ADATA Ultimate SU900 SSD Review (512GB) – 3D MLC, But At What Cost?

 ATTO DISK BENCHMARK VER. 3.05

ATTO Disk Benchmark is perhaps one of the oldest benchmarks going and is definitely the main staple for manufacturer performance specifications. ATTO uses RAW or compressible data and, for our benchmarks, we use a set length of 256mb and test both the read and write performance of various transfer sizes ranging from 0.5 to 8192kb. Manufacturers prefer this method of testing as it deals with raw (compressible) data rather than random (includes incompressible data) which, although more realistic, results in lower performance results.

Initial results are positive. In ATTO it was able to achieve nearly 565MB/s read and is just shy of 525MB/s. Compared to the SU800 the read performance looks about the same here, however, write performance increases at a faster rate thanks to the faster MLC NAND.

CRYSTAL DISK BENCHMARK VER. 5.2.1 X64

Crystal Disk Benchmark is used to measure read and write performance through sampling of random data which is, for the most part, incompressible. Performance is virtually identical, regardless of data sample so we have included only that using random data samples.

Crystal Disk Mark shows us very good results as well. Sequential performance is nearly on par with the listed specifications. Random 4K QD1 performance is average compared to other drives we have tested.

AS SSD BENCHMARK VER 1.9

The toughest benchmark available for solid state drives is AS SSD as it relies solely on incompressible data samples when testing performance. For the most part, AS SSD tests can be considered the ‘worst case scenario’ in obtaining data transfer speeds and many enthusiasts like AS SSD for their needs. Transfer speeds are displayed on the left with IOPS results on the right.

In AS SSD the ADATA Ultimate SU900 gave a total score of 1085. Reads and writes across the board are within an acceptable margin for a product such as this. Although, while it is rated for up to 85K/90K random read and write IOPS, it achieved just under 80K IOPS for each.

S SSDANVIL STORAGE UTILITIES PROFESSIONAL

Anvil’s Storage Utilities (ASU) are the most complete test bed available for the solid state drive today. The benchmark displays test results for, not only throughput but also, IOPS and Disk Access Times. Not only does it have a preset SSD benchmark, but also, it has included such things as endurance testing and threaded I/O read, write and mixed tests, all of which are very simple to understand and use in our benchmark testing.

In Anvil Storage Utilities, the SU900 achieved an overall score of 4550 points. Read performance shows as nearly 530MB/s and write is about 490MB/s. Here it wasn’t able to outperform what it achieved in AS SSD for IOPS, instead, it achieved 63K/77K IOPS read and write.