Transcend SSD340 256 GB Review: Now With JMicron Inside
We have our first retail SSD with JMicron's JMF667H controller. Paying $115 for 256 GB of fast storage sure sounds attractive, but has the company ironed out the issues that plagued it in the early days of SSDs? We run its SSD340 through our grinder.
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.
Test Hardware | |
---|---|
Processor | Intel Core i5-2400 (Sandy Bridge), 32 nm, 3.1 GHz, LGA 1155, 6 MB Shared L3, Turbo Boost Enabled |
Motherboard | Gigabyte G1.Sniper M3 |
Memory | G.Skill Ripjaws 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR3-1866 @ DDR3-1333, 1.5 V |
System Drive | Intel S3500 480 GB SATA 6 Gb/s, Firmware: 0306 |
Drive(s) Under Test | Transcend SSD340 256 GB SATA 6 Gb/s, Firmware: SVN235 |
Comparison Drives | Plextor 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 |
Graphics | MSI Cyclone GTX 460 1 GB |
Power Supply | Seasonic X-650, 650 W 80 PLUS Gold |
Chassis | Lian Li Pitstop T60 |
RAID | LSI 9266-8i PCIe x8, FastPath and CacheCade AFK |
System Software and Drivers | |
OperatingSystem | Windows 7 x64 Ultimate |
DirectX | DirectX 11 |
Drivers | Graphics: Nvidia 314.07RST: 10.6.1002IMEI: 7.1.21.1124Generic AHCI: MSAHCI.SYS |
Benchmarks | |
---|---|
ULINK DriveMaster 2012 | DM2012 v980, JEDEC 218A-based TRIM Test, Protocol Test Suite |
Test Specific Hardware | SAS/SATA Power Hub, DevSlp Platform |
Tom's Hardware Storage Bench v1.0 | Intel 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 8 | PCMark 8 2.0.228, Storage Consistency Test |
PCMark 7 | Secondary Storage Suite |
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Current page: How We Tested Transcend's SSD340
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anthony8989 Great article, much appreciated!Reply
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! -
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."Reply
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. -
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. -
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. -
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 *!#.Reply
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.