Transcend SSD340 256 GB Review: Now With JMicron Inside

How We Tested Transcend's SSD340

Our consumer storage test bench is based on Intel's Z77 Platform Controller Hub paired with an Intel Core i5-2400 CPU. Intel's 6- and 7-series chipsets are virtually identical from a storage perspective. We're standardizing on older RST 10.6.1002 drivers for the foreseeable future.

Updates to the RST driver package occasionally result in subtle performance changes. They can also lead to some truly profound variance in scores and results as well, depending on the revision. Some versions flush writes more or less frequently. Others work better in RAID situations. Builds 11.2 and newer support TRIM in RAID as well. Regardless, results obtained with one revision may or may not be comparable to results obtained with another, so sticking with one version across all testing is mandatory.

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Test Hardware
ProcessorIntel Core i5-2400 (Sandy Bridge), 32 nm, 3.1 GHz, LGA 1155, 6 MB Shared L3, Turbo Boost Enabled
MotherboardGigabyte G1.Sniper M3
MemoryG.Skill Ripjaws 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR3-1866 @ DDR3-1333, 1.5 V
System DriveIntel S3500 480 GB SATA 6 Gb/s, Firmware: 0306
Drive(s) Under TestTranscend SSD340 256 GB SATA 6 Gb/s, Firmware: SVN235
Comparison DrivesPlextor M6e 256 GB M.2 PCIe x2, Firmware: 1.00
Row 6 - Cell 0 Plextor M6S 256 GB SATA 6 Gb/s, Firmware: 1.00
Row 7 - Cell 0 Plextor M6M 256 GB mSATA 6 Gb/s, Firmware: 1.00
Row 8 - Cell 0 Adata SP920 1024 GB SATA 6 Gb/s, Firmware: MU01
Row 9 - Cell 0 Adata SP920 512GB SATA 6 Gb/s, Firmware: MU01
Row 10 - Cell 0 Adata SP920 256 GB SATA 6 Gb/s, Firmware: MU01
Row 11 - Cell 0 Adata SP920 128 GB SATA 6 Gb/s, Firmware: MU01
Row 12 - Cell 0 Crucial M550 1024 GB SATA 6 Gb/s, Firmware: MU01
Row 13 - Cell 0 Crucial M550 512 GB SATA 6 Gb/s, Firmware: MU01
Row 14 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 730 480 GB SATA 6 Gb/s, Firmware: L2010400
Row 15 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 EVO mSATA 120 GB, Firmware: EXT41B6Q
Row 16 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 EVO mSATA 250 GB, Firmware: EXT41B6Q
Row 17 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 EVO mSATA 500 GB, Firmware: EXT41B6Q
Row 18 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 EVO mSATA 1000 GB, Firmware: EXT41B6Q
Row 19 - Cell 0 SanDisk X210 256 GB, Firmware X210400
Row 20 - Cell 0 SanDisk X210 512 GB, Firmware X210400
Row 21 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 530 180 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: DC12
Row 22 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 520 180 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 400i
Row 23 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 525 180 GB mSATA, Firmware: LLKi
Row 24 - Cell 0 SanDisk A110 256 GB M.2 PCIe x2, Firmware: A200100
Row 25 - Cell 0 Silicon Motion SM226EN 128 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: M0709A
Row 26 - Cell 0 Crucial M500 120 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: MU02
Row 27 - Cell 0 Crucial M500 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: MU02
Row 28 - Cell 0 Crucial M500 480 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: MU02
Row 29 - Cell 0 Crucial M500 960 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: MU02
Row 30 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 EVO 120 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: EXT0AB0Q
Row 31 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 EVO 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: EXT0AB0Q
Row 32 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 EVO 480 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: EXT0AB0Q
Row 33 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 EVO 1 TB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: EXT0AB0Q
Row 34 - Cell 0 SanDisk Ultra Plus 64 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: X211200
Row 35 - Cell 0 SanDisk Ultra Plus 128 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware X211200
Row 36 - Cell 0 SanDisk Ultra Plus 256 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware X211200
Row 37 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 Pro 256 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware DXM04B0Q
Row 38 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 Pro 128 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware DXM04B0Q
Row 39 - Cell 0 SanDisk Extreme II 120 GB, Firmware: R1311
Row 40 - Cell 0 SanDisk Extreme II 240 GB, Firmware: R1311
Row 41 - Cell 0 SanDisk Extreme II 480 GB, Firmware: R1311
Row 42 - Cell 0 Seagate 600 SSD 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: B660
Row 43 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 525 30 GB mSATA 6Gb/s, Firmware LLKi
Row 44 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 525 60 GB mSATA 6Gb/s, Firmware LLKi
Row 45 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 525 120 GB mSATA 6Gb/s, Firmware LLKi
Row 46 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 525 180 GB mSATA 6Gb/s, Firmware LLKi
Row 47 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 525 240 GB mSATA 6Gb/s, Firmware LLKi
Row 48 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 335 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 335s
Row 49 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 510 250 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: PWG2
Row 50 - Cell 0 OCZ Vertex 3.20 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 2.25
Row 51 - Cell 0 OCZ Vector 256 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 2.0
Row 52 - Cell 0 Samsung 830 512 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: CXMO3B1Q
Row 53 - Cell 0 Crucial m4 256 GB SATA 6Gb/s Firmware: 000F
Row 54 - Cell 0 Plextor M5 Pro 256 GB SATA 6Gb/s Firmware: 1.02
Row 55 - Cell 0 Corsair Neutron GTX 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: M206
GraphicsMSI Cyclone GTX 460 1 GB
Power SupplySeasonic X-650, 650 W 80 PLUS Gold
ChassisLian Li Pitstop T60
RAIDLSI 9266-8i PCIe x8, FastPath and CacheCade AFK
System Software and Drivers
OperatingSystemWindows 7 x64 Ultimate
DirectXDirectX 11
DriversGraphics: Nvidia 314.07RST: 10.6.1002IMEI: 7.1.21.1124Generic AHCI: MSAHCI.SYS
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Benchmarks
ULINK DriveMaster 2012DM2012 v980, JEDEC 218A-based TRIM Test, Protocol Test Suite
Test Specific HardwareSAS/SATA Power Hub, DevSlp Platform
Tom's Hardware Storage Bench v1.0Intel iPeak Storage Toolkit 5.2.1, Tom's Storage Bench 1.0 Trace Recording
Iometer 1.1.0# Workers = 1, 4 KB Random: LBA=16 GB, varying QDs, 128 KB Sequential, 16 GB LBA Precondition, Exponential QD Scaling
PCMark 8PCMark 8 2.0.228, Storage Consistency Test
PCMark 7Secondary Storage Suite
TOPICS
  • blackmagnum
    A lot of new SSDs lately on Tom's. Where are the DDR4 SDRAM reviews?
    Reply
  • leo2kp
    Should the Sequential chart be in MB/s instead of IOPS?
    Reply
  • leo2kp
    Should the Sequential chart be in MB/s instead of IOPS?
    Reply
  • leo2kp
    Ugh duplicate. Sry ><
    Reply
  • anthony8989
    Great article, much appreciated!

    In the conclusion you put:
    the M500 has one feature the SSD340 lacks: TCG Opal 2.0 and Microsoft eDrive support


    That would be two features!
    Reply
  • Tanquen
    "There's a good chance you won't notice the difference between a fast SATA 6Gb/s SSD and something plugged into M.2. And this is from a guy who tests SSDs all day, every day."

    There is a good chance you won’t notice the difference between a “fast” SSD and a hard disk in the day to day life of a PC.
    Reply
  • user 18
    13822529 said:
    "There's a good chance you won't notice the difference between a fast SATA 6Gb/s SSD and something plugged into M.2. And this is from a guy who tests SSDs all day, every day."

    There is a good chance you won’t notice the difference between a “fast” SSD and a hard disk in the day to day life of a PC.

    I don't think that's accurate. I have two otherwise-identical laptops, one with an SSD for its boot drive and one with a HDD. The one with the SSD is hands down faster in program launches, file opening, and other read/write tasks.

    I've also compared fresh installs of multiple OSs (Windows 7, Linux Mint 16, Ubuntu 14.04) between hard drive and SSD, as well as comparing them to my old Windows 7 install on a relatively slow SSD, and none of the fresh installs on hard drives even came close in speed to the old and bloated install on the SSD.

    I'm sorry that you haven't experienced the difference between a SSD and a HDD, I do truly believe it is the single most important upgrade one can make to their PC.
    Reply
  • Tanquen
    13822633 said:
    13822529 said:
    "There's a good chance you won't notice the difference between a fast SATA 6Gb/s SSD and something plugged into M.2. And this is from a guy who tests SSDs all day, every day."

    There is a good chance you won’t notice the difference between a “fast” SSD and a hard disk in the day to day life of a PC.

    I don't think that's accurate. I have two otherwise-identical laptops, one with an SSD for its boot drive and one with a HDD. The one with the SSD is hands down faster in program launches, file opening, and other read/write tasks.

    I've also compared fresh installs of multiple OSs (Windows 7, Linux Mint 16, Ubuntu 14.04) between hard drive and SSD, as well as comparing them to my old Windows 7 install on a relatively slow SSD, and none of the fresh installs on hard drives even came close in speed to the old and bloated install on the SSD.

    I'm sorry that you haven't experienced the difference between a SSD and a HDD, I do truly believe it is the single most important upgrade one can make to their PC.

    Lots of upgrades can be important depending where you are at with each component. If you have a slow low power 2.5” hard disk in your laptop then an SSD can help. But I’m looking at all other things being equal and SSDs just don’t help that much when you have a fast 3.5” HD. When I compare the same tasks on my old PC with a HD that has a good 150MB+ read write speed and other than benchmarking the Windows boot time and a few large apps starting up it just not a big deal. Even then you have to clock it and see that it took 30 seconds and not 38. In my day to day work I just don’t notice. You have to set there and clock the Windows startup time. Are my work VMware sessions any faster, do my games start any faster? No, not really. I have even played around with a 50GB RAM drive with 3000MB+ read/write speeds and my games and VMware sessions are just about the same. Windows and the apps are waiting on other things and the bottleneck is just moved elsewhere. All my games are on my supper fast 400MB+ SSD and when my friend comes over he plays on my poor old HD base PC with slower RAM and slower CPU and a slower GPU and all the different games we play together I load the games maybe a few seconds before he does and with some games there is no difference.
    Reply
  • nekromobo
    Tanguen thats because your slow machine isn't loading the full size textures, meches and running the game on maxed settings. Can't you just think about it before talking from your *!#.

    Your almost never going to be doing sequential write/read for 150MB+ on a HDD and that random read/write will just kill that speed.
    Reply