can only claim to be a mid-range offering. However, his noble birth gives hope for high reliability. For example, although this SSD only has a three-year warranty, it claims a relatively good write resource of 72 TB. In addition, the Premier Pro SP920's circuitry provides hardware protection for the address translation table against power surges, which is usually not implemented in consumer-grade offerings.

ADATA XPG SX930 120 GB

The XPG SX930 is one of ADATA's most original hard drives. And the point is not only that it is based on a rare JMicron JMF670H controller. Much more interesting is that, having staked on this budget four-channel platform, ADATA engineers tried to create from it such a product that could adequately look on a par with the flagship SATA SSDs.

To solve this problem, two different methods were used at once. The reliability of the ADATA XPG SX930 has been enhanced with a special flash memory, which the manufacturer calls the term MLC+. In fact, this is almost an ordinary 16-nm MLC NAND manufactured by Micron, but with an important addition in the form of FortisFlash technology. This technology extends the life of flash memory cells through the use of intelligent cell management algorithms and special controller software settings. Unfortunately, ADATA does not disclose specific details regarding the effectiveness of using FortisFlash MLC, however, unlike all other drives from this manufacturer, the XPG SX930 comes with a full five-year warranty.

The second method to improve drive performance is pseudo-SLC caching. Usually this strategy is typical for drives using TLC NAND, but in the case of the XPG SX930, a similar approach was also applied to SSDs based on MLC memory. And here it is quite appropriate, because the level of parallelism of the memory array of this SSD is minimal, since the NAND devices used in the XPG SX930 have a 128-gigabit capacity, and the JMicron JMF670H controller works with a flash memory array only through four channels. The effective size of the SLC cache in the 128 GB version of the XPG SX930, according to our estimates, is about 3 GB, and its presence allows ADATA to indicate rather high performance indicators for this drive in the specifications.

Crucial BX100 120 GB

Under the Crucial trademark, two lines of solid-state drives are traditionally supplied: the older one, MX, and the younger one, BX. However, in the amount of 120 GB, there are only cheap Crucial BX100 drives, while the flagship MX200 series has a minimum capacity of 250 GB. This is due to the fact that Micron, which owns the Crucial brand, puts flash memory with a core size of 128 Gbit in its modern SSDs. Accordingly, the memory array in the 120-gigabyte modification of the drive receives a low level of parallelism, and it does not make much sense to use a powerful hardware platform with it.

The Crucial BX100 120 GB is a typical budget SSD, based on a four-channel single-core Silicon Motion SM2246EN controller. It works with a flash memory array, which is assembled from Micron chips manufactured using 16-nm technology. And this means that in terms of hardware, the BX100 is very similar to many other similar SSDs, for example, to the same ADATA Premier SP610.

However, there is one important difference. Micron has a strong engineering team, so the Crucial BX100 is not assembled from the reference design provided by the controller developers. It has its own layout and proprietary firmware that Micron engineers have optimized to improve performance over most SSDs based on the SM2246EN chip.

Intel SSD 535 120 GB

Intel has long ceased to be one of the leading manufacturers of consumer-grade SSDs. Now it is almost entirely focused on the server segment and offers only slightly adapted server models for ordinary users. With one exception, which is the Intel SSD 535 and its earlier versions. However, the SSD 535 is produced by Intel rather out of inertia, and simply because many buyers pay attention to Intel's SSDs from old memory. In fact, this is a modern variation of the Intel SSD 520, an ancient Intel drive that was released at the very beginning of 2012.

In other words, the Intel SSD 535 is almost the only current drive that uses the memorable SandForce SF-2281 controller. And this is a very unflattering characteristic, since, firstly, the SF-2281 is outdated, and secondly, it has a lot of problems, starting with a low speed when working with poorly compressible data and ending with performance degradation over time. However, Intel engineers developed their own firmware for the SF-2281 and were able to significantly improve the efficiency of this hardware platform. Of course, this did not make the SF-2281 controller modern or flagship, but at least it is Intel's 500 series SSDs that are by far the best embodiment of the SandForce platform.

As for memory, the Intel SSD 535 uses low-cost MLC NAND chips from SK Hynix, manufactured using a 16-nm process technology. Moreover, the capacity of these chips is 128 Gb, and due to the low level of parallelism of the flash memory array, the Intel SSD 535 is clearly slower than the original Intel SSD 520. However, to compensate for the negative impact of large NAND cores on performance, the developers implemented an accelerated pseudo- SLC records, and as a result, the Intel SSD 535 manages to compete almost on an equal footing with modern budget drives from other manufacturers.

Nevertheless, the Intel SSD 535 is far from a flagship, but, on the contrary, a solution with rather mediocre performance parameters and an unreasonably high price. There is only one consolation in this situation: the Intel SSD 535 has not lost its vaunted Intel reliability and inherited a full five-year warranty from its predecessors.

Kingston SSDNow V300 120 GB

Apparently, Kingston SSDNow V300 can be classified as one of the most popular solid state drives. However, he managed to become so not at all due to technological superiority. The secret of SSDNow V300's popularity lies in the low price and marketing policy of its manufacturer.

You should start with the fact that the Kingston SSDNow V300 is based on the outdated SandForce SF-2281 controller with a lot of unresolved problems: performance degradation and low speed when working with poorly compressible data. But on the other hand, it is cheap and, provided it is equipped with high-quality flash memory, it can compete with modern four-channel controllers of the lower price range.

Actually, from the very beginning, fast MLC NAND was installed in the SSDNow V300, which allowed it to gain a reputation as a fairly attractive solution in terms of price and performance. However, about a year ago, without any warning, Kingston changed the filling of this drive, and less good flash memory took the place of good flash memory. As a result, today's SSDNow V300 uses Micron's 20nm MLC flash with asynchronous access. It is worth recalling that such memory could be found in cheap solid state drives a few years ago, but then the industry completely abandoned it. But not Kingston, which, in order to reduce the price, decided to return to using this memory and gave its current drive features, for example, the old Kingston SSDNow V + 200 (if you still remember the existence of such a model).

However, in fairness it should be said that the asynchronous MLC NAND in terms of its speed approximately corresponds to TLC NAND, so against the backdrop of a new wave of budget solid-state drives based on three-bit memory, the Kingston SSDNow V300 looks quite normal.

Kingston HyperX Fury 120 GB

In fact, Kingston HyperX Fury is a converted SSDNow V300, sold by the manufacturer under the more prestigious HyperX gaming brand. However, if we talk about the hardware platform, then, just like in SSDNow V300, it consists of an SF-2281 controller from 2011 and MLC NAND with asynchronous access, produced by Micron using 20-nm technology. The configuration is not fast, but it is extremely cheap, simple and reliable.

Actually, it is the declared reliability that distinguishes HyperX Fury among ultra-budget solutions. Giving a three-year warranty on this drive, the manufacturer indicates an absolutely fantastic recording resource - 354 TB. This means that Kingston is confident that the asynchronous MLC NAND chosen for this SSD can withstand at least 3,000 write cycles. And if not for this, then HyperX Fury could be considered a solution of the same order with numerous SSDs on TLC memory.

Kingston HyperX Savage 120 GB

Kingston, I must say, is engaged not only in the promotion of inexpensive solutions - in its lineup there are also quite high-tech SSDs. One example is the new HyperX Savage drive, which is based on the fairly recent Phison PS3110-S10 controller. This controller is notable for its eight-channel architecture, which is almost never found in low-cost SSD platforms.

However, the main advantage of HyperX Savage lies not so much in the controller as in the memory. For this SSD, Kingston chose MLC NAND, manufactured by Toshiba using a second-generation 19nm process technology. Such a memory not only can boast a fast external interface Toggle 2.0, but also has a 64-gigabit core. This gives the HyperX Savage flash array parallelism twice that of most other 128GB SSDs. There are two NAND devices in each channel of the controller, and this puts HyperX Savage in a slightly more advantageous position among competitors.

As a result, the Kingston HyperX Savage 120 GB is able to compete in the same weight category with productive drives, even though the Phison PS3110-S10 controller does not belong to the top-level platforms. However, it should be borne in mind that HyperX Savage is still not quite a full-fledged flagship. The guarantee for this Kingston offer is given for only three years, albeit with a fairly high declared recording resource of 113 TB.

OCZ Trion 100 120 GB

Although the Trion 100 bears the OCZ name, its involvement in the creation of this SSD is minimal. In fact, Toshiba, which owns OCZ, is developing and manufacturing the Trion 100, while OCZ itself is responsible only for the final stages in the production chain - final validation, marketing and warranty service. But this only makes the Trion 100 more interesting, since Toshiba for this drive was able to take not the outdated Barefoot 3 controller, but the new Phison PS3110-S10.

It is worth noting that the Phison PS3110-S10 controller is good for its flexibility - it can work not only with MLC, but also with TLC memory. True, Phison engineers could not implement error correction based on LDPC ECC, and to ensure the integrity of information when using low-quality memory, solutions based on the PS3110-S10 use the traditional BCH ECC code. But even this turns out to be enough, because parity control is enhanced by proprietary SmartECC technology, which organizes a RAID-5 array at the page level of flash memory. As a result, the Phison PS3110-S10 turns out to be quite an acceptable platform for creating budget TLC drives. Actually, OCZ Trion 100 is just such an embodiment of this platform.

In the OCZ Trion 100 SSD, Toshiba uses its own TLC NAND, which is manufactured using the second generation 19nm process technology. Yes, this makes the Trion 100 not fast at all, since the TLC memory has a core capacity of 128 Gb and is characterized by an extremely low write speed, but this drive is quite inexpensive. The problem with speed is partially solved by the introduction of SLC caching, however, the effective cache size of the Trion 100 is quite small - about 0.5 GB.

As for reliability, the 120 GB OCZ Trion 100 comes with a three-year warranty and promises a 30 TB write resource, which is quite enough for a modern client SSD acting as a system drive.

OCZ Arc 100 120 GB

The Arc 100 is, unlike the Trion 100, OCZ's own drive. Therefore, it is based on the Barefoot 3 controller, designed by the Indilinx engineering team, which OCZ acquired in 2011. I must say that by modern standards, Barefoot 3 cannot be called productive, although it works with an array of flash memory via eight channels. But it effectively implements accelerated SLC-writing technology, and due to it, SSDs on Barefoot 3 stand out from competitors with high write speeds. The essence of the technology is that free MLC cells are first programmed in the one-bit SLC mode, and they are transferred to the usual two-bit MLC mode either when necessary or when the drive is idle.

However, the main advantage of the OCZ Arc 100 is not high write speeds, but the fact that its flash memory array is formed from Toshiba MLC NAND chips manufactured using the second generation 19-nm process technology, which have a capacity of 64 Gbps. This increases the degree of parallelism of the array and allows you to get relatively high performance not only when writing, but also when reading data.

At the same time, Arc 100 does not claim to be a top-level solution at all, since it uses a slower version of the basic Barefoot 3 M10 controller. And the warranty conditions are not at all typical for a flagship: its period is 3 years, and the recording resource is set at 22 TB, that is, Arc 100 is inferior even to its TLC counterpart Trion 100 in terms of declared endurance.

OCZ Vector 180 120 GB

To put it simply, the Vector 180 is a sped up version of the Arc 100 with a bit of elitism to it. The fundamental differences between these drives are the frequency of operation of the base controller. The Barefoot 3 M00 processor used in the Vector 180 is overclocked by about 13 percent. Otherwise, there is almost no difference: the memory in the Vector 180 is the same - Toshiba A19-nm MLC NAND with 64-gigabit cores.

But there is one caveat: the Vector 180, unlike the Arc 100 (and all other OCZ SSDs), received a redesigned power circuit. Past OCZ drives often failed due to power failures and violations of the integrity of the address translation table. To combat this problem, the supply circuits in the Vector 180 have been strengthened, and in addition, they have a capacitor that can provide energy to properly complete the work with the translation table. Data that is being processed at the time of a power outage does not save, but it effectively protects the SSD from a complete loss of performance.

As a result, OCZ presents its Vector 180 as a flagship and expensive solution. In accordance with this positioning, the warranty conditions are also given: its period for this drive has been extended to five years, and the allowed recording resource is 91 TB.

Plextor M6V 128 GB

Given the gradual decline in the price of consumer SSDs, manufacturers are forced to look for new approaches to reduce product costs. For example, Plextor, which until recently relied only on cooperation with Marvell for controllers, was forced to move to cheaper SSD platforms. And the Plextor M6V is the first example of a low cost platform. This drive uses a four-channel budget controller Silicon Motion SM2246EN. However, it's not such a bad choice. Today, this processor can be found in the mass of products, and leading SSD manufacturers do not disdain them.

The uniqueness of the Plextor M6V lies in the fact that, paired with the SM2246EN controller, it uses Toshiba's 15nm MLC NAND. This is a relatively new flash memory, for the production of which the technological process with advanced standards is used, and the transition to such a technological process has not only led to a near-record level of information storage density, but also made it possible to increase the speed of the NAND chip interface. As a result, subject to proper firmware optimization and a balanced marketing policy, the Plextor M6V can become one of the fastest and cheapest SSDs based on the Silicon Motion SM2246EN controller.

However, global performance records from the Plextor M6V still do not need to be expected. The memory used in it has 128-gigabit cores, which makes the flash memory array of this drive endowed with a relatively low level of parallelism. Naturally, SSDs using 19nm MLC memory with 64Gb cores, or SSDs built on eight-channel controllers, will be faster.

Plextor M6S 128 GB

But the M6S is just an inexpensive "old school" Plextor drive: it is assembled on the basis of a controller developed by Marvell. However, in this case, the drive is based not on one of the productive platforms, but on an inexpensive solution - a four-channel Marvell 88SS9188 controller. However, this is still a high-quality and solid platform that is capable of producing good speed results, especially in the 128 GB version, where the number of controller channels does not play a very significant role.

However, unlike other drives based on quad-channel controllers, the Plextor M6S has a clear advantage: it uses flash memory with 64 Gb crystals. More specifically, it uses Toshiba's MLC NAND, manufactured using the second-generation 19nm process technology. As a result, the degree of parallelism of the flash memory array in the M6S is the same as in the best solutions of a similar volume, and four NAND devices work in each of the four channels of the controller. The M6S is further strengthened by a set of technologies implemented by Plextor engineers at the firmware level, such as TrueSpeed, which provides garbage collection in flash memory in environments without TRIM support. In general, we have before us a strong middle peasant, who, although he has a fairly respectable age, still does not lose his position.

The only frustrating thing about the M6S is that the start of sales of this SSD was overshadowed by numerous cases of its failure when trying to update the firmware. But by now, it seems that the problem has been successfully solved. And today, the Plextor M6S is a product with the usual three-year warranty and a typical level of reliability.

Plextor M6 Pro 128 GB

The M6 ​​Pro is Plextor's flagship drive and uses a full eight-channel Marvell 88SS9187 controller. Moreover, thanks to the choice of such a platform for a 128-gigabyte drive, Plextor came up with a largely unique solution. The fact is that other manufacturers dealing with Marvell controllers, such as Crucial or SanDisk, do not use such a powerful stuffing in a 128 GB SSD. Therefore, the Plextor M6 Pro 128 GB rightfully claims to be one of the fastest SSDs in its weight category.

The flash memory chosen for it further strengthens the position of this drive - the M6 ​​Pro uses fast MLC NAND with 64 Gb cores, manufactured by Toshiba using the second-generation 19-nm process technology. Thanks to this, the memory array has the highest possible level of parallelism: there are two NAND devices in each channel of the controller.

The M6 ​​Pro is not without its proprietary plexor magic - TrueSpeed ​​technology, which allows you to replenish the pool of clean flash memory pages even in environments where TRIM technology is not supported. Added to this is a five-year warranty, not limited by any amount of recorded data, and as a result, it turns out that the Plextor M6 Pro is one of the flagship solutions, at least among 128 GB SSDs.

Samsung 850 EVO 120 GB

Due to the fact that Samsung offers technologically advanced and high-quality SSDs, it has so far managed to win almost 50 percent of the market share of consumer SSDs. And the main weapon thanks to which Samsung was able to quickly achieve such convincing results of its activities is precisely the 850 EVO. The secret lies in the fact that Samsung drives are completely formed from components designed and manufactured in-house. Accordingly, these components are perfectly matched to each other and allow you to obtain end products with a favorable combination of price and performance.

The uniqueness of the Samsung 850 EVO also lies in the fact that it uses the proprietary TLC V-NAND, which has no analogues from any of the flash memory manufacturers yet. Such memory is fundamentally different from conventional TLC: it has a three-dimensional layout with 32 layers and is manufactured using a conservative 40-nm process technology. As a result, in this memory, Samsung manages to combine both high storage density, that is, low cost, and high reliability: in terms of endurance, TLC V-NAND is not inferior to conventional planar MLC NAND. This is confirmed by the terms of the guarantee. Its term for the 850 EVO is set at five years, and the write resource is limited to a typical level of 75 TB for MLC drives.

Significantly better than conventional TLC-memory in three-dimensional TLC V-NAND is the case with performance indicators. Despite the fact that the volume of crystals used in the 850 EVO TLC V-NAND is 128 GB, this drive is positioned as a solid mid-range solution. To achieve high performance and unlock the full potential of the memory, the 850 EVO uses the proprietary eight-channel dual-core Samsung MGX controller, which, in addition to standard algorithms, also implements the proprietary TurboWrite technology, which further improves the write speed. Its essence lies in caching write operations in a dedicated SLC cache, the effective capacity of which in the 120 GB version of the 850 EVO is about 3 GB.

Samsung 850 Pro 128 GB

For those users who find the 850 EVO based on TLC V-NAND not fast enough, not reliable enough or not charismatic enough, Samsung can offer its flagship - 850 Pro. This is an even more outstanding solid state drive for personal computers, which can offer a set of characteristics that no competitor has yet been able to surpass.

The most important feature of the Samsung 850 Pro is that this SSD is based on proprietary MLC V-NAND - flash memory with a three-dimensional 32-layer structure, in which cells store two bits of information. MLC V-NAND is produced using the same 40nm process technology as the similar 3D TLC. Therefore, the speed and reliability of such memory obviously exceeds those of the planar MLC used in SSDs from other manufacturers. At the same time, the capacity of the MLC V-NAND devices used in the 850 Pro is 86 Gb, which gives the flash memory array not the maximum, but a sufficient degree of parallelism to generate the entire bandwidth of the SATA interface.

In principle, MLC V-NAND alone would be enough to create an advanced Samsung solution, but a special high-performance Samsung MEX controller was also developed for the 850 Pro, which is based on three cores with the ARM Cortex-R4 architecture and has a flash to communicate with the array -memory eight channels. As a result, the 850 Pro hides a huge amount of power that allows you to successfully use this SSD even under intensive workloads that are not typical of typical personal computers.

Separately, it should be said about the unique conditions of the guarantee. The warranty period for the Samsung 850 Pro is set at 10 years, and there are simply no other 128 GB drives with such a generous warranty on the market. As for the allowed write resource, for the 128 GB model it is 150 TB, which means, for example, the possibility of a daily complete overwriting of this drive for at least three years.

It is worth mentioning that Samsung SSDs (both 850 Pro and 850 EVO), unlike most competitors, can offer hardware-based data encryption compatible with the Microsoft eDrive standard. This means that the hardware encryption of these SSDs can be controlled from the Windows operating system using the built-in BitLocker tool.

SanDisk SSD Plus 120 GB

SanDisk, like Crucial, has excluded the 120 GB SSD from its direct interests, so in the volume of interest to us from consumer drives, it has only budget models based on TLC memory. SSD Plus is the smallest of all available options, which should attract supporters with an exceptionally low price.

The desire to simplify and reduce the cost is saturated with the entire design of the SanDisk SSD Plus. You should start with the fact that it is based on the Silicon Motion SM2246XT controller, which is an additionally stripped-down version of the already budgetary quad-channel SM2246EN processor. The SM2246XT also eliminated the DRAM interface, which prevents SSDs based on it from using buffer RAM, which is usually needed to store a quick copy of the address translation table.

As for the flash memory array, it is in SSD Plus recruited by TLC NAND devices with 128-gigabit capacity, which are manufactured by SanDisk itself using a second-generation 19-nm process technology. Three-bit memory is slower than MLC NAND, so drives based on it usually use various SLC caching technologies. But SSD Plus is deprived of this.

Thus, under the SSD Plus brand, SanDisk offers an ultra-budget drive with slow memory without SLC cache and DRAM buffer, the performance parameters of which seemed so depressing to the manufacturer that he was even embarrassed to list them on his website. However, actual testing showed that SSD Plus is not as hopeless as it seemed at first, and it is by no means the slowest SSD in today's test.

SanDisk Ultra II 120 GB

Apart from Samsung, until recently there was only one other manufacturer that was able to mass-produce SSDs based on TLC NAND. SanDisk released its first TLC drive a year ago - it was the Ultra II. But this SSD is interesting not only because of the use of three-bit memory - it is also intriguing because SanDisk engineers were able to develop it at a time when there were no specialized controllers designed to work with TLC NAND on the market. For Ultra II, the Marvell 88SS9190 controller was adapted, for which the firmware creatively adapted for TLC was written by SanDisk engineers. Its key element was the RAID-like Multi Page Recovery (M.P.R) technology introduced at the page level of flash memory, designed to enhance the correction of possible read errors.

SanDisk's experience in creating a TLC drive from improvised materials turned out to be very successful: in the past year since the release of this model in the “big voyage”, no critical problems were found with it, and the SanDisk Ultra II won the title of a fairly good entry-level SSD. Moreover, new generation TLC drives, produced on platforms originally designed for this type of memory, turned out to be no better than Ultra II.

In SanDisk Ultra II, the Marvell 88SS9190 controller works with an array of flash memory via four channels, while this array itself is recruited from 128-gigabit TLC NAND devices manufactured by SanDisk itself, which are produced using a second-generation 19-nm process technology. However, SanDisk Ultra II also has a special ingredient that makes this SSD faster than all new wave TLC-based drives - proprietary nCache 2.0 technology. The essence of this technology is quite standard: it adds an additional SLC cache to the drive operation scheme. However, the concrete implementation is not so simple. Firstly, this cache itself has a relatively large effective volume, reaching 4 GB for a 120 GB SSD. Secondly, caching within nCache 2.0 is two-level, it also uses the DRAM buffer, which in conventional SSDs is used only to store a copy of the address translation table.

Smartbuy Ignition 4 120 GB

Smartbuy is not the name of another SSD manufacturer, but simply a trademark under which the Russian distributor Top Media sells various products of unknown (and not so) Chinese companies. The real author of Smartbuy drives is Phison, a Taiwanese developer and manufacturer of controllers used in budget SSDs. One of Phison's business models is to ship fully assembled SSDs to customers on its own platform, and Top Media is taking advantage of this by adding stickers and boxes bearing the Smartbuy logo to the drives they purchase from Phison. That is why a pair of Smartbuy drives made it into our tests, because in fact they are not obscure products of unknown origin, but the most real reference platforms, designed by engineers from one of the leading developers of consumer-grade SSD controllers.

Smartbuy Ignition 4 is an MLC drive based on the latest eight-channel Phison PS3110-S10 controller. In terms of its hardware platform, Ignition 4 could become an analogue of the Kingston HyperX Savage, however, it does not have high-speed Toshiba memory, but a slightly slower and cheaper MLC NAND from Micron, which uses the ONFI 3.0 interface, is manufactured using a 16-nm process technology and has a volume 128 Gb cores. As a result, the Ignition 4 is inferior to the Kingston solution in terms of the degree of parallelism of the flash memory array and is positioned as a fairly ordinary mid-range drive.

Smartbuy Revival 120 GB

Smartbuy Revival is one of the cheapest SSDs on the domestic market. The secret to the low price is simple: this drive uses the Phison PS3110-S10 platform, which is equipped with inexpensive TLC memory. This makes Revival an analogue, for example, of the OCZ Trion 100 or the yet unavailable Kingston UV300.

Since Smartbuy Revival is a pure reference platform, everything in it functions exactly as it was intended by the developers of the controller. In particular, error correction is performed through BCH ECC algorithms, which are further enhanced by RAID-like SmartECC technology. And for improving the speed parameters of the TLC memory array, SLC caching of write operations is responsible. Moreover, the Revival cache has an effective volume of 1 GB, that is, it is twice as spacious as that of the OCZ Trion 100.

As for the flash memory itself, the Revival is equipped with Toshiba's TLC NAND, manufactured using the second-generation 19nm process technology. I must say that Phison has a very close partnership with Toshiba, so the PS3110-S10 controller contains special optimizations for working with this particular memory. And this allows us to consider that Smartbuy Revival is a completely reliable product, at least capable of competing with budget drives from real SSD manufacturers in terms of its durability. Reinforcing this confidence is the fact that Revival in most stores gives a full three-year warranty without any restrictions on the maximum recording volume.

Transcend SSD370S 128 GB

The Transcend SSD370S is an updated version of the rather popular SSD370, the most notable change being the addition of an aluminum chassis. However, the changes are not limited to this.

Like its predecessor, the SSD370S is based on the budget Silicon Motion SM2246EN quad-channel controller, which can be found in the mass of modern low-end SSDs. However, Transcend's proposal does not completely repeat the reference design - the company's engineers have worked on optimizing the firmware. But the main feature of the SSD370S model lies in the used flash memory: Micron's inexpensive 16nm MLC NAND lit up in this drive. That is, from the point of view of the filling, the Transcend drive has become similar to the Crucial BX100.

The SSD370S uses 128Gb of cores of flash memory, which translates into a low-parallel MLC NAND array. The four-channel controller, when working with an array of flash memory, uses only two interleaving devices. However, the use of two-bit memory puts the Transcend SSD370S a step above the latest generation of TLC NAND-based SSDs.

SSD specifications table

An old office machine with a leisurely Celeron G530 at the base was chosen as a platform. An SSD will make such a difference. MSI H67MS-E23 (B3) motherboard is equipped with both SATA II and SATA 3.0 ports. Thus, for the experiment, the main criterion is met: the identity of the stand. The complete config looks like this:

• Processor: Intel Celeron G530, 2.4 GHz
• Motherboard: MSI H67MS-E23 (B3)
• RAM: DDR3-1333, 2x 4 GB
• Drives: Patriot Ignite PI240GS325SSDR, WD Blue WD10EZEX
• Power supply: Corsair HX850i, 850W
• Peripherals: monitor LG 31MU97
• Operating system: Windows 10 x64

The operating system was installed directly on the drives. Screenshots with results are stored in the "Testing" gallery.

Experiment

Let's start with synthetics. Then - with tasks close to reality. Often when comparing SATA II and SATA 3.0, linear read and write performance is cited as the clearest demonstration. Why am I worse? Indeed, in the easiest scenarios for an SSD, the difference between the interfaces is serious. To put it simply, it's double. Nothing surprising, however, happened. Starting with blocks of 16 KB, Patriot Ignite, connected via a SATA 3.0 connector, goes into the lead.

A hard drive is needed to install the operating system, programs and store various user files (documents, photos, music, movies, etc.).

Hard drives differ in size, which determines the amount of data it can store, speed, which determines the performance of the entire computer, and reliability, which depends on its manufacturer.

Ordinary hard disk drives (HDD) are large in size, not high in speed, and are not expensive. Solid State Drives (SSDs) are the fastest, but they are smaller and much more expensive. An intermediate option between them are hybrid drives (SSHD), which have sufficient capacity, are faster than conventional HDDs and cost a little more.

Western Digital (WD) hard drives are considered the most reliable. The best SSD drives are produced by: Samsung, Intel, Crucial, SanDisk, Plextor. As more budget options, you can consider: A-DATA, Corsair, GoodRAM, WD, HyperX, since there are the least problems with them. And hybrid drives (SSHD) are produced mainly by Seagate.

For an office computer that is mainly used for working with documents and the Internet, a regular hard drive from the inexpensive WD Blue series with a capacity of up to 500 GB is enough. But 1 TB disks are optimal for today, since they are not much more expensive.

For a multimedia computer (video, simple games), it is better to use a 1 TB WD Blue drive as an additional one for storing files, and install a 120-128 GB SSD as the main one, which will significantly speed up the system and programs.

For a gaming computer, it is advisable to take an SSD with a capacity of 240-256 GB, it will be possible to install several games on it.
A-Data Ultimate SU650 240GB Hard Drive

For a more economical option for a multimedia or gaming PC, you can purchase one 1TB Seagate Hybrid Drive (SSHD), which is not as fast as an SSD, but still somewhat faster than a regular HDD.
Seagate FireCuda ST1000DX002 1TB Hard Drive

Well, for a powerful professional PC, in addition to an SSD (120-512 GB), you can take a fast and reliable WD Black hard drive of the required volume (1-4 GB).

I also recommend purchasing a high-quality external drive Transcend with a USB 3.0 interface for 1-2 TB for the system and important files for you (documents, photos, videos, projects).
Hard Drive Transcend StoreJet 25M3 1TB

2. Disk types

Modern computers use both classic magnetic platter hard drives (HDDs) and faster solid-state drives based on memory chips (SSDs). There are also hybrid drives (SSHD), which are a symbiosis of HDD and SSD.

The hard disk drive (HDD) has a large capacity (1000-8000 GB), but low speed (120-140 MB/s). It can be used for both system installation and user file storage, which is the most economical option.

Solid state drives (SSDs) are relatively small (120-960 GB) but very fast (450-550 MB/s). They are much more expensive and are used to install the operating system and some programs to increase the speed of the computer.

A hybrid drive (SSHD) is simply a hard drive that has a small amount of faster memory added to it. For example, it might look like 1TB HDD + 8GB SSD.

3. Application of HDD, SSD and SSHD drives

For an office computer (documents, Internet), it is enough to install one regular hard disk drive (HDD).

For a multimedia computer (movies, simple games), in addition to the HDD, you can put a small SSD drive, which will make the system much faster and more responsive. As a compromise between speed and volume, we can consider installing one SSHD disk, which will be much cheaper.

For a powerful gaming or professional computer, the best option is to install two drives - an SSD for the operating system, programs, games and a regular hard drive for storing user files.

4. Physical dimensions of disks

Hard drives for desktop computers are 3.5 inches in size.

Solid state drives are 2.5 inches in size, just like laptop hard drives.

An SSD drive is installed in a regular computer using a special mount in the case or an additional adapter.

Do not forget to purchase it if it is not included with the drive and your case does not have special mounts for 2.5″ drives. But now almost all modern cases have mounts for SSD drives, which is indicated in the description as internal 2.5″ bays.

5. Hard Drive Connectors

All hard drives have an interface connector and a power connector.

5.1. interface connector

An interface connector is called a connector for connecting a disk to a motherboard using a special cable (loop).

Modern hard drives (HDDs) have a SATA3 connector that is fully compatible with older versions of SATA2 and SATA1. If your motherboard has old connectors, don't worry, a new hard drive can be connected to them and it will work.

But for an SSD drive, it is desirable that the motherboard has SATA3 connectors. If your motherboard has SATA2 connectors, then the SSD drive will work at half its speed (about 280 Mb / s), which, however, is still much faster than a regular HDD.

5.2. Power connector

Modern hard drives (HDDs) and solid state drives (SSDs) have the same 15-pin SATA power connectors. If the disk is installed in a desktop computer, its power supply must have such a connector. If not, then you can use a Molex-SATA power adapter.

6. Volumes of hard drives

For each type of hard disk, depending on its purpose, the amount of data that it can hold will be different.

6.1. Hard Disk Drive (HDD) Capacity for Computer

For a computer designed for typing and accessing the Internet, the smallest of modern hard drives is enough - 320-500 GB.

For a multimedia computer (video, music, photos, simple games) it is desirable to have a hard drive with a capacity of 1000 GB (1 TB).

A powerful gaming or professional computer may require a 2-4 TB drive (according to your needs).

Please note that the computer motherboard must support UEFI, otherwise the operating system will not see the entire disk capacity of more than 2 TB.

If you want to increase the speed of the system, but are not ready to spend money on an additional SSD drive, then as an alternative, you can consider purchasing a hybrid SSHD drive with a capacity of 1-2 TB.

6.2. Hard disk (HDD) capacity for a laptop

If the laptop is used as an addition to the main computer, then a 320-500 GB hard drive will be enough for it. If the laptop is used as the main computer, then it may require a 750-1000 GB hard drive (depending on the use of the laptop).
Hard Drive Hitachi Travelstar Z5K500 HTS545050A7E680 500GB

You can also install an SSD drive in a laptop, which will significantly increase its speed and system responsiveness, or an SSHD hybrid drive, which is slightly faster than a conventional HDD.
Seagate Laptop SSHD ST500LM021 500GB Hard Drive

It is important to consider what thickness of disks your laptop supports. Discs with a thickness of 7 mm will fit into any model, and 9 mm thick may not fit everywhere, although there are not many of these already produced.

6.3. Solid state drive (SSD) capacity

Since SSDs are not used for data storage, when determining their required capacity, you need to proceed from how much space the operating system installed on it will take up and whether you will install any other large programs and games on it.

Modern operating systems (Windows 7,8,10) require about 40 GB of space for their work and grow with updates. In addition, at least the main programs must be installed on the SSD, otherwise there will not be much sense from it. Well, for normal operation, the SSD should always have 15-30% free space.

For a multimedia computer (movies, simple games), the best option would be a 120-128 GB SSD, which will allow you to install several simple games on it in addition to the system and basic programs. Since the SSD is required not only to quickly open folders, it is rational to install the most powerful programs and games on it, which will speed up the speed of their work.

Heavy modern games take up a huge amount of space. Therefore, a powerful gaming computer requires a 240-512 GB SSD, depending on your budget.

For professional tasks such as editing high-quality video, or installing a dozen modern games, you need a 480-1024 GB SSD, again depending on the budget.

6.4. Data backup

When choosing a disk size, it is also desirable to take into account the need to create a backup copy of user files (video, photos, etc.) that will be stored on it. Otherwise, you risk losing everything that you have accumulated over the years in one moment. Therefore, it is often more expedient to purchase not one huge disk, but two smaller disks - one for work, the other (possibly external) for backing up files.

7. Basic parameters of disks

The main parameters of disks, which are often indicated in price lists, include the frequency of rotation of the spindle and the size of the memory buffer.

7.1. Spindle speed

The spindle has hard and hybrid disks based on magnetic platters (HDD, SSHD). Since SSDs are based on memory chips, they do not have a spindle. The speed of the hard drive spindle depends on the speed of its operation.

The hard drive spindle for desktop computers generally has a rotation speed of 7200 rpm. Sometimes there are models with a spindle speed of 5400 rpm, which are slower.

Laptop hard drives generally have a 5400 RPM spindle speed, which allows them to run quieter, run cooler, and consume less power.

7.2. Memory Buffer Size

A buffer is a hard drive cache based on memory chips. This buffer is designed to speed up the hard drive, but has a small impact (on the order of 5-10%).

Modern hard drives (HDD) have a buffer size of 32-128 MB. In principle, 32 MB is enough, but if the price difference is not significant, then you can take a hard drive with a larger buffer size. Optimally for today 64 MB.

8. Speed ​​characteristics of disks

Speed ​​characteristics common to HDD, SSHD and SSD drives include linear read/write speed and random access time.

8.1. Linear Reading Speed

Linear reading speed is the main parameter for any disk and dramatically affects the speed of its operation.

For modern hard drives and hybrid drives (HDD, SSHD), an average read speed of closer to 150 Mb/s is a good value. You should not buy hard drives with a speed of 100 Mb / s or less.

Solid State Drives (SSDs) are much faster and their read speed, depending on the model, is 160-560 MB/s. Optimal in terms of price / speed are SSDs with a read speed of 450-500 Mb / s.

As for downloading HDDs, sellers in their price lists usually do not indicate their speed parameters, but only the volume. Later in this article I will tell you how to find out these characteristics. With SSD drives, everything is easier, since their speed characteristics are always indicated in the price lists.

8.2. Linear write speed

This is a secondary parameter after the reading speed, which is usually indicated with it in pairs. For hard and hybrid drives (HDD, SSHD), the write speed is usually slightly lower than the read speed and is not considered when choosing a disk, since they are mainly guided by the read speed.

SSDs can have write speeds that are less than or equal to read speeds. In the price lists, these parameters are indicated through a slash (for example, 510/430), where a larger number means the read speed, a smaller one means the write speed.

For good fast SSDs, it is about 550/550 MB / s. But in general, the write speed affects the speed of the computer much less than the read speed. As a budget option, a slightly lower speed is allowed, but not lower than 450/350 Mb / s.

8.3. Access time

Access time is the second most important disk parameter after read/write speed. The access time affects the speed of reading/copying small files especially strongly. The lower this setting, the better. In addition, low access time indirectly indicates a higher quality of the hard disk (HDD).

A good hard disk drive (HDD) access time is 13-15 milliseconds. Values ​​in the range of 16-20 ms are considered a bad indicator. I will also tell you how to determine this parameter in this article.

As for SSD drives, their access time is 100 times less than that of HDD drives, so this parameter is not indicated anywhere and is not paid attention to.

Hybrid disk drives (SSHD) achieve lower access times than HDDs, which are comparable to SSDs, with additional built-in flash memory. But due to the limited amount of flash memory, a lower access time is only achieved when accessing the most frequently used files that have ended up in this flash memory. Usually these are system files, which provide faster computer boot speed and high system responsiveness, but do not drastically affect the operation of large programs and games, since they simply will not fit in the limited amount of fast SSHD memory.

9. Manufacturers of hard drives (HDD, SSHD)

The most popular hard drive manufacturers are as follows:

Seagate- produces some of the fastest drives today, but they are not considered the most reliable.

Western Digital (WD)- are considered the most reliable and have a convenient classification by color.

• WD Blue- low cost general purpose discs
• WD Green– quiet and economical (often switched off)
• WD Black– fast and reliable
• WD Red– for data storage systems (NAS)
• WD Purple– for video surveillance systems
• WD Gold- for servers
• WD Re– for RAID arrays
• WDSe– for scalable corporate systems

Blue - the most common drives, suitable for low-cost office and multimedia PCs. Black ones combine high speed and reliability, I recommend using them in powerful systems. The rest are designed for specific tasks.

In general, if you want cheaper and faster, then choose Seagate. If cheap and reliable - Hitachi. Fast and reliable - Western Digital from the black series.

Hybrid SSHD drives are now mainly produced by Seaagete and they are of good quality.

There are discs from other manufacturers on sale, but I recommend limiting yourself to the indicated brands, since there are fewer problems with them.

10. Manufacturers of Solid State Drives (SSDs)

Among the manufacturers of SSD drives, they have proven themselves well:

• Samsung
• Intel
• Crucial
• SanDisk
• Plextor

More budget options include:

• Corsair
• GoodRAM
• A-DATA (Premier Pro)
• Kingston (HyperX)

11. SSD memory type

SSD drives can be built on different types of memory:

• 3 D NAND– fast and durable
• MLC- a good resource
• V-NAND- average resource
• TLC- low resource

12. Speed ​​of hard drives (HDD, SSHD)

We can find out all the parameters of SSDs we need, such as volume, speed and manufacturer, from the seller’s price list and then compare them by price.

The parameters of HDDs can be found by the model or batch number on the manufacturers' websites, but in fact it is quite difficult, since these catalogs are huge, they have a lot of incomprehensible parameters, which are called differently by each manufacturer, also in English. Therefore, I offer you another method that I use myself.

There is a program for testing HDTune hard drives. It allows you to define parameters such as linear read speed and access time. There are many enthusiasts who conduct these tests and post the results on the Internet. In order to find the test results of a particular hard drive model, it is enough to enter the number of its model in the Google or Yandex image search, which is indicated in the seller's price list or on the drive itself in the store.

Here's what a picture with a disk test from the search looks like.

As you can see, this picture shows the average linear read speed and random access time, which we are interested in. Check only that the model number in the picture matches the model number of your drive.

In addition, according to the schedule, you can roughly determine the quality of the disk. An uneven schedule with large jumps and high access time indirectly indicate inaccurate low-quality disk mechanics.

A beautiful cyclical or simply uniform graph without big jumps, combined with a low access time, speaks of the exact high-quality mechanics of the disk.

Such a disc will work better, faster and last longer.

13. Optimal drive

So, what disk or disk configuration to choose for a computer, depending on its purpose. In my opinion, the following configurations will be the most optimal.

• office PC - HDD (320-500 GB)
• entry-level multimedia PC - HDD (1 TB)
• mid-range multimedia PC - SSD (120-128 GB) + HDD (1 TB) or SSHD (1 TB)
• entry-level gaming PC - HDD (1 TB)
• mid-range gaming PC - SSHD (1TB)
• High end gaming PC - SSD (240-512 GB) + HDD (1-2 TB)
• professional PC – SSD (480-1024 GB) + HDD/SSHD (2-4 TB)

14. The cost of HDD and SSD drives

In conclusion, I want to talk a little about the general principles for choosing between more or less expensive disk models.

The price of HDDs mostly depends on the capacity of the disk and slightly on the manufacturer (by 5-10%). Therefore, it is not advisable to save on the quality of HDDs. Get models from recommended manufacturers, albeit a little more expensive, as they will last longer.

The price of SSD drives, in addition to volume and speed, also depends heavily on the manufacturer. Here I can give a simple recommendation - choose the cheapest SSD drive from the list of recommended manufacturers that suits you in terms of volume and speed.

15. Links

Hard drive Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB
Hard drive Western Digital Caviar Blue WD10EZEX 1 TB
A-Data Ultimate SU650 120GB Hard Drive

When a PC gamer wonders what are the most important tuning options, in addition to the mandatory purchase of a powerful graphics card, we give him the following advice: replace your classic hard drive with an SSD drive. Just buy not a SATA-SSD, but a flash drive that transfers data via PCI-Express and uses the NVMe protocol for this.

Such models achieve five times higher data transfer rates, and this technology practically does not know the upper limit. Currently, the market is more and more filled with such turbo drives (albeit still quite expensive), so the gamer is faced with the question of whether he is ready to invest a little more money in a significant increase in speed or give preference to the classic, relatively slow SSD.

Gearing up for a new era Tiny NVMe-SSDs like the new Samsung PM971 are also suitable for ultrabooks or tablets - they are only two centimeters

To replace the HDD, you could not think about anything special - just buy a drive of the volume you need. Over time, things got a little more complicated, since the SATA interface was originally designed to work with the AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Protocol) protocol and the corresponding driver for slow classic spinning disk drives.

An unfortunate side effect: the SATA-600 interface allows a maximum data transfer rate of 600 MB/s.

If you look at our rating of SATA SSDs, you can see that many models reach an average data transfer rate (when reading) already above 550 MB / s, and when writing, you can often see 540 MB / s on their “speedometer”. With. Thus, it becomes obvious that this technology no longer has the potential for growth in indicators.

In other words, the SATA interface can become the so-called "bottleneck" for flash drives, which are getting faster and faster. It's good that new SSDs bypass this speed limit if they use PCIe connectors instead of red SATA cables - that is, use the type of connection that was traditionally used for graphics cards. A single PCIe 3.0 lane can theoretically transfer up to 1 GB/s.

In this test, four such lines were used to connect SSD drives. Thus, this gives a maximum of 4 GB / s - at least in theory. In practice, this indicator is not achieved: the latest Samsung 960 Pro demonstrated the highest data transfer rate to date with a result of 2702 MB / s when reading.

Two different types of connectors

Many SSD manufacturers develop software that analyzes the health of NVMe-SSDs. Intel calls it Solid-State Drive Toolbox

Unlike SATA drives, when buying a turbo SSD, you should pay attention to the correct choice of its form factor. Fast data storage devices can be produced both in the form of expansion cards inserted into a PCIe slot, and in the form of memory strips that are installed in the so-called M.2 slots (see illustration).

This tip is especially true for older motherboards, since their M.2 slot can only output the SATA bus for data transfer. Those who assemble a new computer for themselves may not bother with this issue: motherboards for new processors have M.2 connectors with a PCIe connection and support the new Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) data exchange protocol - this provokes a second turbo- leap.

Unlike models for M.2, SSDs in the form of a PCIe card can also be interesting for upgrading older systems. However, you should definitely make sure that there is one more free PCIe slot on the motherboard in addition to the one occupied by the graphics card.

And one more small detail can be very important: of the six SSDs taken for this test, four have an expansion card form factor, but only three of them support the PCIe 3.0 standard. Kingston HyperX Predator is limited to only PCIe 2.0, which is only capable of passing 500 MB / s through the line.

While your read and write speeds of 1400MB/s and 1010MB/s respectively will be significantly better than SATA competitors here, they can't match the performance of the fastest SSDs. At the same time, media that supports PCIe 3.0 will work in a PCIe 2.0 slot, but their speed will be significantly reduced.

Overheated SSD drives become slower

Currently, we can expect data transfer rates in excess of 2.5 GB/s from PCIe SSDs. OCZ's M.2 SSDs come standard with a PCIe adapter. According to the results of our measurement results, we see it as more than rational to leave the device in it. We measured the performance of these devices for M.2 and without an adapter, registering slightly worse values: for example, when reading, a speed of only 2382 MB / s was achieved, which is about 130 MB / s less than with an adapter.

Angelbird Wings PX1 PCIe card adapter (about 80 euros) with its heatsink prevents Samsung 950 Pro from overheating Cause: The PCIe card adapter has a heat sink plate that allows the SSD to cool better. The M.2 version gets hotter and therefore slows down more often. That this phenomenon can be even more noticeable is demonstrated by the results of the Samsung 950 Pro: only 1483 MB / s we intended on average when testing its data transfer rate when reading.

At the same time, the 950 Pro starts up more than powerfully and reaches the mark of 2500 MB / s, but over time it heats up, and the speed drops rapidly. At 2074 MB/s, the Samsung 960 Pro also has a write speed advantage, followed by the OCZ RD400 at 1554 MB/s and Zotac at 1249 MB/s. Closing is Plextor M8Pe (final fifth place) with a result of only 828 MB / s.

For the Samsung 950 Pro, the above statement is also true: it can run faster, but when we loaded it with increased activity during testing, it overheated and switched to a lower speed. Because of this, the average speed remained at the level of only 1143 MB / s. For the 950 Pro, we can still explain this behavior, but not in the case of the Plextor. The manufacturer has provided its M.2-SSD with a cooling radiator, but not only does it not help the device, but on the contrary: the radiator makes the drive thicker, and it will not fit into every laptop. However, Plextor offers an option without a heatsink.

When looking into overheating issues, the user should take into account that our benchmarks stress SSDs unnaturally. In everyday life, such loads will occur rather rarely. However, if you want to prevent overheating, your best bet is to get an adapter like the Angelbird Wings PX1.

Very short reaction time

High data transfer speeds are good for speeding up loading, but the reasons why Windows and games with an SSD drive in a computer run noticeably faster are hidden primarily in the low latency. During testing, we study it during I / O measurements (Input / Output), that is, counting the number of read or write operations performed per second when processing sequentially located memory blocks. This parameter, the so-called IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second), is the missing "ingredient" for a fast PC, which is often heavily loaded.

In this scoring discipline, the OCZ RD400 drive has the advantage with 43,974 IOPS when writing. In reading, on the contrary, the result of 18,428 IOPS is not even half of the previous one. Here, our leader of the rating, Samsung 960, can observe the same heterogeneity of characteristics: when writing, it reaches 42,175 IOPS, and when reading - only 29,233.

An enviable similarity of results is demonstrated by Zotac with its approximately 35,000 IOPS (both reading and writing). However, when comparing products, this parameter often has to be combined with others. At the same time, turbo SSDs should soon “break through” the psychologically important mark of 100,000 IOPS.

The Kingston HyperX Predator performed the worst, with around 23,000 read IOPS and 17,800 write IOPS in last place, by a wide margin. The main reason for this is outdated technology, since this SSD drive still transfers data using the AHCI protocol. The new NVMe access protocol, on the other hand, is optimized to work with SSDs.

The advantages of NVMe manifest themselves primarily in the parallelization of processes: the data transfer protocol allows you to work with queues of input / output requests (I / O queues) up to 65,536 commands in size. The AHCI protocol is limited to only one queue of 32 commands, which can cause data clutter under heavy load.

For flash memory in NVMe-SSD, everything is as good as if there was no timeout at all. AHCI

2011 Interface

PCIe Optimized for…

HDD SSD Latency

6 µs 2.8 µs Number of queues

1 65 536 entries in the queue

32 65 536 Non-cached register accesses

9 2 Interrupts

1 2048 Multi-core support

limited

Yes Samsung 960 Pro needs only 0.02ms to write data and 0.03ms to read. But the benefits of NVMe don't stop there. In particular, executing a request using the NVMe protocol requires a maximum of two register accesses, and AHCI requires nine. Here you can add support for multi-core systems from NMVe, while AHCI from several CPU cores will not be able to get any benefit.

The price of a gigabyte is going down

Currently, SATA-SSD is cheaper than PCIe-SSD. At a price of about 22 rubles per 1 GB, you can get such a top-end SSD drive as the Samsung 850 EVO with a capacity of 1 TB. The 512 GB Samsung 960 Pro we tested costs 40 rubles per gigabyte. But even the new ultra-fast drives are coming down in price: for example, the Plextor M8Pe, the cheapest NVMe-enabled SSD, is the best choice - it's no more expensive than SATA drives.

The new NVMe drives are also distinguished by their service life: they use MLC (Multi Level Cell) flash memory with a relatively high rewriting resource. Samsung even uses its 3D V-NAND, which promises even longer life. M.2 solid state drives. All Test Results 1. Intel 750 1200GB (SSDPEDMW012T4X1) Read Transfer Rate (80%): 100 Write Transfer Rate (20%): 94.6 Nominal Capacity: 1.200 GB Interface: PCIe Overall Score: 98.9 Value for Money: 61 2. Samsung 960 Pro 1TB (MZ-V6P1T0BW) Read transfer rate (80%): 98.3 Write transfer rate (20%): 100 Nominal capacity: 1.024 GB Interface: NVM-Express Overall score: 98.6 Value for money /quality: 85 3. Samsung 960 Pro 2TB (MZ-V6P2T0) Read transfer rate (80%): 98 Write transfer rate (20%): 98.6 Nominal capacity: 2.048 GB Interface: M.2 Overall rating: 98.1 Value for money: 84 Overall score: 97.4 Value for money: 76 5. Zotac Sonix Gaming Edition 480GB (ZTSSD-PG3-4 80G-GE) Read transfer rate (80%): 97.9 Write transfer rate (20%): 90.3 Rated capacity: 480 GB Interface: M.2 Overall score: 96.4 Value for money: 63 6. Samsung 960 EVO 1TB (MZ-V6E1T0) Read transfer rate (80%): 95.1 Write transfer rate (20%): 98.3 Nominal capacity: 1.024 GB Interface: NVM-Express Overall score: 95.7 Value for money: 100 7 Toshiba OCZ RD400 512GB (RVD400-M22280-512G-A) Read transfer rate (80%): 94.5 Write transfer rate (20%): 98.9 Rated capacity: 512 GB Interface: M.2 Overall score: 95.4 Value for money: 64 8. Corsair MP500 480GB (F480GBMP500) Read transfer rate (80%): 97.3 Write transfer rate (20%): 87.8 Rated capacity: 480 GB Interface: NVM-Express Overall score: 95.4 Value for money: 73 9. Patriot Hellfire M2 480GB (PH480GPM280SSDR) Read transfer rate (80% ): 97.6 Write transfer rate (20%): 86.5 Rated capacity: 480 GB Interface: PCIe Overall score: 95.4 Value for money: 89 10. Patriot Hellfire M2 240GB (PH240GPM280SSDR) Read transfer rate (80%) :97. 3 Write transfer rate (20%): 86.8 Rated capacity: 240 GB Interface: NVM-Express Overall score: 95.2 Value for money: 85 M.2 solid state drives. All test results