The SSD Review The Worlds Dedicated SSD Education and Review Resource | 
SSDs have been around for several years now, but some could argue that they have yet to hit mainstream. When you compare SSD sales today to the hard drive, we could make a case when we state that they are still in their infancy. The biggest reasoning for this, of course, has been industries lack of ability to find that key ingredient that makes the SSD a ‘must have’ in the eyes of the consumer. Where price was a huge deterrent in the early years with a 128GB SSD going for over $3000, this was replaced by reliability that then opened the doors to performance, capacity and, all along, value has been a key ingredient in any success the SSD would have. Even today manufacturers still haven’t a foothold on just the right mix to sell the consumer in mass.
Today, value and ease of installation seem to be key ingredients in finding success at the consumer level; great performance, high-capacity and reliability of which have all become commonplace. Transcend hopes to have found just the right mix in the SSD370, making it widely available in more capacities than we have seen from any other in some time, but also, selling it at a price point that has only ever been equaled by the likes of Samsung, SanDisk and Crucial/Micron themselves. Somehow, their pricing is at, or below that of even the NAND flash memory manufacturers. This might just be a great start…but what about ease of installation?
THE TRANSCEND SSD370 SSD
The Transcend SSD 370 is available in capacities of 32, 64, 128, 256 and 512GB, along with a 1TB size. A quick check of Amazon
reveals that the Transcend SSD370 pricing has been set very low with prices of $48 (32GB), $53 (64GB), $69 (128GB), $119 (256GB), $224 (512GB) and $449 (1TB), its lowest price point being 43¢/GB. The SSD370 is a SATA 3 SSD, has built-in wear-leveling and ECC to ensure data transfer and reliability over time, and comes with a three-year warranty.
Its packaging includes the SSD370, a desktop adapter, warranty papers, along with an easy to follow instruction guide, complete with a download link to Transcend’s own SSD Scope Utility. SSD Scope contains easy to understand menus that provide information on the SSD, its SMART attributes, Health Scan, Secure Erase, Firmware Update, TRIM, Health Status, along with an easy to follow System Clone menu that walks you through migration from the hard drive to a SSD.
The one thing this package doesn’t include is a USB to SSD adapter cable, something that unfortunately would be enough to deter those walking on the fence from making that HDD to SSD jump. Having said that, we were very impressed with the simplicity of SSD Clone as it just made sense to that new user who would be moving to SSDs for the first time.
We have to say though that inclusion of that USB cable would have made this story so much more compelling as we have seen just this with the Kingston V310 SSD that we did a review on only a short time ago. The Kingston kit included, not only the USB cable, but also, it included an external SSD case that allowed the removed storage drive to be used as an external storage device after the migration. Having said that, the Kingston package doesn’t come close to that of the Transcend SSD370.
Hi Les. Nice review. I have same ideas with you as being a Transcend owner. I have been using a Transcend SSD 320 SATA III MLC 128GB for two years. It has asynchronous NAND chips and Sandforce 2281 controller. Despite its asynchronous NAND chips and old controller it is perfect. No problem, no fail. I am completely satisfied with Transcend products. I also have some Transcend Jetflash USB drives and they are also rocky. When you look at the electronic market you will see that Transcend SSD 370 is the Top Value SSD on the market. Competitors are Sandisk Ultra II TLC, Samsung Evo 840 TLC and Crucial MX 100. Transcend SSD 370 MLC is cheaper than the cheapest TLC rival (Sandisk Ultra II TLC). Transcend means reliability for me. If you need a GOOD! SSD you can buy this. You will never regret.
Wow… that is a totally unexpected and great voice of support for Transcend. Thank you.
In my oppinion this sounds like a company marketing speech…
Transcend is not an American Company. So it does not need such speeches. And your opinion is an American Opinion.
We can validate that this person has no association with the company.
I thank you Les. I am only a Simple! Tech Reader. I am only a Simple Consumer and have been reading about Computing Technology for years. I am not an expert like you. But I am very curious. On the other hand Transcend is a Giant!! and does not need Trolls!
>. On
the other hand Transcend is a Giant!! and does not need Trolls!
Yep, they are really big in memory space. While i agree, that they don’t need trolls, they do need even more competitive pricing. Big guys that manufacture NAND are really crushing them in value segment.
Hate to brake it to ya, but transcend doesn’t really make ssds. Mostly they just slap their badge on the drive and in this case on the controller aswell. So its really not any different from other SM 20nm Micron drives. Same goes for their sandforce and jmicron line. Rebrands and reference designs with transcend badge slapped on it.
Not correct at all and confirmed this prior to responding here. Transcend works with its own manufacturing facility and engineering team, just like the makes of every other manufacturer, and do not use 3rd party assembly where they might simply brand the product.
Still doesn’t change the fact, that don’t actually make anything on their own. As i’ve said, they use 3rd party controllers, nand and dram. Who puts it all together, doesn’t really matter that much.
Reliability and performance is in most cases determined by controller and nand used, not manufacturing facility, that puts everything together.
Just look at all the sandforce drives. ALL of them had the same issues (even though lots of companies did manufacturing and packaging nand themselfs) even big guys like intel.
So yeah. If a SM based drive is sold by transcend, doesn’t make it any more reliable nor faster than any other SM based drive.
I don’t remember anyone claiming a comparison on reliability or quality, simply personal opinion on preference. On the other hand, you tried to change the tied of opinion with a flat out false statement that wasn’t correct. Using your analogy, 99% of SSD manufacturers fall into the same category as Transcend because it is extremely rare to see ANY 100% proprietary component based SSDs. if we are going to provide a viewpoint, let’s keep it factual, thus eliminating our consideration as to whether false info should be removed.
Fair enough. I just figered Transcend falls into the same category as dozens of other OEMs, that really don’t do any manufacturing at all, just rebranding. To be fair, this is a common practice with OEMs, that have to source all the components from 3rd parties. So it was a reasonable conclusinon, that turned out wrong.
Understand completely and thanks for your input. We are both well aware of who I speak.
Hey Benjamin. I do not like arguing like fan boys but I need to write again. I only wanted to share my experince in my first comment. Before this Transcensd SSD 320, I used a Corsair Force GT 60 GB SATA III MLC SSD for six months. And Corsair Force GT uses synchronous NAND chips. And Sandforce 2281. NAND chips of the Force GT are better than SSD 320. But Corsair GT got blue screen more than 16 times in six months. Blue screen more than 16 times in six months. And I have been using this Transcend SSD 320 for two years. Now I am writing these words on it. And during these two years I have never had blue screen! Yes no problem, no fail! I want to reply once more “Transcend means RELIABILITY for me”. Because I experienced!!!! this. So I do not care the opinions of the people like you.
Ok guys…both Nuff said and thanks….let’s stay on track.
Fair enough 🙂
On a more related subject. Is Trascend ssd340 gonna get some love from tssdr ? It looks like a budget offering, based on jmicron667H
Yeah, but both of those drives you’re mentioning are using the same controller, which was the culprint of BSODs (and nothing else). Its a good chance, the transcend you boungt later had the “fixed” firmware installed and hence no more bsods for you. Even though those two drives are sharing the same problematic controller.
And let me share my experineces. I own Intel, Adata and OCZ. All of them share the same sandforce controller. And all of them exhibit bsods on lots of occasions. Do i blame intel, adata and ocz ? No. I blame crappy validation on sandforce side.
With sandforce drives its a draw of luck You either get a problematic combination or not. Manufacutrer doesn’t play a role here. At least not to my knownledge.
So really, you can’t draw much conclusions here, just personal experience. As it happens, transcend just worked better in your case.
Hate to break it to ya….
Spelling police here….
“brake” = Something to stop your bicycle/car/etc.
“break” = to take it apart (one way or another)
You needed the latter version.
Lol
Happens you know…will fix and thanks. It is actually a ploy to confirm someone has written what we write.
I’m sure your momma must be very proud of you 🙂
Yeah, but its not cheaper than MX100 (its actually almost 10€ more expensive). And on top of that MX100 (and other derivates like adata sp920) is faster, powerloss caps, better controller and edrive support. So really, mx100 is an insane value (yeah, this looks like marketing talk, but its really not) and you’d be crazy to pass it. Especially since its also the cheapest drive you can get in EU.
So really, the only thing 370 has going for it, is the added stuff, that come with it. If you really need them and can spare a few bucks more, than 370 kinda makes sense.
I notice that some SSDs have 20nm NAND, some have 19nm NAND, and some have 17nm NAND, all MLC; is there any real performance advantage to any particular one? What’s the difference, functionally?
Jim
Different memory can result in different performance, as well as endurance of course. It all depends on the controller and the companies ability to fine tune the pairing in their firmware.
tell me, which one is better deal ,ssd370 256gb vs adata sp610 256gb,
if both have same price.
Is there any reason to get this over the 840 evo? It is really not much cheaper than the Samsung in the UK.
It is a personal choice. Samsung wins out on reputation and the controller where the better memory just may be with the Transcend as it is MLC and not TLC.
Yeah, but for consumers, TLC is really not an issue. Samsung bins their TLC really well and coupled with their great MEX controller and more spare space than MLC drives, it will take A LONG time to destroy it.
I believe techreport got to almost 1PB with their 840. Thats insane for a tlc drive.
Just get the cheapest, reliable option.
How is power consumption (with devsleep)? Maybe I missed it
We havent tested for DEVSLP and can only reflect manufacturers specs as we receive them.
Sorry for jumping in here, but didn’t know how to contact you. Please check out the Z97 thread if you get a chance. Also is there a way to bother you w/o bursting in like this..? Thanks Again. JV
Nice review of a nice SSD.
But my SSD370 256GB have a bug, the Power on hours count is crazy, after 32 hours it shows 9 hours.
No newer FW avaible, maybe it will be fixed in future.
I have also the SSD 340 which is not a benchmark-king but it runs smoothy and fast enough in my notebook.
But after FW-update all data was destroyed, even the partitions. I made a full backup before update so it was not a big problem but the other SSDs I updated (Plextor, Sandisk, Crucial, Mushkin, Corsair, OCZ) handled it without deleting data
I like SSD Scope, but it could be better. F1/F2 SMART could be shown in GB. TRIM shows only enabled or disabled but you can´t send manually a TRIM-command
Does somebody know how to align the partitions for this SSD properly? I would like to follow this guide
https://pastebin.com/0Jvn3PyQ and I need to know NAND Erase Block Size and NAND Page Size. Thanks in advance.