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SanDisk Takes On Intel's Enterprise SSD Crown

SanDisk Optimus Eco SSD: A SAS Interface And Up To 2 TB Of Flash
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Consolidation continues changing the face of the SSD industry. Just as we saw years ago with the mechanical disk space, your options are slowly being whittled down. The general consensus is that companies manufacturing NAND and those with impregnable NAND contracts will be the only ones left standing, aside from the scraps left for more niche players.

Probably the biggest challenge in SSD production is the procurement of NAND. When times are good, everyone wins. But, when the economy turns the other way and NAND supplies dwindle, smaller companies are the first to get cut off. Toshiba would never jeopardize its own products for a third party's, and neither would Samsung or Micron. SSD vendors are always one flash shortage away from disaster, which just isn't tenable. 

And that's why the SMART acquisition makes so much sense. SanDisk got its hands on great IP and engineering resources, while SMART gained access to SanDisk and its joint manufacturing venture with Toshiba, Flash Forward. More likely than not, the Optimus Eco was already well on its way to launch before SanDisk stepped in. But now that the two companies are one, we're excited to see how future generations evolve into even more compelling hardware.

Speaking of which, the Optimus Eco is one of the best enterprise drives we have ever tested. It's hard to know where to begin. Steady-state read IOPS that approach 100,000 and 36,000 write IOPS are a good start, even if those figures are less than the flagship Optimus that leveraged 24 nm Toshiba NAND. Sequential performance beyond 550 MB/s, while maintaining great consistency, is another reason to admire what the Optimus Eco can do. A five-year warranty, power-loss protection, and respectable write endurance (for an MLC-based drive, at least) round out the package nicely for us. Finally, don't forget that the Optimus Eco is available in capacities as large as 2 TB. There's not much left for us to critique.

The only two factors that might cause hesitation are physical size and interface support. Although we don't expect Z-height to be problematic, the 9.5 and 15 mm enclosures could be too large for certain enclosures, particularly with newer storage systems offering 7 mm trays. The SAS connector could also keep the Optimus Eco out of more entry-level workstations. Really though, those are concerns about addressable markets, and not the Optimus Eco itself.

Finally, there's the question of whether SanDisk's Optimus Eco is fast enough to unseat Intel's SSD DC S3700 as our favorite all-around enterprise drive. We never reviewed SMART's Optimus, which is technically rated for slightly faster random write rates. However, the Eco is still incredibly quick. Of course, if you're looking for SAS connectivity, then there's no contest; the SSD DC S3700 is SATA-only. If you're looking at sequential performance, then again, the Optimus Eco wins. SanDisk even comes out by a very slim margin in random 4 KB workloads.

However, even though SanDisk does great things with its own NAND, the S3700's HET-MLC memory blows it away with the ability to shoulder 10 drive writes per day. That's a specification you need the original Optimus in order to match. With that point aside, I'd consider SanDisk's Optimus Eco and Intel's SSD DC S3700 to be peers, each performing certain tasks incredibly well and both deserving as much praise as an enterprise storage reviewer can give.

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  • 0 Hide
    tripleX , December 13, 2013 12:44 PM
    When aming this statement, did you take Littles Law into consideration:
    Every single one-second average falls between 28,500 and 38,000 IOPS (0.84 and 1.12 ms)
  • -4 Hide
    jkrui01 , December 14, 2013 12:32 AM
    toms, your are full of sh*t , consider this as my last read on your site, why not put the samsung pro in the article? because it would win, cheaper and faster.
  • 1 Hide
    danwat1234 , December 14, 2013 1:24 AM
    7 watts active power consumption? With the word 'Eco' on the front? Ummm huh? Non-eco SSDs only take maybe 3.5w at full tilt and less than 2w when idle, often around 1w or less
  • 3 Hide
    Haserath , December 14, 2013 1:50 AM
    Quote:
    toms, your are full of sh*t , consider this as my last read on your site, why not put the samsung pro in the article? because it would win, cheaper and faster.


    The Samsung Pro is not an enterprise drive. They were comparing Intel's enterprise drive vs Sandisk's.
  • 0 Hide
    utomo , December 14, 2013 6:49 AM
    Samsung 1tb need to be reviewed and compare. The price is much cheaper
  • 0 Hide
    robert3892 , December 14, 2013 10:08 AM
    4000 dollars for a 2TB drive? Even in the enterprise I see very few companies rolling out cash for something like this when a mechanical enterprise style hard drive can be bought for far less.
  • 0 Hide
    drewriley , December 14, 2013 11:18 AM
    Quote:
    7 watts active power consumption? With the word 'Eco' on the front? Ummm huh? Non-eco SSDs only take maybe 3.5w at full tilt and less than 2w when idle, often around 1w or less


    Many consumer SATA drives are a lot less, but enterprise drives aren't always quite that low. The S3700, at 800GB, is 6W typical and 8W burst. The Eco isn't quite as 'eco' at 400GB, but for 2TB, is actually pretty good. Many of the PCIe add-in SSDs that provide better performance at the same capacity are at least 10-15W and sometimes 25W. There aren't a lot of 6Gbps SAS SSD comparisons, now that 12Gbps drives are out, but even the Toshiba MK line is rated at 6.5W. We plan on doing more power consumption testing in the future.
  • 0 Hide
    drewriley , December 14, 2013 11:26 AM
    Quote:
    Samsung 1tb need to be reviewed and compare. The price is much cheaper


    As was said earlier, the Samsung 840 products are not enterprise class. They do not provide the endurance or power loss protection. They could possibly be used in workstations, but not beyond that. Samsung does offer the 843T, but that product is more in line with the Intel S3500 and does not have the random write performance to come close to the Eco. The 843T is also much more expensive than the 840 series.
  • 0 Hide
    drewriley , December 14, 2013 11:33 AM
    Quote:
    4000 dollars for a 2TB drive? Even in the enterprise I see very few companies rolling out cash for something like this when a mechanical enterprise style hard drive can be bought for far less.


    When comparing to HDD, there isn't a single SSD that will come close on price, enterprise or not. On the flip side, there isn't a single HDD that can come close on performance either. In order to get that much flash storage, you were previously limited to multiple SSDs or PCIe add-in cards, the Eco allows you to have that capacity in a smaller form-factor while drawing less power. Considering the $/GB, which is in line for it's class, it makes sense since there are plenty of enterprise customers buying 800GB drives, at least enough that companies keep producing them.
  • 0 Hide
    drewriley , December 14, 2013 11:47 AM
    Quote:
    When aming this statement, did you take Littles Law into consideration:
    Every single one-second average falls between 28,500 and 38,000 IOPS (0.84 and 1.12 ms)


    No, we didn't, but can you be a little more clear with your question? I am not an expert in the area, but the law, as it applies to performance testing, is valid if the number of jobs in the system is equal to those being completed. Meaning that no new jobs are created in the system and no jobs are lost forever. So, if jobs were being lost, you might see consistent performance centered around the bottleneck, which is not the device under test. Since the system is artificially creating and tracking IOs, I don't believe any are being lost or accidentally created. Also, with our Enterprise Video testing, which I wrote to test a specific use-case, the data is generated and validated as it is written, so there is no chance of data loss. If that doesn't answer your question, please let me know, I am always interested in new subjects....
  • 0 Hide
    bluekoala , December 16, 2013 5:06 AM
    This to me seems like good progress. Although I haven't had use for enterprise class hardware since SCSI drives, I find these developments interesting as some advances can trickle down to the consumer market if it becomes beneficial.
  • 0 Hide
    glpdx , February 24, 2014 7:55 PM
    I'll word the question nicely then. Can someone show me why this drive is worth 5x the cost of an 840pro, extreme 2, or even an Evo? Put any of those in a RAID 10 with the same question. They hold back one or two inexpensive features for enterprise products to keep their 10x margin.