Hands-On With Silicon Motion's New SSD Controller

Features
By Christopher Ryan
published

Silicon Motion already makes flash storage controllers in all shapes and sizes. Now, with a new SATA 6Gb/s processor ready for action, the Taiwanese firm is hoping to make a dent in the market share currently enjoyed by SandForce and Marvell.

Test Setup And Benchmarks

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.

Changes in RST's driver packages occasionally result in subtle performance changes. They can also lead to some truly profound variance in scores and results as well, depending on the driver revision. Some versions flush writes more or less frequently. Others work better in RAID situations. In fact, 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 DriveKingston HyperX 3K 240 GB, Firmware 5.02
Drive(s) Under TestSilicon Motion SM226EN 128 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: M0709A
Comparison DrivesCrucial M500 120 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: MU02
Row 6 - Cell 0 Crucial M500 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: MU02
Row 7 - Cell 0 Crucial M500 480 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: MU02
Row 8 - Cell 0 Crucial M500 960 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: MU02
Row 9 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 EVO 120 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: EXT0AB0Q
Row 10 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 EVO 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: EXT0AB0Q
Row 11 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 EVO 480 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: EXT0AB0Q
Row 12 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 EVO 1 TB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: EXT0AB0Q
Row 13 - Cell 0 SanDisk Ultra Plus 64 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: X211200
Row 14 - Cell 0 SanDisk Ultra Plus 128 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware X211200
Row 15 - Cell 0 SanDisk Ultra Plus 256 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware X211200
Row 16 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 Pro 256 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware DXM04B0Q
Row 17 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 Pro 128 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware DXM04B0Q
Row 18 - Cell 0 SanDisk Extreme II 120 GB, Firmware: R1311
Row 19 - Cell 0 SanDisk Extreme II 240 GB, Firmware: R1311
Row 20 - Cell 0 SanDisk Extreme II 480 GB, Firmware: R1311
Row 21 - Cell 0 Seagate 600 SSD 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: B660
Row 22 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 525 30 GB mSATA 6Gb/s, Firmware LLKi
Row 23 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 525 60 GB mSATA 6Gb/s, Firmware LLKi
Row 24 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 525 120 GB mSATA 6Gb/s, Firmware LLKi
Row 25 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 525 180 GB mSATA 6Gb/s, Firmware LLKi
Row 26 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 525 240 GB mSATA 6Gb/s, Firmware LLKi
Row 27 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 335 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 335s
Row 28 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 510 250 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: PWG2
Row 29 - Cell 0 OCZ Vertex 3.20 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 2.25
Row 30 - Cell 0 OCZ Vector 256 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 2.0
Row 31 - Cell 0 Samsung 830 512 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: CXMO3B1Q
Row 32 - Cell 0 Crucial m4 256 GB SATA 6Gb/s Firmware: 000F
Row 33 - Cell 0 Plextor M5 Pro 256 GB SATA 6Gb/s Firmware: 1.02
Row 34 - 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
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: 7.1.21.1124
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Benchmarks
Tom's Hardware Storage Bench v1.0Trace-Based
Iometer 1.1.0# Workers = 1, 4 KB Random: LBA=16 GB, varying QDs, 128 KB Sequential, 8 GB LBA Precondition, Exponential QD Scaling
PCMark 7Secondary Storage Suite
PCM VantageStorage Suite
Christopher Ryan
9 Comments Comment from the forums
  • rolli59
    Performance looks good, the question is with a new player on the market if it will affect market price to the benefit of users that have SSD boot/program drives up to 256GB.
    Reply
  • outlw6669
    Good performance and power numbers.
    Hooray for more competition!
    Reply
  • 4745454b
    While performance wasn't the best, it was more then acceptable. And then the power numbers looked great. Overall it's a great start. I'm interested in long term results as some controllers have had bugs in the past that have done bad things to people's data.

    And yes, great to see someone else enter in. While more players means you'll need to look harder at what SSD you are buying, at least we'll have the options. Which is always good, even if the options aren't as good as what you were hoping for.
    Reply
  • shin0bi272
    Not that this isnt kinda cool but Taiwan is now part of China so its proper to call it China.
    Reply
  • UmeNNis
    11339051 said:
    Not that this isnt kinda cool but Taiwan is now part of China so its proper to call it China.

    Ummm..... how exactly is "Taiwan now part of China"...?:sarcastic:
    Reply
  • apache_lives
    But how reliable will it be in the long run...
    Reply
  • mayankleoboy1
    During the benchmarks, did you ensure that the Samsung EVO is not throttling due to high temps ?
    Maybe add a max temperature graph as well.
    Reply
  • e-z e
    Given time to mature this could be a real contender. Would love to see a follow-up once it hits the market.
    Reply
  • zads
    11337088 said:
    Meanwhile, SandForce is the opposite. It'll sell you a turnkey solution, but you don't really get many knobs or dials in terms of customization.
    If only this were the case, my job would be so much easier.
    Reply