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POWER CONSUMPTION
For our power consumption testing, we have the drive connected to the system as a secondary drive. To record the wattage, we are using a Triplett 1101-B multimeter connected in line with the 5v power on our SATA power cable to the drive. The multimeter records the min/max amperage draw from the drive over our testing period.
We also record the drive’s sequential and random read and write power draw using Iometer. During power testing we have AHCI link power management (HIPM and DIPM) enabled. We then take the values recorded and calculate the wattage of the drive. Some of the results may seem high compared to a standard notebook HDD as these are peak values under load. When we see average power draw, SSDs are still more power efficient because they only hit max power for a short period of time.
Silicon Power has not published actual active and idle power ratings for the S80 in the drive’s specifications on the S80 product page, so we can only attempt to verify their claim of “low power consumption.” Idle power draw was 0.31W. Peak power draw was 8.20W. Active power consumption is not the same as peak, which is seen in the graph above. During our testing the highest consumption we were able to reach was 3.925W, which was under sequential writes. During sequential reads it draws up to 2.44W on average. During 4K QD 1 consumption we see a similar trend for the sequential draw with the 4K read averaging 1.03W and 4K write averaging 1.60W. These power measurements are below average for similar drives, and Silicon Power’s claim of “low power consumption” is valid by comparison.
REPORT ANALYSIS AND FINAL THOUGHTS
It is always interesting to see new/different NAND controllers come to market, and it usually takes the new controller showing up in several drive variations to determine its ultimate effectiveness; especially in regards to comparing its performance to that of well-established controllers. SandForce was for a long while about the only game in town for those SSD producers who were not vertically integrated, and had to go out and acquire NAND and controllers to assemble their drives with. The Phison PS3108-S8 has been showing up in a number of drives lately, and as far as drives that TSSDR has reviewed, we have noticed that this Phison controller definitely gives most drives a boost in write speeds.
The Silicon Power Slim S80 combines the reliability of Toshiba’s 19nm MLC NAND with the Phison PS3108-S8 controller to achieve ATTO transfer speeds of 555 MB/s (reads) and 535 MB/s (writes), which ranks right up there with the best SATA 6Gb/s drives available. The IOPS come in a little light on the read side, but certainly not below our expectations of a value-priced client SSD. We achieved about average results in our AS SSD, Anvil Storage Utilities, and PCMark Vantage storage suite testing. Our PCMark 8 consistency testing placed this drive right up there with the premium-level SanDisk Extreme Pro 256GB drive for the portion of the testing that relates to everyday client usage.
Silicon Power’s Slim S80 240GB SSD was a bit of a pleasant surprise to review, as its performance as a client drive is right up there with some drives that sell for much more of a premium price. With the 240GB version selling for $89.99 (as of date of publication of this report), it comes in at an amazing 37 cents per gigabyte! This capacity point is significantly lower than the price per gigabyte of the other available capacities for this drive. The 240GB Silicon Power S80 has definitely achieved a price-to-performance sweet spot, and we are proud to recommend the S80 and award it our Silver Seal.
Check out Silicon Power’s Slim S80 SSD on Amazon Today!
240GB seems nice, but other capacity points just seem too expensive compared to the competition.
I mean, you can get reactor 1TB for 300€ nowdays.
Benjamin Hojnik you seem to know a lot about ssds. I have been reading your posts for a wile now. I have a question for you. You can respond if you like. Ive asked this question on the forums but so far no ones has answered it. Maybe you know? How does a good amount of mushkin ssds have 2,000,000 hours MTBF when they use asynchronous, synchronous and toggle flash? But other manufacturers have 1,500,000 1,200,000 1,000,000 MTBF. Whats there secret?s MTBF when they use Asynchronous, synchronous and toggle flash? But other manufacturers have 1,500,000 1,200,000 1,000,000 MTBF. What’s there secret?
I wouldn’t focus on MTBF, the industry has no standard for measuring MTBF. Different manufacturers use different workloads to specify their MTBF. All you should really care about is what type of NAND they use. SLC, MLC, or TLC. If they use MLC or TLC NAND, make sure they use SLC caching. That’s it in a nutshell for right now. Best thing to do is read up on it on your own, there’s a lot of information out there.
Type of nand really doesn’t determine reliability of an SSD.
Not under typical workloads anyway.
What one should focus about is the controller. Thats the single most important part of the ssd and is also the #1 reason for faulires.
MTBF is really meaningless, ie more MTBF doesnt mean a more reliable drive, especially when comparing different brands.
I agree on all marks but the type of NAND for reliability. The controller is definitely where reliability is the most important, but higher density NAND flash increases bit rate error. To correct those errors ECC needs to either be programmed, or included in the controller. The type of NAND also affects endurance.
Whats the most reliable nand today?
Anything SLC based 🙂
Also, sammy’s 3D MLC comes close too. Apperently they internally tested their 128GB model and went thru 8PB of writes. Pretty mad, if its actually true.
Yeah this is true, but ECC engines in modern controllers are so powerfull and there is lots of spare area invisible to the user and controller (sandisk tlc apperently has 1/5 dedicated just for that), so it doesn’t pose that much a problem.
Crappy nand can be compensated with a proper controller. Crappy controller can’t be compensated with a proper nand.
Besides, most faulires come down to controller failing or trippin on acid, no failed nand. Some controller can actually withstand flash die faulires just fine (sandforce does that for example).
Whats the most reliable controller today?
Intel, marvell, samsung are pretty good choices with excellent track record.
Sandforce, phison, jmicron… Not so much (granted, their latter stuff got better).
I thought Intel controllers were/or made by Sandforce/Lsi?
No, Intel actually makes their own controllers too.
Intel 730 uses their inhouse controller for example.
But yes, their consumer stuff uses sandforce and is no better than other sandforce based stuff (apart from cherry picked nand).
No SLC Cache, disappointing. I’ll avoid Silicon Power SSD’s after their controller bait-and-switch tactics on the S60 and S70’s. It’s even worse than what Kingston and PNY did (and I avoid those drives, too).
Agreed. Who knows if the “chip’s close-up shows a part number of” for anything produced by these guys will be accurate down the road.
Their multiple choices of controllers used in these product lines is most definitely why their power consumption specs were generic.
I wouldn’t be too concerned about a lack of SLC cache in this drive, as it’s not using cheap TLC flash with its inherent latency and longevity concerns vs MLC. SLC hybrid drives often have issues with performance consistency due to firmware design, so sometimes simpler is better when the mfg isn’t cutting corners on flash quality.
Crucial’s MX200 is a prime example of the mixed bag that SLC hybrid design (DWA in their terminology) can be when applied to an MLC-based drive…until its firmware matures. Anandtech’s review traces are a good example of the potential compromises, mainly in latency issues when the firmware stumbles while managing the SLC-MLC combo under heavy loads. Their BX100 uses a lower end controller and is the simpler “budget” product with pure MLC but doesn’t have the glaring issues under certain loads that the MX200 does, which makes the MX200 unworthy to pay any premium for until the firmware is stabilized–especially since the BX100 is more power efficient.
The S80 is now down to $84.99 — .35/GB.
The firmware version tested in this review (7.2 as seen in the benchmark result screen shots) was outdated months before this article was published, and should have been updated to 8.0. I purchased one of these SPCC drives in late 2014 and tested the 8.0 release in January. 8.2 is the current firmware as of earlier this month.
Firmware updates are very easy using SPCC’s tool, and it automatically checks and installs the required updater when the utility is run since SPCC often swaps between Phison and Sandforce controllers in some of these product lines.
Making sure firmware is up to date is pretty important on drive reviews, especially these days as they are likely to be optimizing for PCMark 8’s more intensive testing methods (only available in the non-consumer version) vs generally prioritizing burst / light load performance in the past. I have seen negligible differences in the drive’s light load benchmark performance with the new 8.x firmwares vs the stock 7.2, but the story could be very different in the heavier PCMark 8 test traces. If you still have this drive, updated results would be appreciated.