Adata SX8200 Pro concerns

[Perfect_Chaos]

I've been interested in the drive from Adata literally just released. It uses the sm2262en controller. I was checking google and came across this article https://www.anandtech.com/show/13131/the-silicon-motion-sm2262en-ssd-controller-preview

It's an engineering sample. But performance drops off a lot when the drive becomes more full, nobody seems to know what point the performance drops off. It appears to be at least by the 80% full mark though. I had already placed an order for the 1TB version before seeing those numbers.

I got in touch with the seller and explained my concerns etc, i was offered to either keep the drive as long as i run a few tests and share the results with them, plus 50% refund. Or send the drive back for a full refund.

So send it back, or keep for roughly 90 odd quid.. good price, but not sure it's worth it? Hard to believe that they would release a new SSD that has worse performance than the previous one.

 

[Gibbo]

Seen this many times with SSD's, its is a reason why the range on OcUK is somewhat small and is also why we tend to only stick with the bigger brand names to try and avoid this, though of course sometimes you can get an absolute gem of a product from a smaller company and typically Adata are quite good.

Still for SSD I a firm believe Samsung will always be number one, they have put huge R&D into performance particular on long term performance and keeping performance at top levels. Its why our PCI-E range is quite small with the main focus been Samsung 970 EVO and Pro models, we also stock the Intel 760P which seem very good and the Intel 660P which are also OK.

 

[Thekwango]

Ask yourself this, is a 750gb ssd worth 90 quid? If you’re happy with not maxing out the drive then go for it.

 

[Perfect_Chaos]

Seen this many times with SSD's, its is a reason why the range on OcUK is somewhat small and is also why we tend to only stick with the bigger brand names to try and avoid this, though of course sometimes you can get an absolute gem of a product from a smaller company and typically Adata are quite good.

Still for SSD I a firm believe Samsung will always be number one, they have put huge R&D into performance particular on long term performance and keeping performance at top levels. Its why our PCI-E range is quite small with the main focus been Samsung 970 EVO and Pro models, we also stock the Intel 760P which seem very good and the Intel 660P which are also OK.

Yeah i still have a 512GB Samsung 840 Pro, it has been running well since I've had it. With ADATA it's baffling how a new drive can actually perform worse than their previous version though.

Ask yourself this, is a 750gb ssd worth 90 quid? If you’re happy with not maxing out the drive then go for it.

Still don't know how full the drive will be when performance drops off though. 90 quid is decent i suppose and puts it in line roughly with the MX500, I haven't decided what to do with it yet and it still hasn't arrived, i may just return it and go with another Samsung, maybe when they release newer drives as I'm not in a hurry anyway really.

 

[muziqaz]

But this is the issue with all the SSDs. As far as I understand SSDs can be read from all the blocks on the chip array, not like HDD which are spinning disks which are read a single sector at a time. So with empty SSD drive you have all the capacity and all the arrays free to be read/written. As you fill up the SSD, the read/write source is smaller now. This is the reason that if you noticed, larger capacity SSDs from same manufacturer quote greater performance numbers even within same models just different capacities. So let's say Samsung Evo "whatever" 128Gb will be on paper slower than Samsung Evo "whatever" 1Tb. They are the same manufacturer, same flash, same controller, just 1Tb drive has more chips in SSD from which controller can read/write to. So general consensus is that its a bad idea to fill up your SSD to the fullest, as performance drops significantly.
I didn't look at Adata article, so I might be talking about something different

 

[Gibbo]

Yeah i still have a 512GB Samsung 840 Pro, it has been running well since I've had it. With ADATA it's baffling how a new drive can actually perform worse than their previous version though.


Still don't know how full the drive will be when performance drops off though. 90 quid is decent i suppose and puts it in line roughly with the MX500, I haven't decided what to do with it yet and it still hasn't arrived, i may just return it and go with another Samsung, maybe when they release newer drives as I'm not in a hurry anyway really.

Let me just say this, Samsung's R&D budget is probably bigger than Adatas total turnover.
Yes the small company can sometimes pull a blinder, but Samsung are the leader in SSD and are real experts with it and know how to keep the drive performing very well throughout its live.

If I was building a PC I'd simply put in a 500G 970 EVO for boot drive and then an 860 EVO 1TB storage drive, especially considering how SSD prices have become so cheap now.

 

[4K8KW10]

ADATA is not small - for the previous year, it was the second largest DRAM manufacturer in the world.
It is just that Samsung manufacturers everything, from processors to stupid refrigirators, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, etc that make them look big.
But definitely, the ADATA SX8200 is a better drive than a 970 Evo.

 

[EsaT]

but Samsung are the leader in SSD and are real experts with it and know how to keep the drive performing very well throughout its live.

Still they dropped the ball with planar TLC in 840 EVO having bad data retention causing slow down from excessive relying on error correction.
(needing periodic data refresh write as band aid)
They simply should have waited for 3D NAND to have more robust cells.

And certainly myself wouldn't buy (from any maker) pretty much analog storage QLC, at least until those have been in wide spread use for many many years.
That thing needs distinguishing between 16 charge states to avoid read error of cell's content.
Which leaves very little room for charge leaking/deteriorating.
Hence wouldn't wonder if all QLC drives come with periodic data refresh write as default.

 

[Gibbo]

ADATA is not small - for the previous year, it was the second largest DRAM manufacturer in the world.
It is just that Samsung manufacturers everything, from processors to stupid refrigirators, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, etc that make them look big.
But definitely, the ADATA SX8200 is a better drive than a 970 Evo.

I want performance to last so I’d take 970 EVO every time personally especially as an OS drive.

 

[4K8KW10]

I want performance to last so I’d take 970 EVO every time personally especially as an OS drive.

I do not understand - how the performance to last? We know the 512GB Evo has Static Buffer Capacity and Intelligent TurboWrite Capacity of just 22GB before you fall to the native 600MB/s speed.
The SX8200 reserves 7% of its capacity for over-provisioning, 7% of 512GB is 35.84GB
Also, it is rated at 300TBW, while the ADATA is rated at 320TBW.

Conclusion
The Adata XPG SX8200 is the best implementation of the SMI SM2262 controller we've seen yet. The extra over-provisioning raises the bar over the Intel and HP drives.

During heavy workloads, the over-provisioning gives you higher performance than the 760p and EX920. Under heavier workloads you get better performance than the 970 EVO, but less than the 970 Pro.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/adata-xpg-sx8200-ssd-review,5584-4.html

Most budget-conscious shoppers don't need the 970 EVO's enhanced endurance, software package, or big price tag. Samsung SSDs have always cost more than competing products, but the drives always delivered higher performance that justified the slightly higher pricing. Now the 970 EVO is considerably more expensive than competing SSDs. The price gap will only increase as more products come to market with the SMI SM2262 controller and Phison PS5012-E12 production starts, so Samsung will have to adjust pricing to be more competitive.

We’ve never had to say that about a Samsung SSD before. It’s not that the 970 EVO is worse than the previous generation. The competition simply improved with 64-layer flash at the same time the performance limitations of the PCIe 3.0 x4 interface are becoming the limiting factor.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/samsung-970-evo-ssd-review,5573-5.html