Early Verdict
e Longsys FORESEE S500 would get swallowed up in the open market by big name competitors outside of China. If Longsys wants to play a sea of sharks it needs competitive marketing and distribution channels. We always welcome more competition as it aids in driving costs down. Companies looking for a custom experience with products tuned for its needs will find Longsys a valuable partner.
Pros
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Low cost, good entry level performance, a solid solution for notebook use
Cons
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Availability outside of China is nonexistant, poor moderate and heavy use performance
Why you can trust Tom's Hardware
Specifications, Pricing, Warranty & Accessories
The Shenzhen Longsys Electronics Company delivered the first retail SSD with Silicon Motion's new SM2256 controller. Although you might not see much of it outside of China, the processor and flash combination is expect to dominate the mainstream SSD market through the end of 2015.
Before we dive into the hardware, let's tackle the question most of you are probably asking: what is Shenzhen Longsys Electronics Company? It's the largest SSD manufacturer in China, with over 400 employees and more than 200 engineers. Most flash-based products from Longsys end up in data centers, although client products are a growing segment of its business.
We don't have a list of customers buying the Foresee S500, but we do know Lenovo, Sony, G.Skill, Verbatim and Silicon Power all procure drives from Longsys. Most of those companies relabel the products, making Longsys a formidable ODM. The S500 model we're reviewing was the first finalized SSD to land in our lab with Silicon Motion's SM2256 controller. We tested the processor during its development, and published benchmarks of the SM2256 and Samsung TLC flash prior to Computex 2015.
The SM2256 was designed specifically for use with next-generation triple-level-cell NAND, which presents a number of challenges involving data retention and write performance. Three bits in a cell means eight charge levels. Single-level cell flash, which employs on and off charges is comparatively much easier to "see". Even multi-level-cell flash with four charge levels is simpler. Powerful error correction is needed to tame TLC's complexities so that you don't lose bits or wear the less-robust cells out prematurely. Silicon Motion's SM2256 utilizes low-density parity-check (LDPC) code to cope with TLC's lower number of program and erase cycles.
Specifications
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Longsys' website doesn't list the S500 family yet, and official specifications don't exist. We also don't have a total-bytes-written warranty statement characterizing the company's S500. Fortunately, our testing today will reveal all of the performance information you need to form an educated opinion. Even still, this is a preview of sorts since the S500's retail presence is so limited. What we can tell you is that Longsys pairs the LDPC-capable controller with Toshiba's A19 TLC flash, the same stuff used by OCZ Storage Solutions on the Trion 100.
Pricing, Warranty & Accessories
We spoke with Longsys about the 240GB S500's pricing and learned that customers can order the drive for $70. End users here in the States looking to upgrade a desktop or a notebook will most likely find themselves buying a branded product from a more recognizable name. But if your organization needs to upgrade several systems, then it may be worthwhile to contact Longsys about volume pricing. Without global distribution, it'd be difficult to purchase a S500 outside of China.
Again, some companies will purchase Longsys-manufactured SSDs and rebrand them. Longsys plans to expand into America and Europe over time, and getting review samples into our hands is a good start. But distribution and marketing need to come into play as well.
Our sample arrived as a bare drive, so we didn't receive an accessory package. Longsys has its own drive-cloning software tool that normally comes bundled as a value-add.
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kalmquist The Silicon Motion's SM2256 based drives have the dubious distinction of being slower than what came before. I'm hoping that once companies other than Samsung get 3D NAND into mass production, we will see SSD's priced like the Longsys' Foresee S500, but with better performance.Reply
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Jeffs0418 wonder how many backdoors they included...
I was thinking the same thing. Just the possibility is a deal breaker for me.
I just hope the (Korean) Samsung 850 EVO I purchased this year (Made in China)
has no unwelcome firmware inside. -
photonboy The PRICE is right where it should be. It doesn't perform as well as slightly more expensive drives.Reply -
photonboy TbsToy,Reply
How do you know there is no support? Do you read Chinese?
These exist in China, so I'm not sure why you would expect to easily find the support site. -
TbsToy 16962018 said:TbsToy,
How do you know there is no support? Do you read Chinese?
These exist in China, so I'm not sure why you would expect to easily find the support site.
Well, being in Los Angeles California USA and an English speaking American, I haven't ever felt the need to learn to read and speak Chinese just to be able to communicate with an unfindable Chinese support site for some substandard SSD that might not exist a month from now with a site ya can't even find. I can walk to Intel and with no time, and with no language or communication or warranty or shipment issues back and forth.. So I agree with you cuz ya might not have any usable support like the many SSD vendors have here. That shouldn't deter any potential buyers though, right, cuz it is cheap and ya wanna sell em, Right?
Walt Prill -
hannibal I just have to wonder, if most of the readers actually did read the article. This is not about Longsys, this is about controller, that will be the dominant controller in the next two years. Expect to see these in low price Samsung, Munchkin, Kingston etc ssd drives in near future.Reply