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THE SSD REVIEW TEST PROTOCOL
At The SSD Review, we test our SSDs slightly different depending upon the drive’s marketed purpose, be it consumer/oem or enterprise focused SSD. For a consumer SSD, our goal is to test in a system that has been optimized with our SSD Optimization Guide, however, CPU C States may or may not have been altered, dependent on motherboard UEFI features. Benchmarks for our consumer tests are that of fresh drives (PCMark 8 testing exempt), so that we can verify that the manufacturer’s specifications match the SSD. Additionally, we also include links to the benchmarks used in our reports so that you as the reader can replicate our tests to confirm that your SSD is top-notch.
TSSDR Z170 TEST BENCH COMPONENTS
Our newest Z170 Test bench was the result of some great sponsorship’s and our appreciation goes to Samsung, Corsair, ASRock, PNY and Intel for helping us with this build. All of the hardware we use for testing is available for purchases at a reasonable price; albeit this specific build is a tad high-end. The links provided below can assist in pricing and availability of the hardware contained within this system:
| PC CHASSIS: | Corsair 760T White Full Window |
| MOTHERBOARD: | ASRock Z170 Extreme7+ ATX DDR4 |
| CPU: | Intel I7-6700K 4.00 GHz |
| CPU COOLER: | Corsair Hydro Series H110i GTX |
| POWER SUPPLY: | Corsair HX1200i ATX12V |
| GRAPHICS: | PNY GTX 980 4GB XLR8 Pro OC |
| MEMORY: | Corsair Dominator Pl 32GB 2800 |
| STORAGE: | Intel 750 Series 1.2TB NVMe SSD |
| KEYBOARD: | Corsair Vengeance K70 Mech |
| MOUSE: | Corsair White M65 Laser |
| OS | Microsoft Windows 10 Home 64 Bit |
BENCHMARK SOFTWARE
The software used for today’s analysis is typical of many of our reports and consists of ATTO Disk BenchMark, Crystal DiskMark, AS SSD, Anvil Storage Utilities, PCMark Vantage and PCMark 8. Most of this software is FREE and access to all programs can be done by simply clicking on the title of the benchmark. For a complete background and linkage to the software we use, check out our recent article, “The Ultimate Guide To SSD Benchmark Software“.
As we are testing both the 4TB and the 8TB versions of the Novachips Scalar HLNAND SSD, our layout will be such that we will provide our benchmark results in a side by side fashion, for the most part.
Crystal Disk Info is a great tool for displaying the characteristics and health of storage devices. It displays everything from temperatures, to the number of hours the device has been powered, and even to the extent of informing you of the firmware of the device.
These are the Crystal Disk Info returns of both SSDs after a few hours. In fact, we can see that the 4TB version has been up and running for 60 hours, where the 8TB Scalar has only seen 8 hours of testing. There is a reason. PCMark 8 Extended Storage Testing fills the SSD more than a few times during its testing and takes a very long time normally, not to mention what it might take for the 4 and 8TB sizes. We had the choice between running the 8TB through it once (which would take a few days), or running the 4TB through this testing a few times (about a week). It is on its third run through and the drive is still running strong. Stay tuned later on when we add the PCMark 8 results to this report for the 4TB model later in this report.
You have to wonder if Samsung, Toshiba, Intel or Micron had an interest in this technology earlier but found issues with it and could not reveal them publicly due to nondisclosure agreements. With a 3-year warranty I have to wonder about the write life of these high-end SSDs. Do they wear level as well as the competition?
We ran the crap out of the 4TB sample and it is now in my base system as the boot drive. It is just as strong as before testing. We would expect a 3-year warranty from any new company, however your mentioning of wear leveling brings up a good point. We are unable to determine total writes as it is not in the SMART attributes and doesn’t appear in any software programs that we might typically use, although some of that same software identifies SSD health as excellent. I am very curious as to the write count of the 4TB drive as we ran it for so long and Novachips is looking into this for us.
what causes the s.m.a.r.t. attributes to not display? is it the firmware of the drives, the software program used, a combination of the 2 or something else?
It is the choice of the manufacturer, however, because HLNAND is simply more than one memory chip, there may be more in play here…waiting for an answer from the manufacturer.
why would a manufacturer not want s.m.a.r.t. attributes to display? also, in this review and others it seems like data is retrieved but, the attribute name is listed as vendor specific. do the vendors have internal names that are not the standard s.m.a.r.t. attribute name? s.m.a.r.t. is a standard that has many attributes covered, why not stick to it?
I cannot answer that and there are several SSD vendors that list only minimal SMART attributes….looking for that F1 value!
No reply from Novachips yet? Probably working up a new marketing spin for their questionable write durability. 🙂
Hi dravo1, I am a technical marketing director of novachips, and thanks for your interests in our SSDs. For the endurance, 4TB has 1.9 PBW and 8TB has 3.8 PBW based on JEDEC standards. For the SMART attributes, we are working on correct display of total writes, but as Les said, it is the choice of manufacturer. Some shows, some doesn’t. Thanks again, and if you have more questions, please contact me at “hakjune.oh@novachips.com” then I can give you some good DC for your continuous interests and for your test too.
Thanks for the speedy response. I noticed on the website that the price on the 8TB unit was dropped from $8000 to $6000 and is expected to ship in 4-6 weeks. Can you clarify how warranty support will be handled in the US? Since I couldn’t find a corporate physical address listed on the website I had some concerns.
Hi dravo1, all warranty support will be handled by either S. Korea HQ or USA office. Novachips has 3 locations. Please see here; https://www.novachips.com/contact_us.shtml
Any info on power consumption?
We haven’t tested power consumption just yet and, should we proceed with full enterprise reviews, it will be complete. Specifications are listed.
“NAND pricing aside, the difficulty with producing a higher capacity SSD has been the fact that higher volume chips were not yet available and too many memory chips were required to make a notebook SSD feasible.”
But there is plenty of room in a 3.5″ form factor.
There are a lot of systems out there with 3.5″ spinning rust that could accommodate a product like that.
Agree totally and we have seen similar out of AIC retail SSDs but…. the main consideration in the case of a notebook SSD is that of creating a single controller design. With what they have now, they could create a 32TB single controller SSD in the 3.5″ design..nobody else can do this. The problem previously was fitting the memory in a single controller design with acceptable heat dissipation and adequate performance…this would have meant a dual controller design.
Every thing looks good but are the 4k read speeds a little slow for the new ssds?
Your Nvidia GTX980 is very twisted under the load of the PCIX cables and you have nice but wrong wire management . It isn`t good for it for long time. Good luck . Nice review.
Explain further as i don’t see what you are speaking of whatsoever? Are you saying the physical positioning of the wires?
The video card is bended upwards from the PCiX cables from the pict with the case in page 3 in the review .
It is simply the look..card sits fine.
I agree, it looks like you have pulled your PCIex cables for the graphics card alittle to snug, and its bending the card ever so slightly upwards. Which will be pulling stress onto the PCIex slot on the motherboard.
If you mark me an email adress I can show your pictures with further explaining . Or let me put picture on disqus .