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TEST BENCH AND PROTOCOL
Our analysis today will be conducted with our Asus Z77 Premium Test Bench. Clicking on any pictures or benchmarks will bring up a more easily viewable high resolution image.
In testing, our main objective is to obtain results as pure and as accurate as possible and we want to ensure that no anomalies slip through. Simply put, we want to provide you with the absolute best results the tested hardware can provide. Repetition in testing is standard and, if necessary, we may conduct specific tests in Windows 7 safe mode to ensure the OS has little to no influence on the end result.
In order to validate and confirm our findings, testing is supported by industry accepted benchmark programs. All results are displayed through capture of the actual benchmark for better understanding of the testing process by the reader.
We would like to thank ASUS (P8Z77-V Premium
), Intel (Core i7-3770K), Crucial (Ballistix), Corsair (H100) and Be Quiet (PSU/Fans) for supporting the build of our Z77 Premium Test Bench.
BENCHMARK SOFTWARE
The software we will be using for today’s analysis is typical of many of our reviews and consists of ATTO Disk Benchmark, Crystal DiskMark, AS SSD, Anvil Storage Utilities and PCMark Vantage. We rely on these as they each have a way of supporting one another yet, at the same time, adding a new performance benchmark to the total picture. Much of the software is free and can be downloaded simply by clicking on the linked title.
SSD COMPRESSION AND TESTING FLUCTUATIONS
All SSDs are not created equal and many new SSD enthusiasts realize that when they test their new drive to confirm specifications and ensure all is in order. SandForce controlled SSDs, as in the ADATA XPG SX300 mSATA SSD we are testing today, use compression techniques in storage whereas many others do not. This creates a bit of confusion when enthusiasts test the drive with random data through benchmarking programs such as AS SSD and Crystal DiskMark. The results seem to be lower than the listed specifications.
The results actually present a false portrayal of the drives ability when compared to other drives such as Samsung, Crucial or Intel. It is for this reason that all of our comparison testing is done through PCMark Vantage. PCMark Vantage HDD Suite simply provides evaluation results based on transfer speeds reached through typical user patterns. Vantage provides a better testing medium, in that, it sees through the typical synthetic benchmarks and provides us with true to life results of the drive.
the sx300 256GB costs $270 @ Newegg…
How do we know if it is compatible with Lenovo T420s? Manufacturer website does not provide such information. Kindly suggest.
A simple Google search always helps.
Does the SandForce controller on this msata ssd is good than other controller? Which msata sdd is fast and best quality?
This is an excellent mSATA SSD and the fact that it offers 7% additional space just might be key here. With respect to controllers, the main competitors in the market today (SandForce, Marvel, Samsung) have all earned a reputation of quality simply because of company development and experience in the industry.
I recently purchased this mSATA SSD for my HP Elitebook 2740p and performed a clean install of Windows 8 RTM. The SSD is a ADATA ASX300S3-256GM-C MSA which they list on their website as the XPG SX200.
I frequently experience a Blue Screen on Windows 8 after resuming from sleep.
The SSD is my boot disk. It’s about half full. Running chkdsk at boot time shows no errors. Windows Disk Management reports the drive as healthy.
The Crash Dump analysis output (all the dumps are similar to this) shows the following:
ERROR_CODE: (NTSTATUS) 0xc00000c0 – This device does not exist.
BUGCHECK_STR: 0x7a_c00000c0
DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID: WIN8_DRIVER_FAULT
I checked again today and I can confirm I have the latest firmware for this model.
Thanks for that Sol. I was just about to purchase this mSATA SSD to install Windows 8 on it on my ASRock PC! Will now just replace the standard HDD with a SATA SSD with the likes of a Vertex 4 or so. Thanks again for posting this 🙂
Where is firmware 5.0.3/5.0.4?
Work on windows 8?
Of course…all storage device work in recent OS releases.
Be aware – I bought this from Amazon and returned it and tried again…. both times, this card does NOT WORK on the Drobo 5D.
Great reviews. My question is simple, Crucial M4 256GB vs ADATA XPG SX300, what difference,if any, is there between these 2 ssd’s The m4 is 50+ dollars cheaper. Is the Adata msata drive , although better on paper, going to give me better performance on my laptop in the real world?
And real-world use, you, or even an SSD expert, cannot visually tell a difference in typical day-to-day operations. Both solid-state drives would do great in your system. Both have great reputations. Unless you are looking for something specific where higher incompressible data testing is necessary, I would simply look at the price.
Thanks when you say “visually” I interpret that to be things like boot time, program opening, shutdown times etc. It is the write speed that stands out for me the Adata being in the 500mb+ per second and the m4 not breaking 300mb per second. Those numbers really mean nothing in term of real life use?
Real life user in typical use yes. Unless you are transferring large incompressible files you will never be able to visually see a difference.
In real world i think the m4 ssd will perform as well as the ADATA drive. ADATA drive (sandforce driven) will never reaches the announced performance. It relates only an optimal situation with compressible data.
Yes but compressible data is what we see in operating systems and software and can’t be overlooked. In the typical user scenario, it would be impossible to tell the difference.
So I bought the adata sx300 256gb drive I installed it but it appears to give me only 238.5 gb is that correct? I understood from your review that this drive gives us that 7% lost space or is that not the case?
That is exacty the case as shown in our report and explained.
this is what I took from your report -For those LSI SandForce lovers, it is like getting an extra 7% capacity for free. I guess what i was wondering was is 238.5 gb typical for this drive?
oK I found the available drive space in your Anvil Storage Utility snapshot 238.5 thanks.
Please join the forums and posts screen shots of your system and not with the CPU states altered please.
Which Adata sdd would you recommend today: the SX300, or SP310? Almost the same price (SP310 a tad cheaper).
I have had two of these drives fail in my Msi GE70 within a year. I’m going back to conventional HDD’s.
You need to ask yourself what occurred…. Were they fresh installs? What was similar betwen both instances?
Here are a couple of similarities:
1. Both were Adata SX300 mSATA 256GB SSD’s
2. Both were installed in the same system (MSi GE70 Core-i7-3630M, 8GB DDRIII RAM, Nvidia GeForce 660M)
3. Both crashed within less than 6 months
4. Both crashed after waking up the laptop from sleep
5. Both were gone from the BIOS after the crash
After a couple of searches on Google I found out that I’m not suffering alone as these are crashing all over the place. It looks like it might be a problem with the Sandforce controller – but don’t take my word for it – I’m an accountant.