Hot or Not? New Samsung and Solidata SSDs

Solidata X2-128 (128 GB MLC)

The second Solidata drive that we received from the Swiss flash SSD specialist ssdshop.ch was the X2-128, which offers 128 GB of storage capacity based on MLC flash memory. Its specifications are different from the X1 drive, as it is supposed to reach up to 240 MB/s read and 190 MB/s sequential write throughput. Random performance is specified at 130 and 35 MB/s for reads and writes respectively.

Average Performance

The read throughput reached a maximum of almost 165 MB/s, which is as much as the SLC-flash based Solidata X1-64. However, the minimum throughput dropped to only 73.8 MB/s, while the X1 maintained high transfer rates. The actual write performance is far from the manufacturer’s specifications: we measured 83.7 MB/s maximum, but only 32.5 MB/s average and 20.2 MB/s minimum throughput for sequential writes. This is less than even older 2.5” hard drives can provide, which also applies to the 82 ms (!) access time. As a result, this translates into pathetic I/O performance.

High Power Consumption Again

Solidata again specified power consumption of 3 W, which would be a lot to start with, and it required even more power than that: we measured 4.7 W idle power, 7.2 W for streaming reads, and an incredible 10.9 W for workstation-type I/O. Considering the low I/O performance, this particular product clearly is not worthwhile.

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