Seagate 600 Pro SSD Review (400GB) – Better Warranty, 28% OP and Power Loss Protection

Seagate 600 Pro SSD Featured PikFollowing in the footprints of our Seagate 600 SSD Review last week, today we are examining the next in line of the Seagate SSD family, the 600 Pro.

We had held back on our review of the 600 Pro as we wanted to see how it was going to place in the marketplace before tackling our angle of approach for this SSD.

The number of e-mails we received that spoke to the 600 Pro a mainstream consumer SSD, positioning itself with the likes of the Samsung 840 Pro, OCZ Vector, and maybe even the likes of the Crucial M500, seems to be inevitable.  After all, the 600 Pro appears to have much in common with some of the best SSDs we have reported on to date.

Seagate 600 Pro SSD FrontSeagate 600 Pro SSD BackAlthough our review sample today is that of 400GB in capacity, the 600 Pro seems to separate between the enthusiast and enterprise fold by marketing 120, 240 and 480 capacities right along side with 100, 200 and 400GB capacities. Over provisioning is the key differentiator here and the result is a 3 times longer lifespan with a rating of 1080 terabytes written (TBW) for our 400GB sample, compared to the 480GB version with a mere 350 TBW.  Performance for the 600 Pro is variable and our 400GB version speaks to read and write transfer speeds of 520MB/s and 450MB/s as well as IOPS as high as 85,000.

Seagate 600 Pro Specs

In examining this chart, we can see that an IOPS jump from 1100 IOPS to 30,000 IOPS is evident with increased over provisioning and something not shown but discovered on the site, is the jump in average operating power for the 400 to 2.8W, vice that of the 480GB capacity at 1.92W.  If you happen to check the link out, click on the specs.

SEAGATE 600 PRO COMPONENTS

Unlike all but one SSDwe have reviewed, the Seagate 600 Series family has no screws securing the exterior shell and it simply snaps in place by nine grooves on the base plate.  It is relatively simple to get it apart with a thin blade, however, the shell is not quite as secure as it was originally once reassembled.  Like the 600, the 600 Pro relies on the Link A Media LM 87800 6Gbps controller, along with two modules of Micron DDR2-800 256MB DRAM Cache memory.

Seagate 600 Pro SSD PCB Front

Just as the consumer 600 version, the 600 Pro relies on eight modules of Toshiba 19nm 64GB Toggle mode MLC NAND flash memory for a total of 512GB RAW memory. 28% over provisioning (7% for the 600 consumer edition) reduces the memory to its advertised 400GB and formatting leaves the consumer with 373GB of available storage.

In addition, the 600 Pro has Power Loss Protection which guarantees all information completes it’s travel to the memory should power loss occur.  The power capacitors are the four yellow modules seen on the front of the PCB.  The back of the PCB contains no modules whatsoever.

Toshiba Memory

In considering the memory chosen for the 600 Pro, we have no doubt by the identification on the NAND and 600 Pro lifespan, that the memory is of a much higher quality.  For those unaware, it is entirely possible to have different qualities of NAND with the same product number and these are separated through a process called binning.  Binning is the screening of memory into different quality grades and higher binned flash usually comes with a cost premium or, as with Intel, is reserved for their best products.

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