Drevo Ares NVMe SSD Review

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Conclusion

If you are the kind of person that wants to buy the best and not look back, the Drevo Ares 256GB isn't for you. The Ares has the look of a performance leader and considering its low price, that might be good enough for some enthusiasts. The Ares will certainly draw some attention if you use it in a windowed computer case.

Micron's first-generation 3D MLC flash was never widely used in consumer SSDs. The controller companies that validated the media didn't spend as much time optimizing the firmware as they did for the first-generation TLC NAND. We can see that in our performance results. The Intel 600p with IMFT 3D TLC delivers nearly the same performance as the 3D MLC. The Intel 600p and Drevo Ares deliver roughly the same performance under typical consumer workloads. Neither drive should be used in a workstation environment, but both also outperform most SATA SSDs.

The Ares has a big endurance advantage over the 600p. Intel rates the 600p 256GB at 144 TBW, which is less than half of the Ares' 350 TBW rating. Endurance may not seem like a significant issue, but many shoppers looking at SSDs in this price range want to keep using the drive for several years rather than upgrade frequently.

Before we get to the overall price equation, there are other value-add features. The Drevo Ares has a strip of blue LEDs on the circuit board and tucked away behind diffusers. That produces an even light along the dominant edge of the drive. There is also a three-way switch that unlocks the different power modes, but that's largely a gimmick feature. We just don't see anyone intentionally slowing the drive down to SATA SSD levels. Drevo offers users a free baseball cap if you jump through a couple of hoops. You also get a coupon to use at an online store.

The Drevo Ares won't break the bank at $179. It costs roughly $20 more than the Intel 600p 256GB on Amazon. We would spend the extra $20 to gain the extra endurance and good looks of the Ares, but I'm not sure this is where we would stop. For another $20 the MyDigitalSSD BPX 480GB looks like an even better value. Some may choose to leap over the $179 price point to gain twice the capacity and mainstream NVMe performance.


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Chris Ramseyer
Chris Ramseyer
Chris Ramseyer is a Contributing Editor for Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews consumer storage.
9 Comments Comment from the forums
  • spdragoo
    I gotta say, that switch on the back is definitely not appealing. Aside from not seeing the point of any kind of physical switch to adjust performance on a storage drive (I think software control would have been better), I think a selector dial would have made more sense. Less chance of accidentally changing the selection when fiddling with the back of your PC.
    Reply
  • cryoburner
    20355478 said:
    Less chance of accidentally changing the selection when fiddling with the back of your PC.
    I was thinking this as well. Why would you want a toggle switch on the back of your computer that serves no purpose other than to cripple your SSD's performance? Even a dial could get nudged when reaching behind the case to plug in a cable. It they really wanted a switch to marginally reduce power consumption at the expense of performance, why not put in inside the case? It's not like anyone's going to be flipping the switch on a regular basis.

    The Ares has a big endurance advantage over the 600p. Intel rates the 600p 256GB at 144 TBW, which is less than half of the Ares' 350 TBW rating. Endurance may not seem like a significant issue, but many shoppers looking at SSDs in this price range want to keep using the drive for several years rather than upgrade frequently.
    Even this is practically useless. I can't really imagine many scenarios in which someone would be writing 144TB to one of these drives, let alone 350TB. If you averaged 10GB of writes per day, it should take you nearly 40 years to wear out the flash memory on a 144TBW drive. More than likely, some other component on the SSD, like a capacitor, will fail long before that point. In order to hit 144TB of writes within the 600p's 5-year warranty, you would need to write an average of almost 80GB of data to the drive every single day. That's nearly one-third of the drive's total capacity.

    Perhaps more worth noting to someone interested in keeping their drive for a number of years is that the Drevo Ares only offers a 3-year warranty, as opposed to the 5 years for the Intel 600p. In order to write 350TB to the drive within its warranty period, you would need to write around 320GB to the drive every day. Or over 190GB per day if you were using it for the same 5 years compared for the Intel drive. 190GB of writes per day might be more than 80GB, but either one is far higher than any likely usage scenario on a 256GB consumer SSD, to the point where any differences in write endurance don't even matter. So no, the Ares does not have "a big endurance advantage over the 600p". If anything, the shorter warranty might be more of a concern for someone planning to keep the drive for a long time.
    Reply
  • takeshi7
    That switch on the back is absolutely pointless and it's an eyesore. It's a nice looking budget AIC meant for desktops. Just ship it from the factory in the highest performance mode and get rid of that stupid switch.
    Reply
  • joz
    They wan't how much for this piece of excrement? Holy excrement.

    Moderator edited for language.
    Reply
  • mlee 2500
    Gotta ask yourself:

    How mad and/or stupid are you going to feel when you discover that you've been inadvertently running at half speed because the switch moved unbeknownst to you, the last time you reached behind your PC to unplug a monitor, attach a USB cable etc?
    Reply
  • R_1
    could be worse, at least its not pretending to be a staplegun.
    Reply
  • MxMatrix
    It looks like a product targeted for the chinese market. Cheap and sort of swag. Just missing the bling of a staple gun.
    Reply
  • yonatanhak
    See the Electrolytic capacitors at the top?
    These are cheap, lifetime limited devices.
    This a sign of a product they have cut every corner on the worst.

    Don't be blinded by a blue led..
    Reply
  • Darkbreeze
    And again, this is another product that has half the performance of the 960 EVO but costs 70 dollars more. Ok, 55 dollars more if you factor in the cost of an M.2 to PCIe adapter for those who don't have native M.2.

    AND, this one doesn't even have a longer warranty. What makes these companies think they can compete like this and why do we promote them in such a positive light when there are so many better, cheaper options?
    Reply