The most reliable ssd drives. SSD disk for computer. Which is better

If it seems to you that the world of personal computers has long lost its former vibrancy and has become like a dull swamp, then you simply do not know what is happening today with solid-state drives. There is absolutely no hint of consolidation of players, a duopoly or a near-monopoly position of any of the manufacturers. On the contrary, SSD is not only a young and interesting industry that brings a fresh spirit to the PC, but also an extremely dynamic developing market, with intense price and competition and a very rapidly changing situation. Therefore, many events in the SSD market often turn into a real drama about the struggle of new technologies against old ones, about the rivalry of small manufacturers with much larger ones, about large-scale acquisitions and commercial transactions, about ups and downs, about pricing games and concern for the interests of users, and at the same time and how quickly the picture of what is happening can change over short periods of time.

But 2016 in the SSD market was somewhat different from previous years. Although few people noticed it, it provided answers to many questions that had arisen every now and then. And if in last year’s and the year before last’s final reviews we could only speak with complete confidence about what happened, and all forecasts remained only timid (and not always successful) attempts to look into the future, now the moment has come when many forks in history have already been passed , and a fairly clear picture of the solid-state drive of tomorrow emerges before us.

However, this does not mean that surprises are not expected in the solid-state technology market in the near future. On the contrary, during 2016, three leading developers, Micron, Intel and Samsung, persistently built fundamentally new approaches to building memory for solid-state drives. And the fruits of these sprouts, which in fact can again change, if not everything, then a lot, in the SSD market, are expected in the relatively near future. But this is a topic for another discussion. Today our material is being published in the “results” series, so we will talk about what answers to pressing questions about solid-state drives the past year has given.

TLC is the new MLC

Any conversation about what's happening in the SSD market inevitably comes down to NAND memory. Flash memory is the main component of SSDs, and it largely determines their performance, price and reliability. And in this regard, 2016 was a turning point. If a year ago the main type of memory for consumer SSD models was MLC NAND, and TLC memory was used only in the budget segment, then today the situation has changed radically.

The production volumes of TLC NAND in physical terms overtook the production of MLC memory at the end of 2015, and today NAND memory with a three-bit cell is the most widespread and widespread option. And although this state of affairs seriously upsets conservative users who believe that TLC cannot provide decent reliability, in fact this is far from the case. There have been noticeable changes in the characteristics of three-bit memory, and today's TLC NAND has little in common with the memory we encountered at the dawn of this technology. The standards of technological processes used in its production stopped being reduced two years ago. Therefore, now planar memory is produced using very mature 15/16-nm technical processes, which are debugged to such an extent that they not only give a very high yield of usable crystals, but also guarantee good quality of the semiconductor structure of the cells. As a result, today's TLC NAND is capable of withstanding many times more rewrites compared to the three-bit memory of the first generations, for which the guaranteed resource was only 500-1000 rewrites.

Another important change affected the controllers used at the heart of most TLC drives. It is good practice to use controllers that support LDPC ECC - strong adaptive error correction algorithms that increase the likelihood of correctly reading data from TLC NAND several times.

Such controllers have been offered by Silicon Motion and Marvell for quite some time, and they make it possible to produce TLC drives with a level of reliability similar to that of older MLC models.

In other words, the mass adoption of TLC memory is a stable trend, which is based not only on the desire of manufacturers to increase profit margins. This is one of the manifestations of progress, thanks to which SSDs can continue to displace magnetic storage media from the market. After all, TLC NAND provides higher data storage density and makes it possible to make semiconductor chips with higher capacity. This means that its implementation opens the way to increasing maximum volumes and further reducing the specific cost of solid-state drives.

However, MLC NAND has not yet completely lost its role and has not become like the niche SLC NAND. Yes, there are noticeably more TLC drives on the market, but memory with a two-bit cell remains a completely natural option for flagship drive models. MLC NAND can provide approximately one and a half times the advantage in latency and multiple times the advantage in writing throughput, so it continues to be widely used in high-speed PCI Express SSDs, as well as in high-end SATA SSDs aimed at serving heavy workloads.

However, there is no doubt that the share of MLC memory will continue to decline, and, moreover, in the future, even more dense memory is expected to come to the market compared to TLC - QLC NAND. It provides for the storage of four bits of data in each cell, and drives based on this technology are already in development by at least two major manufacturers - Micron and Toshiba.

The companies promise that the introduction of QLC will significantly increase the capacity of solid-state drives without any significant losses in performance within the next two to three years. This is expected to expand the scope of application of SSDs to include storage of “cold data” and will become another nail in the coffin of traditional hard drives.

3D NAND: slowly but surely

Another direction for increasing data storage density in NAND memory chips is the transition from planar to three-dimensional layout of semiconductor crystals. 3D NAND is a very promising technology, and we expected its widespread implementation in 2016. But it didn't work out. At the moment, only two manufacturers can boast of full-scale production of three-dimensional flash memory for SSDs: Samsung and the joint venture IMFT (Micron plus Intel). As for SK Hynix and the Flash Forward alliance (Toshiba plus Western Digital), they also started producing 3D NAND, but, unfortunately, not for solid-state drives.

As a result, the introduction of 3D NAND, despite its promise, is extremely slow. Samsung holds the undisputed lead on this front. The company began producing multilayer flash memory back in 2012-2013, and in 2016, the 3D V-NAND it developed was used in the vast majority of Samsung drives. Moreover, in this case we are talking about third-generation three-dimensional memory, the number of layers in which has been increased to 48.

Thanks to this, Samsung manages to maintain its leadership in expanding SSD capacities. So, now the company can offer PC users mass models, the capacity of which reaches 4 TB, and server drives with a capacity of up to 16 TB. It should be added that the introduction of 64-layer memory, which belongs to the next, fourth generation, is not far off. The appearance of drives based on it is expected in the coming months.

Micron is also doing relatively well with 3D NAND. Over the past year, the company was able to establish mass production of 32-layer memory and begin using it in solid-state drives aimed at the mass segment. Micron is transitioning to new technology at a very steady pace. By the end of the year, memory with a three-dimensional layout surpassed traditional planar memory in terms of production volumes. And this allows the company not only to use 3D NAND in SSDs sold under its own name and under its subsidiary Crucial brand, but also to outsource 3D flash memory chips. Their largest customers are ADATA and Transcend, whose assortment already includes models based on Micron multilayer memory.

Intel is also systematically introducing 3D NAND into its own solid-state drives. The company uses the same technology as Micron, and so it is not surprising that it has now been able to introduce several SSD models (mainly aimed at the enterprise and server markets) based on 3D memory. And considering that Intel has abandoned the deployment of a planar 16nm semiconductor process at its NAND factory, this means that soon the company will finally return to using its own memory drives in its own production.

Unfortunately, other semiconductor manufacturers cannot yet boast of noticeable progress in the implementation of 3D NAND. Although Toshiba, Western Digital and SK Hynix launched production of 3D flash memory back in early 2016, in reality there is not a single SSD where it is used. The problem is quality: the memory of these manufacturers is so far only suitable for use as part of eMMC, UFS and eMCP products, but not for SSDs, where the requirements for cell endurance and stability are much higher.

Nevertheless, at the beginning of the coming year, SK Hynix plans to begin producing the third generation of its 3D NAND with 48 layers, and Toshiba and Western Digital should master the mass production of 64-layer three-dimensional memory BiCS3, which in both cases should be suitable for SSDs . And this means that 2017 has every chance of becoming a turning point when three-dimensional memory will begin to replace memory with a planar structure everywhere.

The Rubicon should be crossed in mid-2017

In addition, we need to mention fundamentally new developments, which we will probably be able to see in action in the new year. First, there is the promising 3D XPoint memory, which Intel and Micron are working on. It is based on PCM (phase change memory) technology, which is expected to deliver approximately 10x lower latencies, 3x endurance, 4x write speeds, 3x read speeds, and a 30% reduction in power consumption compared to traditional NAND products.

True, no one promises low prices - we are only talking about the fact that products based on 3D XPoint will be sold cheaper than DRAM memory of the same volume. Therefore, it is very likely that the first generation 3D XPoint drives, for which Intel is going to use the Optane brand, and Micron - QuantX, will initially have a small capacity and can only be positioned as a caching intermediary for a disk system. This means that we won’t have to talk about mass production of products based on 3D XPoint for a long time.

3D XPoint is one of the most promising technologies in the SSD market

Samsung, which is developing Z-NAND technology, is also engaged in promising and fundamentally new projects in the field of 3D NAND. Unfortunately, much less is known about it than about 3D XPoint, but nevertheless, Samsung intends to bring the first Z-SSD drives based on Z-NAND to the market in the coming year. And it’s quite possible to believe this: Z-NAND does not use any new physical principles, and, apparently, this memory is something similar to three-dimensional multilayer SLC NAND. At the same time, the developers promise that the latency of Z-NAND will not be inferior to the latency of 3D XPoint, and the throughput will be even higher.

⇡ Prices are no longer falling, and even vice versa

Over the past years, we have become accustomed to a stable trend: prices for SSDs should gradually decrease. Indeed, memory manufacturers are constantly introducing new production facilities and introducing new technologies that allow them to increase data storage density in NAND devices. Thanks to this, flash memory production volumes (in terms of capacity) are increasing annually by approximately 40 percent, which over the past years has been a good reason for the continuous reduction in the unit cost of flash memory, and therefore SSDs. However, in 2016, this mechanism broke down, and, oddly enough, it was damaged by Apple.

For example: annual change in the spot price of 128-Gbit MLC NAND chips from Micron

Since mid-2016, the price of NAND crystals has increased by almost a third. And naturally, this could not but affect the cost of solid-state drives, in which flash memory is one of the main components. So far, of course, we are not talking about a symmetrical increase in SSD prices, and over the past year, prices for the most part have not fallen. But this will not continue. By the end of the year, drives still rose in price by 6-10 percent, if we talk about MLC models, and by 6-9 percent - in the case of TLC models. Moreover, this is far from a one-time event. Forecasts suggest that over the next few months the cost of SSDs will increase by another 20-25 percent from today's levels, and there is no reason not to believe this.

The entire coming year looks like a difficult period for SSDs. Demand for NAND chips is expected to continue to rise throughout the year, eventually rising again by 45 to 50 percent compared to last year. At the same time, NAND production volumes can only be increased by 30 percent due to the fact that memory manufacturers, with the exception of Toshiba and Intel, have suspended the launch of new production facilities, and the debugging of multilayer memory technology, which allows increasing product yield by increasing its density, is underway significantly slower than the original plan. That is, the shortage of flash memory will at least continue, and in the worst case, it will even intensify.

All this, naturally, will affect the expansion of SSDs. It is clear that the initially formulated goals of replacing traditional mechanical hard drives with solid-state drives cannot now be achieved. In addition, user demand for large-capacity SSDs will also cease to grow. Yes, 256- and 512-GB solid-state drives have become more popular over the past two years than 128-GB ones, and the average capacity of SSDs sold has now increased to approximately 360 GB, but user interest has further shifted towards larger storage models at a lower cost. At least we don’t have to wait until 2018 now. The cost of 128 GB SSD models will not drop to the level of half-terabyte HDDs. That is, the mass introduction of SSDs in low-cost computers and laptops, which was expected in 2017, will obviously now be postponed to a later date.

Translation

There haven't been many new SSDs out lately, and the rollout of 64-layer 3D-NAND has been fairly slow.

The most notable newcomer among SSDs in recent months has been the Intel Optane SSD 900p. In almost every way it's the fastest SSD on the market, and its price is much lower than the Optane SSD DC P4800X, but the one caveat is the high 900p price, which still doesn't make it a smart choice when looking at the price/performance ratio. speed.

The above are guidelines on how to make good choices in each market segment. Some offerings aren't the cheapest options in their segment, but are still quality products that are worth paying a little more for.

The table below provides a brief overview of SSD drives that we believe are a good choice for purchasing based on certain criteria in today's market.

As always, prices shown are current only at the time of writing. We cannot predict when or by whom the best discounts will be offered. The given data should be considered as a kind of guide among the best offers on the market. All drives shown here are models that we have tested, they are the same capacity or form factor, and in most cases we have not tested every capacity and form factor. For information on drives not mentioned in this guide, check out our SSD Bench database.

Mainstream 2.5 "SATA: Samsung 850 EVO, WD Blue 3D / SanDisk Ultra 3D

The largest segment of the consumer SSD market is 2.5-inch SATA drives, which are used as the only storage device in a system or the primary drive where the OS plus most programs and data are stored. This segment of the market by far offers the largest number of options, and it's likely that every SSD brand has at least one model in this segment.

Currently, the mainstream SATA drive must be at least 240 GB. This is enough for the operating system, everyday applications and data, but there will not be enough space to store a large library of games, movies or photos. Therefore, for this segment we recommend products that exclusively use 3D NAND flash memory. Older models using planar NAND tend to be much slower if they use TLC, or much more expensive (and sometimes just hard to find) if they use MLC.

The Samsung 850 EVO isn't the fastest SATA SSD, but it sets the standard for most SATA SSDs. SanDisk Ultra 3D and its twin WD Blue 3D NAND are almost as fast as the 850 EVO and slightly cheaper. The Crucial MX300 is even cheaper, but sacrifices performance for price, especially on low-capacity drives.

The Intel 545s is still slightly more expensive than most drives in its segment, indicating that Intel and Micron haven't been able to produce their 64-layer 3D NAND at scale enough. While their prices are close to competitive, we'll probably have to wait a few more months before Intel and Micron can match the prices of other 64L NAND products.

Small and Cheap SATA: Crucial BX300

There are users who are only interested in “small” SSDs. They know that their storage needs are very modest, or they simply plan to store the bulk of their data on a mechanical hard drive. As practice shows, buying the cheapest SSDs with a couple of hundred GB of free space may not be the best solution in terms of benefits: the price per GB ratio and significantly lower performance (fewer parallel chips) are not encouraging.

The 128GB capacity class is a thing of the past this year. This volume is still enough for the operating system and a certain number of applications and documents, but such a disk fills up very quickly when storing games, movies or photos. The 240GB and above SATA drives we selected do not come in ~128GB versions, requiring a separate comparison table. This drive is likely to be used in a nearly full state, resulting in poor performance.

The choice in this segment is very simple: Crucial BX300. This is the only drive that, despite being cheap, does not have serious drawbacks. Thanks to Micron 3D MLC NAND and a quality Silicon Motion SM2258 controller instead of cheaper DRAMless, it outperforms regular budget drives. And its price is only a few dollars higher than the cheapest TLC SSD drives. On larger disks its price is less attractive.

NVMe SSDs

The consumer NVMe SSD market has expanded to the point where it can be divided into entry-level and high-end segments. This division will become more obvious in the next generation of products, where lower-end PCIe 3 x2 SSD controllers debut, but even now you can see a noticeable difference between the Intel 600p and the Samsung 960 PRO.
Almost all consumer NVMe SSDs use the M.2 2280 form factor, and have a variety of built-in PCIe cards. The heatsinks on many add-on cards tend to drive up the price without providing any real performance gains, so our recommendation for NVMe SSDs is all M.2 form factor SSDs.

The latest generation of 64-layer 3D-NAND has not yet hit the NVMe SSD market. It seems that Samsung is unlikely to be able to provide a replacement for its 960 PRO and 960 EVO before the end of the year. Toshiba XG5 has been tight-lipped about what its 3D NAND has to offer, and no retail version has been announced. Western Digital/SanDisk also haven't introduced any consumer PCIe SSDs using 3D NAND. There is Intel's 64-layer 3D NAND available for the consumer market as a single SATA drive, but otherwise the technology is aimed at the enterprise SSD market for now.

There are also a few changes in the controllers for NVMe SSD. Marvell announced a non-critical update to its 88SS1093 controller earlier this year, but it has not yet been applied to any shipping products. Silicon Motion's new generation of NVMe controllers were announced at the Flash Memory Summit, and it appears that while they will be able to offer a much-needed performance boost over the current SM2260 controller, the product is still months away from being ready for release. Drives using Phison's entry-level E8 controller will likely appear as soon as the Toshiba 64L 3D NAND becomes a widely available product. Their new high-performance E12 controller will be released at a later date.

High-quality NVMe: Samsung 960 EVO and Samsung 960 PRO

Intel Optane SSD 900p raises the bar for high-performance SSD performance, but that speed doesn't come cheap. The 900p's per-gigabyte price is more than double that of the fastest flash-based SSD. In almost all cases, the better choice is the larger Samsung 960 drive, which is only slightly slower. The performance advantage of the 960 PRO over the 960 EVO of the same capacity is impressive, but it's unlikely to justify the additional cost when choosing a drive for real-world use.

This high level of performance is unlikely to be achieved using a 256GB drive: the 250GB 960 EVO is much slower than its larger siblings, and the 256GB 960 PRO simply doesn't exist. The closest alternative may be the OEM SM961 256GB, available from some retail suppliers, but without the warranty and support that official Samsung retail products receive.

Entry-level NVMe: MyDigitalSSD BPX, Intel 600p

Drives using PCIe x2 controllers or the NVMe memory buffer feature have not yet hit the retail market, so entry-level NVMe is largely determined by the use of TLC NAND or planar MLC. These drives mainly fall into two categories: those that use the Phison E7 controller with Toshiba 15nm MLC, or those that use the Silicon Motion SM2260 controller with Intel/Micron 3D NAND. There are a few exceptions where drives using the Marvell controller offer entry-level priced products.

The MyDigitalSSD BPX is, as usual, one of the cheaper Phison E7 drives, and the 2.1 firmware version it comes with is a good choice for a real production machine. The BPX is the cheapest 120GB NVMe drive available right now. At the forefront of performance, the 1TB Intel 600p is unbeatable. Yes, it's the slowest NVMe drive, but it's still faster than any SSATA SSD on light workloads, and it's only slightly more expensive than the best SATA SSDs like the Samsung 850 EVO. In the 256GB class, the Samsung 960 EVO is one of the cheapest and fastest options, but for heavier workloads the Phison MLC drive may be a better choice.

(Please note that the performance data above for the Patriot Hellfire should be indicative of the MyDigitalSSD BPX and any other Phison E7 drive running 2.1 firmware).

M.2 SATA: Crucial MX300 and WD Blue 3D

In laptops, M.2 SATA has almost completely replaced mSATA. A few laptops use shorter M.2 sizes of 2242 or 2260, but most support lengths up to 80mm. There are far fewer M.2 SATA options compared to 2.5" SATA, but most modern SATA drives come in M.2 versions. There are currently virtually no premium products available for M.2 versions of these drives, so the recommendations here are essentially the same as for 2.5-inch drives: Among high-capacity drives, the affordable price and low power consumption of the Crucial MX300 make it a better choice. At low volumes, it makes sense to pay a little more for the higher performance of WD Blue 3D.

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SSD drives provide higher operating speeds compared to conventional hard drives and have many other advantages. They are installed on high-performance systems, especially laptops.

The reasons for their popularity are also resistance to mechanical damage and magnetic fields, quiet operation, lower energy consumption, and lack of overheating. An SSD disk is a non-mechanical memory storage device that, like a regular flash drive, consists of microcircuits and a controller. The main disadvantage of the device is the limited rewriting resource. The 2018 rating of SSD drives according to the Mark.guru portal will help you choose the best model for your computer that will cope with its tasks for a long time.

To choose the best and most reliable SSD drive, you need to compare the following parameters: Volume.
A key characteristic showing the storage capacity. If you use it only as system memory, then a small amount will suffice. If this is the main or only storage medium, then it is better to choose a more capacious, but correspondingly more expensive one. Type.
There are single-level SLC, 3-level TLC and multi-level MLC. The first type is the fastest, but also the most expensive. MLC is the most common due to its low cost, but does not have a very long resource. TLC is the slowest and cheapest with a low resource. The most modern type is multi-layer 3D V-NAND, which has high reliability and better performance. Since SSDs are more often used in laptops, most models have a value of 2.5 inches. If you want to install such a disk in a PC instead of a hard one, you can use a special adapter.
Speed. Typically, the maximum speed for writing and reading data is indicated, and actual performance in practice may differ significantly from the stated ones. It also evaluates the random write speed, which is expressed in operations per second (IOPS).
Connection type. The most commonly used is SATA3 with a bandwidth of up to 6 Gbit per second.
Resource. Indicates the maximum number of rewrite cycles. The limitation of this indicator is the main disadvantage of solid-state media. The best SSDs can withstand up to 10,000 cycles, budget ones - up to 3-5 thousand. Often expressed in terms of data capacity limits and operating hours.

1 Samsung 850 Evo

The rating of SSD drives opens with the 850 Evo series solid state drives; they are recognized as the best for laptops and computers for using the most modern technologies that provide high write speeds and durability. Compared to the previous 840 version, it has twice the random write speed and high performance. The possible volume reaches 4 TB. The last two interfaces have a Rapid mode available, which uses a quarter of the computer's RAM as a cache to speed up data transfer.

Samsung's proprietary 3D V-NAND technology increases capacity by arranging cells in 32 layers, which allows not only to increase memory capacity, but also to provide better speed and reliability of data storage.

Options:

possible volume 120, 250, 500 GB, 1, 2 or 4 TB;
Sata 3;
540/520 Mb/sec;
up to 90,000 IOPS;
form factor 2.5 inches, M2, mSata;
Trim support;
buffer memory 512 MB – 2 GB depending on capacity;
operating time between wear and tear is 1.5 million hours.

Advantages:

high recording speed;
high capacity;
reliability of data storage;
durability and wear resistance;
various size options.

No deficiencies were identified.

The average price is 23,000 for 1TB.

Prices for Samsung 850 Evo:

2 Toshiba Q300 480GB

Second place goes to a relatively inexpensive solid-state drive from Toshiba. It has a thickness of 3 mm, so it is suitable for installation in laptops. NAND memory is used, 3 bits per cell. The main advantage of the disk, which allows it to occupy high positions in the rating, is its affordability with high technical indicators.

Toshiba's original technology uses low-cost TLC cell technology and SLC cache to improve performance.

Options:

480 GB;
550/520 Mb/s;
Sata 3;
up to 83000 IOPS;
1.5 million operating hours;
Trim support;
2,5”;

Advantages:

high speed;
good performance;
attractive combination of price and quality.

No deficiencies were identified.

The average price is 10,600 rubles.

Prices for Toshiba Q300 480GB:

3 SanDisk Extreme Pro 480 GB

The SanDisk SSD provides fast loading speeds for games and graphics applications, suitable for computers and laptops. Using such a disk saves battery power and eliminates overheating thanks to the built-in self-regulation function. The disk comes with proprietary software that allows you to monitor changes in its characteristics, for example, operating efficiency and capacity, in real time. The disk, unlike conventional hard disks, has high vibration resistance and shock resistance.

nCache Pro technology improves performance and performance through a two-level caching system for small files. Large files are combined in a buffer into a common data array before being written to the main flash memory.

Options:

480 GB;
550/515 Mb/s;
Sata III;
MLC memory;
2,5”;
up to 100,000 IOPS.

Advantages:

good performance;
10-year manufacturer's warranty;
suitable for laptops.

Flaws:

low recording speed compared to analogues;
sometimes there are defective specimens.

The average price is 19,600 rubles.

Prices for SanDisk Extreme Pro 480 GB:

4 Kingston KC400 SSDNow

Kingston's SSD drive is 15 times faster than a conventional hard drive, has high reliability and provides data protection thanks to NAND memory. The drive can be installed in laptops or desktop PCs. The model features wear leveling technology, thanks to which the difference between the most frequently and least used blocks is no more than 2%. There is also an intelligent memory cleaning function that increases service life.

Options:

capacity 128, 256 GB and 1 TB;
550/530 Mb/s;
MLC memory;
SATA 3;
2,5”;
up to 89000 IOPS.

Advantages:

choice of capacity;
good speed;
modern technologies for extending service life.

Flaws:

According to some reviews, there are difficulties in updating the firmware.

The average price is 26 thousand rubles.

Prices for Kingston KC400 SSDNow:

5WD Blue SSD 1TB

In fifth place in the rating is an SSD drive of impressive capacity from WD. It has a thickness of 7mm and a metal body, suitable for laptop use. The drive provides good speed and is specially designed for multitasking, ensuring fast work in several applications simultaneously.

Options:

250, 500 GB and 1 TB;
545/525 Mb/s;
Sata 3;
2.5” and M2;
resource 400 TBW;
1.75 million operating hours;
up to 80,000 IOPS.

Advantages:

large capacity;
two form factor options;
convenient software;
speed and reliability.

Flaws:

relatively low resource;
shorter warranty than competitors.

The average price is 20,100 rubles.

Prices for WD Blue SSD 1TB:

6 PNY CS2211 240GB

The PNY SSD delivers fast performance when loading games and transferring large files. Ideal as a system hard drive replacement for gamers and when working with 4K video. Characterized by low power consumption, fast work with multimedia content and multitasking.

Having a thickness of 7 mm, it is complemented by the included pad, which allows it to be installed in places where the 9.5 mm fastenings are installed.

Options:

240, 480 and 960 GB;
560/547 Mb/s;
SATA 3;
up to 95000 IOPS;
MLC NAND;
2,5”.

Advantages:

good speed;
reliability;
software included.

No deficiencies were identified.

The average price is 8200 rubles.

Prices for PNY CS2211 240GB:

7 OCZ ARC 100 240GB

The ARC 100 drive is a representative of the budget segment, while using the technological developments of more expensive models from previous series. It is a cost-effective solution for users, based on time-tested tools. Made in a 7mm metal case.

The model is based on the Barefoot 3 M10 controller, which maintains consistent performance throughout the life of the drive. Also thanks to it, fast work with poorly compressed data, for example, video files, archives, game installation packages, has been achieved.

Options:

120, 240 and 480 GB;
490/450 Mb/s;
SATA 3;
up to 80,000 IOPS;
resource 21.9 TBW;
2,5”.

Advantages:

reliability;
maintains performance well over its service life;
affordable price.

Flaws:

low speed.

The average price is 6200 rubles.

Prices for OCZ ARC 100 240GB:

8 Kingston HyperX Savage 480 GB

The Kingston drive increases the speed of the entire operating system and maintains its performance even when the capacity is full. The model features a bright design in the style of modern gaming computers. The thin 7 mm case makes it possible to install it in almost any laptop or PC. The manufacturer offers a 3-year warranty and free support.

The kit may include a 3.5" case, an adapter for a 9.5 mm mount, an external pocket with USB 3.0, as well as all the necessary mounting screws, which makes it easy to replace a standard hard drive.

Options:

240, 480 and 960 GB;
2,5”;
SATA 3;
520/500 Mb/s;
up to 88000 IOPS;
operating time 1 million hours;
416 WPD.

Advantages:

good performance;
high-quality assembly;
many adapters included;
reliability.

Flaws:

average resource and speed;
frequent mistakes;
For correct operation, a firmware update is sometimes required.

The average price is 13,300 rubles.

Prices for Kingston HyperX Savage 480 GB:

9WD WDS250G1B0A

The Marvell controller used in the model improves energy saving, so it is recommended for use on laptops. It also supports data encryption, which ensures reliable operation. The SSD has a good resource and optimizes the location of data, allowing you to work with several high-resource-intensive applications at the same time.

The model is certified compatible with a wide range of laptops and desktop computers, including can be used on modern thin ultrabooks.

Options:

250 GB;
2.5 or M2;
SATA 3;
100 TBW;
540/500 Mb/s.

Advantages:

versatility;
reliability;
proprietary software;
high-quality assembly.

Flaws:

frequent mistakes;
According to some reviews, the actual speed is much lower than the declared one.

The average price is 6500 rubles.

Prices for WD WDS250G1B0A:

10 Transcend SSD370

The maximum possible capacity in the SSD370 model line reaches 1 TB. In addition to fairly high speed and good resource, the disk also supports a number of additional functions. In particular, an intelligent block control system, protection against sudden power failure, TRIM, wear minimization. The model is characterized by high resistance to vibration, shaking, and shock resistance. The manufacturer provides a three-year warranty, as well as a free SSD Scope software product. With its help, you can monitor the condition of the disk, improve its efficiency and prevent problems. Included is a 3.5 mm bracket for mounting the drive into a desktop PC.

DevSleep mode allows you to completely turn off power in standby mode, while maintaining the ability to quickly turn on in a split second. This is relevant when used in laptops to increase battery life.

Options:

capacity up to 1 TB;
2,5”;
SATA 3;
570/470 Mb/s.

Advantages:

good capacity;
adapter included;
many additional functions to optimize and extend service life;
proprietary software.

Flaws:

low resource;
marriage occurs;
high price for high-capacity models.

The average price is 5,500 rubles for 128 GB, 33,760 for 1 TB.

Prices for Transcend SSD370:

11 ADATA Premier SP550

The model is presented in various capacity options, the most budgetary of which is 128 GB, one of the most popular is 480 GB. The SSD drive implements error correction technology, ensures data integrity and a good service life. The thin 7mm body allows it to be used in laptops and ultrabooks.

Options:

480 GB;
560/510 Mb/s;
SATA3;
2,5”;
up to 75000 IOPS.

Advantages:

relatively low cost;
good speed;
high-quality assembly.

Flaws:

cheap TLC memory.

The average price is 12,500 rubles.

ADATA Premier SP550 prices:

Conclusion

The first doubt when buying an SSD drive is usually caused by its limited service life. The most modern models using the latest technologies ensure guaranteed long-term stable operation. But the price of these representatives of leading brands is often prohibitive. Such SSDs are recommended for gamers and people who work professionally with graphics and video. High-capacity drives also have a high price tag. For everyday use, it is recommended to choose small MLC disks, and for low loads you can limit yourself to cheaper TLC disks. They have less resource and performance, so it is recommended to use special utilities to monitor the memory status and replace it in a timely manner.

Last year turned out to be a very difficult period for the entire SSD industry. Throughout the year, there was a serious shortage of NAND memory on the market, and this hampered its development. Manufacturers did not receive the necessary volumes of raw materials for assembling drives, which seriously hampered all technical progress and the preparation of new drive models, for which the necessary NAND chips simply were not available. Users often had to sacrifice SSD capacity or even refuse to purchase them due to seriously increased prices.

For example, compared to mid-2016, retail prices for some popular consumer SSD models have increased by almost one and a half times.

And this, by the way, does not fully reflect the change in prices for NAND memory chips - flash memory chips themselves have almost doubled in price over the same period. But fortunately, the situation has been smoothed out a little by the emergence of new types of memory: TLC NAND and 3D NAND with larger cores and a higher information storage density. It was their introduction into SSDs that made it possible to slightly slow down the rampant price hikes.

Nevertheless, in the end, we still came to the conclusion that the supply of solid-state drives over the past year has hardly grown in unit terms. True, against this background, the average capacity of sold SSDs has increased slightly. If in 2016 it was 362 GB, then by now the average storage device has increased in volume to 388 GB. But this can hardly be considered a great achievement for the recently rapidly growing market.

However, not everything is so sad. In the fourth quarter, there was light at the end of the tunnel. It seems that at the beginning of 2018 the situation will be reversed, the supply of flash memory chips will finally be able to exceed demand, and this will be a signal for the beginning of stabilization and a subsequent decline in SSD prices. Demand for flash memory from mobile device manufacturers is expected to weaken significantly, giving the SSD market much-needed resources to grow. Available estimates agree that global demand for NAND chips in the first quarter of this year compared to the end of last year will decrease by up to 5 percent. The main manufacturers of flash memory will continue to significantly increase supplies.

The ratio of demand for NAND memory and its supply (according to DRAMeXchange)

As a result, we can expect a radical change in the market situation. Shortages of NAND chips continued for almost a year and a half and were associated both with the continuous increase in purchases of flash memory for the needs of mobile device manufacturers, and with a rather low rate of increase in its production, due to the technical re-equipment of semiconductor factories for the transition from 2D to 3D flash memory layout . Now the process of replacing and commissioning new equipment has either been completed or is at the final stage, so all major manufacturers of NAND chips are beginning to massively ship modern 3D NAND with 64 or 72 layers to partners.

Thus, the transition of the largest flash memory manufacturer, Samsung, to mass production of 64-layer 3D V-NAND occurred in the third quarter of 2017, and now the company is actively increasing its supplies, so that by the end of the year the share of new memory reached 50 percent of the total production volume of NAND chips by the Korean giant. In the third quarter of last year, Toshiba also launched production of its 64-layer three-dimensional BiCS3 memory. Now such memory makes up about a third of all flash products of the Japanese manufacturer, but over the coming year, the release of BiCS3 will have to exceed 50 percent share. Toshiba's manufacturing partner, Western Digital, is acting on a synchronized plan: it is also intensively increasing the supply of its own BiCS3 chips.

The joint venture partners IMFT, Micron and Intel are also focused on bringing 64-layer 3D memory to the market. Their 32-layer memory is already widely used in a variety of solid-state drives, but at the moment there is an intensive transition at the factories of these companies to the production of more advanced NAND chips with 64 layers. As for SK Hynix, at the end of last year it successfully mastered the production of 72-layer 3D NAND. So far, SK Hynix's flash memory shipments have been low key, but the company is looking to reverse the trend with its new technology in the near future.

The reason for the general transition to the production of 64-layer memory with a spatial layout is that due to the increase in cell density, such memory is clearly more profitable than planar NAND, even taking into account capital costs, a longer production cycle and a lower yield of usable crystals. Therefore, there is no doubt that 64-layer NAND chips will become the main type of memory for SSDs over the next 12-18 months. Of course, later we can expect a further increase in the number of layers, but 96- and 128-layer memory will begin to be used in the mass segment only in a fairly distant future.

Thus, the situation with the production of flash memory is about to stabilize, and new shocks on this front are not yet threatening. As a result, prices for solid-state drives will have to fall by 20-25 percent in the first quarters of 2018, and the market as a whole will return to an average annual growth rate of 15 percent. In addition, we can expect that in 2018 the SSD industry will become more interesting and agile from a technological point of view, as developers and manufacturers of drives will be able to obtain raw materials for their products in sufficient volumes. Therefore, in the coming year we can count on a noticeable revival of the situation as a whole - price wars, announcements of new interesting models, the emergence of promising technologies.

The past year, in fact, became a period of technological stagnation. The only noticeable trend during this period was the rapid spread of NVMe drives, which, on the one hand, increased their popularity in the consumer segment, and on the other, began to be actively purchased to complete finished computers by large assemblers. Although this seems somewhat unexpected, as a result, the share of M.2 PCIe drives in the supply structure of leading manufacturers was able to reach 50 percent by the end of the year.

If we talk about how specific SSD manufacturers performed last year, then there were no fundamental changes. Samsung remains the largest player, continuing to control approximately a third of the entire SSD market. The position of other market participants changed according to how close they were in the supply chain to NAND memory manufacturers and how much they suffered from shortages. In accordance with this principle, Western Digital, Toshiba, SK Hynix and Micron were able to significantly increase their market share. But we are not talking about competition with Samsung. The second-largest manufacturer, Western Digital, currently controls only about 19 percent of the market.

Firms that belong to the second echelon and do not have their own flash memory production, on the contrary, have reduced their presence in the market. The positions of Kingston and Lite-On were especially hard hit, their share shrank to 6 percent, while one and a half to two years ago they could boast of double-digit percentage market shares.

The SSD market was quite stagnant in 2017, and a shortage of flash memory caused SSD prices to rise rather than fall. In mid-2016, an inexpensive half-terabyte SSD could be purchased for under $100, and some terabyte models were available for under $200. Now these prices are not even close. A sad picture emerges even if we talk not about prices, but about technical progress. 2016 brought the Samsung 960 PRO and Samsung 960 EVO, which continued to be the best NVMe drives throughout last year, despite the futile attempts of other SSD manufacturers to surpass them in consumer properties.

But to say that there were no breakthroughs at all in 2017 is completely wrong. After all, it was last year that Intel began introducing its Optane technology to the mass market. Two and a half months ago, the company dropped a real bomb - the Intel Optane SSD 900p consumer drive, built on completely different principles than the usual SSDs on NAND memory. And even despite the fact that the Optane SSD 900p is still a purely niche product with a meager model range, limited availability and an exorbitant price, it was able to demonstrate serious improvement in many areas important to users, which attracted the closest attention from the progressive part of the computer communities.

The futuristic 3D Xpoint memory technology that powers Optane was originally introduced by Intel and Micron in 2015. It was assumed that the first SSDs using it would appear back in 2016, but some difficulties arose with its practical implementation. Therefore, the first Optane class products, which were small caching drives for the desktop segment and server models for high-load servers, appeared only in the spring of 2017. However, these were only trial products, and the Optane SSD 900p, released in the fall, is the thing thanks to which enthusiasts and technomaniacs should finally want to touch the new technology.

Frankly, contrary to many expectations, the Optane SSD 900p was not able to offer unmatched performance in all areas. But the advantage of this drive is due to the fact that it is very fast exactly where classic SSDs hit an insurmountable barrier: when working with small blocks of data with short queues of requests. And although the Optane SSD 900p is inferior in terms of sequential read speed to classic high-speed NVNe SSDs, its write speed and especially latency reach unsurpassed values. Therefore, on average, in typical consumer scenarios, the Intel Optane SSD 900p is about 30 percent faster than the Samsung 960 PRO, and in some types of workloads the performance advantage can even be multiple.

In addition, 3D Xpoint memory promises much higher data storage reliability compared to conventional NAND. Even according to the stated characteristics for the Optane SSD 900p, the full capacity can be rewritten ten times every day for five years. And this makes such drives not only much more durable in comparison with both conventional SSDs and HDDs, but also simply eternal.

But still, we wouldn’t want to idealize the Optane SSD 900p too much. Today, this solution has many shortcomings, due to which it is not yet capable of becoming a full replacement for traditional solid-state drives. First, the price is disappointing: the Optane SSD 900p is more than twice as expensive as the fastest consumer SSD, the Samsung 960 PRO. Secondly, there are certain problems with power consumption and size, as a result of which the use of Optane SSD 900p is still possible only in large desktops, but not in mobile or compact systems. And thirdly, the currently released versions of Optane SSD 900p have a capacity of only 280 or 480 GB, and larger capacities, which are interesting for a sufficiently large number of users, are simply not provided.

In other words, the Optane SSD 900p is somewhat ahead of its time. Today, this drive should be perceived rather as a successful demonstration of innovative non-volatile memory technology, but I would like to hope that in the coming years all problems will be solved and drives (and memory modules) built on 3D XPoint will come to the mass segment and complete the revolution that has begun.

It seems that all the problems that have been holding back the growth of the SSD industry are behind us. The price peak for NAND memory chips has passed, and the transition to the production of flash memory with a spatial layout has been largely completed. This means that there are no longer any obstacles to 2018 becoming a new period of rapid development of the industry. This is exactly what we are looking forward to in the near future.

The number of drives based on 3D NAND should increase significantly. The leading SSD manufacturers, who have almost completed the transition of their products to new memory technologies, will have to be joined by smaller players. Therefore, the range of consumer SSD models is expected to undergo major changes in the near future. First of all, they will affect the NVMe drives segment, which is currently filled with a huge number of models built on clearly outdated hardware. This should be facilitated by controller developers, who in the first quarter of the coming year are going to offer new platforms with either improved characteristics or reduced costs.

In particular, in 2018, drives should finally appear that will be able to move the notorious Samsung 960 PRO from the performance pedestal. At a minimum, Samsung itself will update its flagship offering, but perhaps some of the promising solutions on the second generation NVMe controllers being developed will turn out to be no worse.

The SATA drive segment is not in danger of imminent death either. Despite the fact that SATA SSDs have often begun to be perceived as outdated solutions, many manufacturers intend not only to continue supplying such models, but also to release new modifications with improved characteristics. As an example, we can once again cite the plans of the leader - Samsung, which in the coming weeks will have to offer an improved replacement for its 850 PRO and 850 EVO series. Phison is also preparing a new platform for SATA drives, available for use by second- and third-tier manufacturers. Thanks to the new Phison PS3112-S12 controller, the performance and reliability of many consumer SATA drive models should take a step forward.

Changes should also be expected in the premium market segment. On the one hand, Intel, by deploying additional production lines in the near future, will be able to increase the production volume of its 3D XPoint memory, and this will allow it to add more capacious modifications to the Optane 900p model range, even despite the loss-making nature of their implementation. On the other hand, Samsung is going to respond to the release of Optane family drives by developing an alternative Z-SSD technology that uses classic three-dimensional NAND. The description of the first representative of the Z-SSD class, the SZ985 drive, has already appeared on the company’s website, and it promises the same ultra-low latencies and incredible resource as Optane. However, to what extent these parameters will correspond to what we will see in practice is not yet known.

Let's start with the concept of form factor and interface. The “classic” for SSD is a traditional 2.5-inch hard drive enclosure with a SATA interface. Such SSDs are the most versatile - they can “invigorate” an old computer with SATA 2 ports, and achieve high performance from modern desktop and laptop hardware.

However, the capabilities of SSDs are much greater than what SATA allows. And here the confusion begins, because SSDs with an M.2 interface are, in fact, two different types of drives - they can operate in SATA mode with the same speed restrictions (such compact drives in the form of expansion cards were originally used for laptops , but can also be installed in the corresponding slots on motherboards of stationary PCs), or can also use the PCI-E x4 bus directly (PCI-E NVMe interface) with much greater bandwidth - if you are going to purchase an SSD with an M.2 connector, immediately clarify in what mode it runs on your computer. For example, MacBook Air used M.2 SATA until 2012, and then began to work with M.2 PCI-E NVMe. Externally, they can be distinguished by the number of cutouts on the key: M.2 SATA has two, PCI-E NVMe has one.

However, there are also atypical M.2 SSDs on the market, designed for the PCI-E x2 interface and using the same two-cut key as M.2 SATA. They can easily work on motherboards with an M.2 connector that has both SATA and PCI-E lines, but on boards designed only for SATA-SSD they will be useless, although they are no different from M.2 SATA SSDs in appearance. Therefore, the type of supported SSDs must be taken into account.

And finally, there are SSDs that are installed in a standard PCI-E slot on desktop motherboards as ATX expansion cards - this is an option for those who need high speed, but there is no M.2 slot on the motherboard.

No SSD drive lasts forever - these are the features of flash memory, which allows only a limited number of write cycles. Therefore, naturally, it is best to choose a drive with the maximum passport TBW (Total Bytes Written) - but do not forget that Samsung SSDs, which look pale compared to competitors, can actually withstand a significantly higher number of write cycles than stated in the passport.

The type of memory determines the resource of the SSD, its speed, and price. The cheapest drives use TLC or 3D-TLC, which can only last a little over a thousand write cycles. It is worth taking such an SSD with a decent capacity reserve - it will provide sufficient resource. MLC memory is more expensive, but it allows you to rewrite a cell several thousand times. The most “tenacious” memory is SLC, which can withstand up to 100 thousand cycles, it is also the fastest... and the most expensive. A compromise option is an MLC SSD with SLC caching: the unallocated space there works as a high-speed cache, but such drives are sensitive to free space, and when it decreases below a critical point, their data exchange speed decreases.

As for the manufacturer, any SSD is a combination of several options for controllers and memory chips, so it is incorrect to compare brands: manufacturers that do not produce memory themselves will use the same chips as SSDs from leading manufacturers (Samsung, Micron/Intel, Toshiba , Hynix).