I think the SATA 3 SSD market is already saturated. Read/write speeds and IOPS are pretty much as good as they are going to get. The only thing left to do is increase capacity and reduce costs. Why not start releasing drives for the new SATA Express interface, or more M.2 form factor drives? Too small a Z97 market? I guess we'll have to wait another year or so.
I think you mean let's skip the M.2 drives that use the (slower) SATA protocol, and move right on to the M.2 drives that use the (faster) PCI-E protocol.
Right. I have a Samsung M.2 PCIE drive, and after finally getting it to boot on my H97 board (using a EFI boot manager partition on my SATA SSD to point to its windows installation) all I can tell you is 1100MB/sec is pretty insane. It loads BF4 maps so fast I'm always waiting on the server...
Actually both the legacy AHCI and the new NVMe protocols can be used on a PCIe-attached drive. The consumer Plextor M6e and Samsung XP941 use AHCI for compatibility reasons, while the new Intel server drives use NVMe for better performance in server workloads.
Because Apple only has to worry about their own product, and their PCIe SSDs come attached to a device capable of using it. So you don't buy a PCIe SSD, you buy an Apple device that comes with a PCIe SSD inside. Other integrators/OEMs don't care to do it as it increases costs so it's suitable only for high end. For now. Apple is doing it because it would seem that their customers can afford to pay the premium regardless of other aspects.
There has been a handful of PCs with the XP941, but you are right that Apple is mostly the only one.
The PC OEMs tend to cut in cost wherever possible because their margins are already razor thin. The XP941 is more expensive than SATA drives because it's the only PCIe x4 drive on the market and in addition the PC OEMs can use the same SATA drives in various models, whereas the XP941 would only fit in high-end models due to the cost.
For Apple this isn't an issue because the quantities they buy the XP941 in are so large and Apple also has a significant share of the high-end market, which is where the PC OEMs struggle. Plus Apple is one of the only companies that fully understand that it's the user experience that counts.
> Plus Apple is one of the only companies that fully understand that it's the user experience that counts.
Have to point out here that Apple is one of the only companies where the hardware is just another piece of the user experience puzzle that they have control over. Whereas for PC manufacturers it's almost the only part of the user experience they have control over.
Apple produces the entire machine, so they don't have to worry about what the rest of the industry is or isn't doing. Because Apple can put the necessary driver support in their motherboard firmware to boot from a PCI-E drive. Apple also produces the operating system, so they can use a custom driver and not wait for 'official support'.
Oh god I hope not, SATA Express' cable standards are a huge mess I hope we never need to deal with. Why we need yet another standard where M.2 makes massively more sense I can't imagine.
Because of the cable. When you have a tower case you can fit 5+ drives in it and connect via cable. The M.2 is just for laptops as it has to be fixed at the end with a screw an therefor has to lay on something. To put it on an ATX motherboard would take up too much space or it would dangerously dangle from the board. You could use a M.2 to PCI-e connector, but why waste the PCI-e slot? And what's the point of M.2 if you're just gonna plug it into PCI-e anyway? For big cases you need cables. They might be a mess, but you can use the SATA-X (-X= Express) for the boot drive and put all your old drives into SATA ports, so you don't waste them.
It's a bit surprising that it takes so long - not because it would be easy, but because we've known since a long time this would be coming. The manufacturers should have known it long before us. And it's not like there has been any other significnat movement regarding SSD controllers in the past 2 years.
On the other hand - I don't mind if they take their time and deliver polished products with firmware which is not in beta state any more!
Any reason why they are using 64Gbit flash on 480GB aswell ? at 512GB raw flash, it should be enough to saturate controller with 128Gbit dies (thats 32 dies).
tl;dr it's not a bad drive, but it's not good in any particular niche. If it's not cheaper than the dozens of similarly good-enough drives out there, it's a dead product.
Exactly. And given the crucial mx100 pricing and performance which should suit almost any consumer and enthusiast it's hard to come up for any reason to buy this unless it is cheaper (highly doubt that). And if you really need ultimate performance you will go Sandisk or 950 pro (or intel pcie).
I hope the Neutron GTX is sticking around as the flagship. The LAMD controller is absolutely fantastic and frankly this S10 controller seems like a step backwards from it. At least in its current state.
I for one really miss designs around the LAMD controller. I previously owned a Seagate 600 240GB and that drive was fantastic regardless of the work load, and available last Christmas for great boxing day prices of $0.50/GB.
From what I can tell they are not and have not been making the old Neutron/GTX for quite some time. Really sad because it is honestly a really really great drive. I wish I got my hands on one back when they were more common.
I have a Neutron 512GB (not GTX) and am pretty disppointed at what the wear leveling indicator from SMART data is telling me..... it looks like the 512GB Neutron has an expected write endurance of only 100TB?
I haven't done any endurance testing, but Corsair is rating the Neutron XT at 124TB (according to The Tech Report). Note that the SMART data isn't usually an indication of an expected failure as the threshold has been set by the manufacturer for warranty reasons, so they can determine whether you've exceeded the endurance rating. In that light 100TB is pretty good because most drives are rated at around 70TB or so.
I'm disappointed to see them dropping the 5 year warranty on the Neutron line. I bought a Neutron and a Neutron GTX for myself and a few dozen for various clients primarily due to the 5 year warranty. Expected endurance figures mean nothing to me as a user if the company isn't willing to back it up with a appropriate warranty.
Actually, there was an error in the reviewer's guide, so the warranty is indeed 5 years similar to the original Neutron series. I've updated the article as well.
One other disturbing thing is the raw read error rate reported in SMART. It starts out looking good after a cold boot, then gradually drops to a value of "1" as the system gets a higher uptime. I think this is actually calculated wrong, being a direct mapping from the raw value, which is always identical to the "Soft ECC Correction Rate" raw value (sitting at ~250,000 after about a month of uptime), instead of being calculated based on the rate of change in that raw value like its supposed to be. Corsair SSD Toolbox labels that counter as "informational only", while CrystalDiskInfo, Stablebit Scanner, & other tools complain when the nominal value crosses the apparent manufacturer suggested threshold of "6" after a week or so.
Restarting Windows does NOT reset the counter -- it gets reset only by a cold boot.
That wear leveling indicator has very little to do with ACTUAL flash lifetime. It is mostly to do with giving the manufacturer the ability to determine when warranty has expired.
I'm on my 3rd SSD. 1st was Intel 74GB (first one would lock up, got Intel to replace it then was good).
2nd was Corsair Force Series GT CSSD-F120GBGT-BK, and if my system got to busy, SSD would lock up HD light on solid, hard reset required, tried new drivers, everything and honestly I gave up on this drive, never fixed.
3rd is Samsung 840 pro 250GB Uber fast, no lockups ever. I'm sticking with them for the foreseeable future!
"Each of the three graphs has its own purpose. The first one is of the whole duration of the test in log scale. The second and third one zoom into the beginning of steady-state operation (t=1400s) but on different scales: the second one uses log scale for easy comparison whereas the third one uses linear scale for better visualization of differences between drives. Click the dropdown selections below each graph to switch the source data."
Which third one? All show log data and the last one doesn't show linear data.
My A10-7850K / G.1 Sniper A88X build-in-progress is perfect for an M.2 (NGFF) SSD on a PCIe 2.0 x4 adapter card. The mobo's single PCIe 3.0 x16 slot is ripe for a Radeon R7 250, for Dual Graphics use, and its other x16 slot is PCIe 2.0, running at x4, ready for a bootable SSD to be installed.
As for adapters, a Bplus M2P4A, a Lycom DT-120, or a (not-yet-released) ASUS Hyper M.2 X4 would fit the bill nicely.
The LSI SandForce SF3739-controlled cards, such as the ADATA that was shown at Computex 2013 and the Kingston seen at Storage Visions 2014 back in January, or the Kingston HyperX using the Marvell 88SS9293 Altaplus PCIe 2.0 x4 SSD Controller displayed at Computex 2014, or Phison's, or Hynix's controller-in-the-works, etc. have yet to be released to the retail market. Don't they know the world's enthusiasts are just itching to spend their dosh on those gems?!
Kingston trotted out their native PCIe expansion-slot HyperX "Predator" unit at the 2014 CES show in January, with a SF3739 controller. That's actually the unit I want! So, it's "hurry up and wait" at my house! LOL
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magnusmundus - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
I think the SATA 3 SSD market is already saturated. Read/write speeds and IOPS are pretty much as good as they are going to get. The only thing left to do is increase capacity and reduce costs. Why not start releasing drives for the new SATA Express interface, or more M.2 form factor drives? Too small a Z97 market? I guess we'll have to wait another year or so.sweenish - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
I personally vote for skipping m.2 altogether. Let's just move right on to the PCI-E drives.TinHat - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
+1hrrmph - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
I think you mean let's skip the M.2 drives that use the (slower) SATA protocol, and move right on to the M.2 drives that use the (faster) PCI-E protocol.Samus - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
Right. I have a Samsung M.2 PCIE drive, and after finally getting it to boot on my H97 board (using a EFI boot manager partition on my SATA SSD to point to its windows installation) all I can tell you is 1100MB/sec is pretty insane. It loads BF4 maps so fast I'm always waiting on the server...Mikemk - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
So you want to lose a GPU?shank15217 - Tuesday, November 18, 2014 - link
The protocol is called NVMe, a PCI-E drive doesn't mean much.r3loaded - Tuesday, November 18, 2014 - link
Actually both the legacy AHCI and the new NVMe protocols can be used on a PCIe-attached drive. The consumer Plextor M6e and Samsung XP941 use AHCI for compatibility reasons, while the new Intel server drives use NVMe for better performance in server workloads.Kristian Vättö - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
Every single controller house is working on a PCIe controller for SATA Express and M.2, but the development takes time.warrenk81 - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
honest question, not trying to be snarky, but how has apple been shipping PCIe SSDs for almost two years and no one else is?hojnikb - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
Because they are using samsung's controllers. And they already have pci-e controllers.close - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
Because Apple only has to worry about their own product, and their PCIe SSDs come attached to a device capable of using it. So you don't buy a PCIe SSD, you buy an Apple device that comes with a PCIe SSD inside. Other integrators/OEMs don't care to do it as it increases costs so it's suitable only for high end. For now. Apple is doing it because it would seem that their customers can afford to pay the premium regardless of other aspects.Kristian Vättö - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
There has been a handful of PCs with the XP941, but you are right that Apple is mostly the only one.The PC OEMs tend to cut in cost wherever possible because their margins are already razor thin. The XP941 is more expensive than SATA drives because it's the only PCIe x4 drive on the market and in addition the PC OEMs can use the same SATA drives in various models, whereas the XP941 would only fit in high-end models due to the cost.
For Apple this isn't an issue because the quantities they buy the XP941 in are so large and Apple also has a significant share of the high-end market, which is where the PC OEMs struggle. Plus Apple is one of the only companies that fully understand that it's the user experience that counts.
alaricljs - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
> Plus Apple is one of the only companies that fully understand that it's the user experience that counts.Have to point out here that Apple is one of the only companies where the hardware is just another piece of the user experience puzzle that they have control over. Whereas for PC manufacturers it's almost the only part of the user experience they have control over.
Mikemk - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
Apple needs to realize that again.warrenk81 - Tuesday, November 18, 2014 - link
thanks! i've been wondering about this since the MacBook Airs started with the PCIe SSDs in 2013.Shiitaki - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
Apple produces the entire machine, so they don't have to worry about what the rest of the industry is or isn't doing. Because Apple can put the necessary driver support in their motherboard firmware to boot from a PCI-E drive. Apple also produces the operating system, so they can use a custom driver and not wait for 'official support'.Flunk - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
Oh god I hope not, SATA Express' cable standards are a huge mess I hope we never need to deal with. Why we need yet another standard where M.2 makes massively more sense I can't imagine.SleepyFE - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
Because of the cable. When you have a tower case you can fit 5+ drives in it and connect via cable. The M.2 is just for laptops as it has to be fixed at the end with a screw an therefor has to lay on something. To put it on an ATX motherboard would take up too much space or it would dangerously dangle from the board. You could use a M.2 to PCI-e connector, but why waste the PCI-e slot? And what's the point of M.2 if you're just gonna plug it into PCI-e anyway? For big cases you need cables. They might be a mess, but you can use the SATA-X (-X= Express) for the boot drive and put all your old drives into SATA ports, so you don't waste them.MrSpadge - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
It's a bit surprising that it takes so long - not because it would be easy, but because we've known since a long time this would be coming. The manufacturers should have known it long before us. And it's not like there has been any other significnat movement regarding SSD controllers in the past 2 years.On the other hand - I don't mind if they take their time and deliver polished products with firmware which is not in beta state any more!
SanX - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
One more average drive. Speeds need to double or price drop to double for that stuff to be interesting again.hojnikb - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
Yup. If this ends up being priced closer to 850pro, it wont make any sense whatsoever.hojnikb - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
Any reason why they are using 64Gbit flash on 480GB aswell ?at 512GB raw flash, it should be enough to saturate controller with 128Gbit dies (thats 32 dies).
SleepyFE - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
How did you count 32 dies? 4x128=512, that's 4 dies. With 8 dies (8x64) you fill all eight channels. Better parallelism. That's how i understand it.Mikemk - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
4*128Gbit = 4*16GB = 64GB32*128Gbit = 32*16GB=512GB
hojnikb - Tuesday, November 18, 2014 - link
Its in Gigabits, not gigabytes. Single die is 128Gbit (so 16GB) so you need 32 of them to get 512GB.SleepyFE - Tuesday, November 18, 2014 - link
Sorry about that. So used to gigabytes. Aren't the dies stacked to make 64GB packages and then a single bus leads to that bundle?makerofthegames - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
tl;dr it's not a bad drive, but it's not good in any particular niche. If it's not cheaper than the dozens of similarly good-enough drives out there, it's a dead product.beginner99 - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
Exactly. And given the crucial mx100 pricing and performance which should suit almost any consumer and enthusiast it's hard to come up for any reason to buy this unless it is cheaper (highly doubt that). And if you really need ultimate performance you will go Sandisk or 950 pro (or intel pcie).Mikemk - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
850 pro?lilmoe - Tuesday, November 18, 2014 - link
Sure, that's the best drive currently. But it's too expensive for the average consumer as of yet...Despoiler - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
I hope the Neutron GTX is sticking around as the flagship. The LAMD controller is absolutely fantastic and frankly this S10 controller seems like a step backwards from it. At least in its current state.creed3020 - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
I for one really miss designs around the LAMD controller. I previously owned a Seagate 600 240GB and that drive was fantastic regardless of the work load, and available last Christmas for great boxing day prices of $0.50/GB.extide - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
From what I can tell they are not and have not been making the old Neutron/GTX for quite some time. Really sad because it is honestly a really really great drive. I wish I got my hands on one back when they were more common.Kevin G - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
So was it Corsair or Phison that sent the crayon induced block diagram on page 1?Kristian Vättö - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
That would be Phison.creed3020 - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
Dinner napkin diagram? :pMikemk - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
+1LogitechFan - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
3 year warranty and not a full 1GB space? No thanks, SF3700 or 850Pro for me.eddieobscurant - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
the way it is, it's more probable that the 860pro comes before the sf3700hojnikb - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
At this point, we have a better chance of finding Loch Ness Monster than getting sf3700 :)eddieobscurant - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
epic !!!glugglug - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
Any endurance testing done?I have a Neutron 512GB (not GTX) and am pretty disppointed at what the wear leveling indicator from SMART data is telling me..... it looks like the 512GB Neutron has an expected write endurance of only 100TB?
Kristian Vättö - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
I haven't done any endurance testing, but Corsair is rating the Neutron XT at 124TB (according to The Tech Report). Note that the SMART data isn't usually an indication of an expected failure as the threshold has been set by the manufacturer for warranty reasons, so they can determine whether you've exceeded the endurance rating. In that light 100TB is pretty good because most drives are rated at around 70TB or so.Joepublic2 - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
I'm disappointed to see them dropping the 5 year warranty on the Neutron line. I bought a Neutron and a Neutron GTX for myself and a few dozen for various clients primarily due to the 5 year warranty. Expected endurance figures mean nothing to me as a user if the company isn't willing to back it up with a appropriate warranty.Kristian Vättö - Tuesday, November 18, 2014 - link
Actually, there was an error in the reviewer's guide, so the warranty is indeed 5 years similar to the original Neutron series. I've updated the article as well.glugglug - Sunday, November 23, 2014 - link
That is very reassuring.One other disturbing thing is the raw read error rate reported in SMART. It starts out looking good after a cold boot, then gradually drops to a value of "1" as the system gets a higher uptime. I think this is actually calculated wrong, being a direct mapping from the raw value, which is always identical to the "Soft ECC Correction Rate" raw value (sitting at ~250,000 after about a month of uptime), instead of being calculated based on the rate of change in that raw value like its supposed to be. Corsair SSD Toolbox labels that counter as "informational only", while CrystalDiskInfo, Stablebit Scanner, & other tools complain when the nominal value crosses the apparent manufacturer suggested threshold of "6" after a week or so.
Restarting Windows does NOT reset the counter -- it gets reset only by a cold boot.
extide - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
That wear leveling indicator has very little to do with ACTUAL flash lifetime. It is mostly to do with giving the manufacturer the ability to determine when warranty has expired.sonicmerlin - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
It's really kinda cool these things have quad core processors now.On a side note, does anyone know when someone other than Samsung is going to release 3D NAND?
Kristian Vättö - Tuesday, November 18, 2014 - link
IMFT (i.e. Micron and Intel) is next year and so is SK Hynix. Toshiba/SanDisk is H1'16.hojnikb - Tuesday, November 18, 2014 - link
So pretty much, we're gonna have to wait another year or so to get 3D nand products (ie. mx200).Chrispy_ - Tuesday, November 18, 2014 - link
Corsair *knows* you're going to test steady state.If the drive isn't good at steady state, why risk mass exposure with a bad review when a simple firmware update could make a big difference?
First impressions matter, and the Neutron XT is now an underwhelming drive unlikely to be able to compete with the MX100s on price.
ol1bit - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
I'm on my 3rd SSD.1st was Intel 74GB (first one would lock up, got Intel to replace it then was good).
2nd was Corsair Force Series GT CSSD-F120GBGT-BK, and if my system got to busy, SSD would lock up HD light on solid, hard reset required, tried new drivers, everything and honestly I gave up on this drive, never fixed.
3rd is Samsung 840 pro 250GB Uber fast, no lockups ever. I'm sticking with them for the foreseeable future!
zmeul - Wednesday, November 19, 2014 - link
any word on pricing?dj christian - Thursday, November 20, 2014 - link
On the Performance Consistency page."Each of the three graphs has its own purpose. The first one is of the whole duration of the test in log scale. The second and third one zoom into the beginning of steady-state operation (t=1400s) but on different scales: the second one uses log scale for easy comparison whereas the third one uses linear scale for better visualization of differences between drives. Click the dropdown selections below each graph to switch the source data."
Which third one? All show log data and the last one doesn't show linear data.
editorsorgtfo - Saturday, November 22, 2014 - link
My A10-7850K / G.1 Sniper A88X build-in-progress is perfect for an M.2 (NGFF) SSD on a PCIe 2.0 x4 adapter card. The mobo's single PCIe 3.0 x16 slot is ripe for a Radeon R7 250, for Dual Graphics use, and its other x16 slot is PCIe 2.0, running at x4, ready for a bootable SSD to be installed.As for adapters, a Bplus M2P4A, a Lycom DT-120, or a (not-yet-released) ASUS Hyper M.2 X4 would fit the bill nicely.
The LSI SandForce SF3739-controlled cards, such as the ADATA that was shown at Computex 2013 and the Kingston seen at Storage Visions 2014 back in January, or the Kingston HyperX using the Marvell 88SS9293 Altaplus PCIe 2.0 x4 SSD Controller displayed at Computex 2014, or Phison's, or Hynix's controller-in-the-works, etc. have yet to be released to the retail market. Don't they know the world's enthusiasts are just itching to spend their dosh on those gems?!
Kingston trotted out their native PCIe expansion-slot HyperX "Predator" unit at the 2014 CES show in January, with a SF3739 controller. That's actually the unit I want! So, it's "hurry up and wait" at my house! LOL