Transcend Premium SSD: Trying A $70 256GB SATA 3.0 SSD

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Transcend Premium SSD: Trying A $70 256GB SATA 3.0 SSD

In routinely needing more storage devices for our dozens of automated Linux benchmarking systems powering LinuxBenchmarking.com and the rest at Phoronix Media, when recently seeing a deal on a Transcend TS256GSSD370S 256GB SATA3 SSD for $70 USD I decided to try it out.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=21995

[bug77]

Getting beaten by the ancient Vertex3 definitely puts this into the low-end category. However, 4k performance seems good enough (and that's way more important than sequential operations in many, many cases). And $70/256GB is probably the best ratio I have seen so far.

[rudl]

Well in benchmarks these low-end ssds seem to outperform any hdd anyway,
however it would be really nice to see these low end ssds in a long(er) term test,
like a few weeks or month to see wether they are still up and running with decent performance.

I'm kind of tempted to get a very cheap ssd, but it probably would give me headaches.

[milkylainen]

Did you take it apart?
Controller? Flash chips? Build?

[monraaf]

Could you provide numbers of a proper SSD like the Samsung 850 please? So that we can if the slower performance is worth the saving of only 30 bucks.

[Michael]

Did you take it apart?

This wasn't like a full proper SSD review, just running some tests on an SSD I bought prior to commissioning it.

[Michael]

Could you provide numbers of a proper SSD like the Samsung 850 please? So that we can if the slower performance is worth the saving of only 30 bucks.

Can find some numbers from that same system (albeit with different kernel) if looking back in my Samsung articles, etc.

[bug77]

Well in benchmarks these low-end ssds seem to outperform any hdd anyway,

Oh absolutely. The non-existent seek time and the 4k performance absolutely trash a mechanical drive (I'm a programmer, I can't imagine going back to compiling a mechanical drive now). The max transfer rates that so many cherish (and that are capped by SATA3 interface for a few years now) are just icing on the cake.

By all means, get a cheap SSD. It will serve you well. I have one for Windows and one for Linux and I'm still considering getting a third one for games (my games sit on a separate partition on a roomy HDD). I'm also thinking about making my desktop SSD only and moving the mechanical drives (yup, I have two of those, too) to a NAS. SSDs are _that_ good.

[Michael_S]

Oh absolutely. The non-existent seek time and the 4k performance absolutely trash a mechanical drive (I'm a programmer, I can't imagine going back to compiling a mechanical drive now). The max transfer rates that so many cherish (and that are capped by SATA3 interface for a few years now) are just icing on the cake.

By all means, get a cheap SSD. It will serve you well. I have one for Windows and one for Linux and I'm still considering getting a third one for games (my games sit on a separate partition on a roomy HDD). I'm also thinking about making my desktop SSD only and moving the mechanical drives (yup, I have two of those, too) to a NAS. SSDs are _that_ good.

I put a relatively cheap SSD in my wife's older computer two years ago and a cheap one in mine earlier this year and so far I'm thrilled. The difference from a HDD is enormous.

On the other hand, I can now get 4TB HDDs with 5 year warranties for $160. $70 for a 256GB primary drive is great, but I'm sticking with HDDs for media storage.

[bug77]

I put a relatively cheap SSD in my wife's older computer two years ago and a cheap one in mine earlier this year and so far I'm thrilled. The difference from a HDD is enormous.

On the other hand, I can now get 4TB HDDs with 5 year warranties for $160. $70 for a 256GB primary drive is great, but I'm sticking with HDDs for media storage.

No arguing with that. SSDs are still to expensive for media storage. Luckily, you don't need the SSD's seek time or transfer speeds to play music or even 3D 4k movies. The only thing is a HDD takes a few seconds to power up so it slows down the boot process or gives pause to the system for a few seconds when coming out of sleep.