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• Inside Samsung’s SSD

  Its 80 g weight makes the 256 GB 2.5” PB22-J 20% lighter than conventional hard drives, and it can operate in a wider temperature range of 0-70°C. In contrast, mechanical drives are typically specified for 5-60°C or even less. Unlike most other flash SSDs, Samsung’s data sheet specifies that the device supports Native Command Queuing (NCQ) with a queue depth of up to 32 commands. This is not the case for most flash SSDs, with the exception of a few of the latest products based on Samsung or Promise controllers. Samsung also specifically says that the drive supports device and host initiated power management, which means that the flash SSD can be put into a low power idle mode by the operating system, or it can do this on its own. Like Intel’s X25 family, Samsung built the new device on multi-channel flash memory, which is imperative not only to support fast read performance, but to ensure that it can actually write at a decent speed. In fact, Samsung’s new PB22-J is the fastest writing flash SSD based on MLC flash memory. The device utilizes a controller that was developed by Samsung, and it incorporates a 1 Gbit SDRAM chip as a drive cache memory. This is necessary to support NCQ, and to make sure that the eight memory channels can be utilized at maximum efficiency.

• Samsung SSD PB22-J (256 GB MLC Flash)

  Samsung was the first memory maker to send us a flash SSD sample way back in the fall of 2006. Its initial flash SSD prototype was a 32 GB drive that was based on an UltraATA interface (see article: Conventional Hard Drive Obsoletism--Samsung’s 32 GB Flash Drive Previewed). At less than 1 W peak power and 0.05 W idle power, it was one of the most power efficient drives we had ever seen, and it still is if you compare these numbers to other, modern flash SSDs. Its 50 MB/s read throughput and < 30 MB/s write throughput weren’t special, but it was still fast for its time. 256 GB Available Now The latest Samsung flash SSD generation is really different. Its idle power requirement is in the same vicinity (< 0.1 W), while peak power can reach 1.5 W. However, the latest model, which is called the PB22-J (and will only be available to Samsung OEM customers, such as notebook builders), is more complex and more powerful. The SATA/300 interface alone requires more power and the drive comes with an integrated controller and 1 Gbit cache memory IC (128 MB) to maximize performance. The power consumption results are more than acceptable knowing what’s behind the new drives. Performance Samsung offers 64, 128, and 256 GB capacity models, which are all based on multi-level cell (MLC) flash memory and rated at a maximum throughput of 220 MB/s. The 256 GB drive is a 2.5” model, while the 128 GB version fits into a 1.8” form factor and the 64 GB variant is a 1.8” slim device. We measured a maximum of 209 MB/s on an ICH10R-based Core i7 system (X58 chipset) for the 256 GB drive. Intel’s X25 family remains faster at almost 230 MB/s maximum. However, write performance varies: while the 256 and 128 GB models are specified to reach 200 MB/s, the 64 GB version is limited to 120 MB/s. We measured 144-194 MB/s write throughput on our 256 GB sample.

• Hot or Not? New Samsung and Solidata SSDs

  The market is flooded with flash-based solid state drives (SSD) right now, all of which claim to deliver impressive throughput at power consumption levels low enough to save the world. So much for the theory, though—the reality is rather different. A few select products are truly impressive, but the bulk of these are just expensive offerings that do not deliver on their promises. Two new drives by Samsung and Solidata found their way into our test labs, and they are as different as they can be. Power Issues We stirred up the SSD hive when we reported that many flash SSDs do not actually increase notebook battery runtime by saving power; in fact, they might shorten it due to the high power consumption of the drives. The article The SSD Power Consumption Hoax talks about power consumption issues we found half a year ago; our Flash SSD Update verifies and emphasizes these results. And the power issue is not over. Now that SSDs are exceeding 200 MB/s throughput, they tend to become CPU-bound. In other words, this means that running systems with full power saving settings enabled might bottleneck your SSD performance. Performance Issues First- and second-generation flash SSDs simply were not what people had hoped they would be. It took until 2009 for flash SSDs to become more efficient and noticeably faster. Six new drives did well a couple of months ago, but only Intel’s X25-M (consumer) and X25-E (professional) were able to truly impress us. In addition to this, many tech Web sites are focusing on existing fragmentation issues with flash SSDs today, as the performance characteristics depend on the workload, the data stored, and the fragmentation level. Sequential reads or writes from or to flash SSDs aren’t, in fact, sequential, as intelligent controllers constantly try to optimize performance and wear leveling by distributing writes according to the flash SSD’s capabilities. They are typically successful, while staying within a one-workload scenario. However, dramatic changes in workload or capacity reuse may impact flash SSD performance, and only SSD-drive-aware operating systems will be able to improve this situation. Until then, try to avoid heavy fragmentation (P2P downloads) or changing workloads (from intensive I/O to intensive sequential requests). If you use your flash SSD as a system drive, you should be fine, taking advantage of modern flash SSDs’ performance potential. New Drives: Samsung PB22-J, Solidata X1 and X2 Samsung’s new PB22-J drive finally jumps over the 200 MB/s line, and it is available at capacities of up to 256 GB. Unfortunately, these drives aren’t intended to be sold at retail, though you may see re-labeled Samsung drives, or be able to get them in high-end notebooks. We also received two Solidata SSDs, which differ by running two individual flash segments in an internal RAID 0 configuration. We found that the drives perform well, but they also require horrible levels of power consumption that actually exceed the amount needed by fast 3.5” desktop drives. Samsung Enterprise SSD MCCOE64G5MPP-0VA 64GB... (10 offers) Online shop Price See more products We also included two new Mtron SSDs, the SSD Mobi, which we received from the vendor RocketDisk.com.