MyDigitalSSD BP5e Slim 7 Series SSD Review (960GB) – Unequaled Value with TLC

REAL WORLD FILE TRANSFER

Finally, we wanted to see how performance was in a real world use when transferring large files to the SSDs. As we know, most TLC NAND based SSDs utilize a SLC caching algorithm to help improve performance, especially writes. This is needed due to the inherent slowness of TLC NAND. For this test we are going to simply stress write performance by transferring over a 30GB folder of movies off of one SSD to this one and time how long it takes. Once complete we can calculate the average speed.

After looking at the graph above, we were quite impressed with the results. After writing most of the 30GB of data speeds dropped down to the low 300s, which is much better than that of some of the competition in this price bracket like the Trion 100 and Crucial BX200. The BP5e Slim 7 Series, at least in this capacity, proves to be a decent performer if you have light mixed workloads and makes it a much better buy at this price point.

To build upon this test we also looked to see where the speeds leveled off to by using HD Tune Pro.

Again, we can see that the BP5e Slim 7 Series maintains speeds of about 300MB/s once the initial SLC cache is saturated, which is very good compared to its entry level competition.

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 now utilizing a Quarch Technology Programmable Power Module. It allows us to accurately measure power consumption over time and is flexible enough to allow us to test any SSD that comes our way.

Our power analysis may change as time goes on, but for now we are looking at just a few metrics with the main goal of measuring our results against the manufacturer’s ratings. One, idle power consumption. Because most consumer systems are at idle for about 80% of the time, idle power consumption is an important measure to look at when understanding the efficiency of a drive. Next we look at startup consumption. This tells you how much power the device needs during startup and while it is usually more important when looking at HDDs and enterprise class storage, it is still something worth quantifying. After that we did averaged out the active power consumption from the 30GB file transfer. Finally, we went through our power logs during testing and listed the maximum power draw.

Here we can see that the results are average with similar drives in this capacity and performance bracket. It actually has a slight edge over the Crucial BX200 with a 0.8W less power draw during the 30GB write test and lower max consumption. Idle is double the BX200’s, however, nearly identical to the Trion 100.

Finally, we wanted to post up a graph of the difference in idle power consumption between many of the current SSD options in the market. Again, idle accounts for the majority power draw of a drive and considering the use a drive in laptop, idle power consumption can greatly affect battery life, therefore we feel we should compare it in its own graph.

In the chart above we can see that SSDs are magnitudes more efficient than standard HDDs. The BP5e Slim 7 Series isn’t the best option available, but is very well controlled nonetheless.