Adata ultimate su800 128gb review: Adata Ultimate SU800 SSD Review — Tom’s Hardware

Adata Ultimate SU800 SSD Review — Tom’s Hardware

Early Verdict

The Adata Ultimate SU800 128GB is the weakest of the three models we tested. This drive costs only $20 less than the 256GB drive. We couldn’t recommend this model to anyone given the slight price difference. The SU800 128GB also suffers from very high latency making it a poor choice for every PC user.

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Specifications And Features

Let’s be honest, if you bring a product with the name «Ultimate» to market, it had better deliver. It can’t be average, regular, or even mainstream. Most importantly, though, it had better not be sub-par.

Adata is one of the last remaining SSD manufacturers that still works with all of the controller and NAND flash manufacturers (other than Samsung). Over the last few years, many DRAM-turned-SSD companies have aligned with a single controller or flash manufacturer and continued to release cookie-cutter products using reference designs. In contrast, Adata doesn’t like being in a box with limited options. Because of that, the company offers several different products that often overlap. When a new technology comes to market, Adata is often the first non-fab to bring it to market regardless of the original source of the components.

  • Adata Ultimate SU800 (512GB) (Black) at Best Buy for $59.99

Adata’s wide range of products is good for consumers, but there are negative aspects to the approach. The development cost of working with two or three NAND flash companies and a handful of flash processor designers is inevitably higher than working with a shorter list of partners. Over time, Adata has learned quite a bit by working with so many partners, so one project gives greater insight into how to approach the next. Sadly, everything has a starting point. The Ultimate SU800 is Adata’s starting point with Micron’s 384Gbit 3D TLC flash.

Our coverage of the Micron’s first 3D-derived NAND hasn’t been very promising. The large 384Gbit TLC die should have elevated SSD capacities. We often think about 4TB, and beyond, as a capacity expansion for consumer SSDs. No one expected it to be a jump from 1,000 GB to 1,050 GB. That is what Crucial’s MX300 product delivered, along with a few other oddball capacities. Micron also paired the first generation 3D TLC flash with an entry-level 4-channel controller that amplified the poor latency of the flash. The performance cost of a few extra gigabytes of space was much more; I would call it a penalty. The MX300 was a sub-par product, but the company had already canceled one 3D NAND SSD (Ballistix TX3), and another would have been a disaster.

Building a product using IMFT’s 3D NAND has proven to be challenging. Micron and Intel themselves have both released under-performing products using the technology, but to put it into perspective (but not to step on it), we are not just talking about below average.

Unlike the Crucial MX300, Adata chose to utilize the odd capacity TLC die a little differently. Adata used one-third of the capacity, essentially all of the extra space (128Gbit of the total 384Gbit die), to build a massive SLC buffer. That eliminates any capacity advantage, but it does give us a massive buffer that should (at least on paper) be very fast. We will have to see if the buffer is enough to make 384Gbit TLC fast enough for us to consider it “Ultimate.”

Technical Specifications

Adata Ultimate SU800 (128GB)

Adata Ultimate SU800 (256GB)

Adata Ultimate SU800 (512GB)

Adata plans to release the Ultimate SU800 in four standard capacities that range from 128GB to 1TB. The largest capacity has yet to ship in the channel. We have the three low-capacity drives to test and analyze.

A Silicon Motion, Inc (SMI) SM2258 controller with advanced Low-Density Parity Check (LDPC) code is at the heart of the Ultimate SU800. We tested this controller and flash combination in a technical preview article earlier this year. The technical preview delivers much more detail about the controller and its inner workings than this article. If the SSD manufacturer does not disclose the feature set, we try not to highlight the controller features that might be embedded in the retail SSD.  Some controller features may be enabled even though the SSD maker hasn’t released the information. On the other side of the coin, the vendor may have disabled some of the features, as well.

The Ultimate SU800 falls at the top of Adata’s SATA product line and serves as the flagship even though it utilizes 3D TLC NAND flash. The sequential read performance reaches up to 560 MB/s, but the SSD only achieves a sequential write speed of 520 MB/s. The random performance peaks at 85,000/85,000 read/write IOPS on the 512GB model. The other capacities have slight performance variations.

Advanced Features

  • 3D TLC NAND Flash
  • SMI controller
  • Wide capacity range: 128GB to 1TB
  • Advanced hardware LDPC ECC technology
  • Intelligent SLC Caching and DRAM cache buffer
  • DEVSLP (Device Sleep) supported
  • High TBW for extended drive longevity
  • Free software: SSD Toolbox
  • Supports S.M.A.R.T, TRIM Command, NCQ, and Migration Utility

We spoke with Adata for more information about the one-third size SLC buffer. The company doesn’t disclose the information on the official product page, or even mention the feature beyond a single bullet point that refers to it as «Intelligent SLC Caching.» The Ultimate SU800 has the largest SLC buffer of any consumer SSD ever released. If the buffer is effective, the series should be very fast.

Pricing And Accessories

The Adata Ultimate SU800 sells at very attractive price points. The series starts out at just $59.99 (128GB), but we can’t even begin to recommend that model when the 256GB drive sells for just $79.99. The 512GB drive offers the best value of the three, but the price increases to $139.99. This is where things become more difficult for shoppers, though. The Intel 600p 512GB NVMe SSD also retails for roughly the same $140 when it is on sale. In the Intel 600p review, we compared the drive to the absolute best SATA SSDs available in daily-use applications, and the 600p delivered slightly more performance.

Adata released a software package a few years ago and has steadily optimized it over the years. The SU800 works with the downloadable software and a custom version of Acronis True Image HD. You will need to make an account on Adata’s website to download both.

Warranty And Endurance

The Ultimate SU800 ships with a 3-year warranty, which is common in the mainstream SSD market. Adata limited the warranty with an endurance cap that starts at 100TB (128GB) and doubles with each increase in capacity.

Product Packaging

Image 1 of 3

The SU800 ships in an attractive package, but don’t expect too many extra parts. For what it’s worth, the drive does ship with a 7mm to 9.5mm adapter. I really have to wonder what people use these for because I’ve yet to encounter a situation where one was absolutely required.

A Closer Look

Image 1 of 4

This is a fairly new case design from Adata and it’s difficult to get into. Half of the case is metal, and the other half is plastic. We only opened one of the SSDs because it required destroying the case.

Internals

Image 1 of 5

The only real surprise we found in the drive came from the flash. There are six packages, much like the SM2258 sample we analyzed in the technical preview editorial.

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Chris Ramseyer is a Contributing Editor for Tom’s Hardware US. He tests and reviews consumer storage.

Adata Ultimate SU800 SSD review

TechRadar Verdict

The Adata SSD Ultimate SU800 is a competent budget hard drive that gives you the benefits of solid state storage without breaking the bank.

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3D as a buzzword has taken a bit of a knock recently in the home entertainment sector, but it crops up in the marketing material of a product you might not expect – a solid state hard drive.

Adata is making a big deal of 3D NAND flash, which it claims allows it to cram in more storage capacity, higher efficiency and faster read and write speeds. It also claims that 3D NAND flash makes its drives more energy efficient, and therefore cheaper to run.

So does its 3D NAND flash make the Adata SSD Ultimate SU800 stand out from the crowd? Or is it just marketing bluster? Read on to find out.

  • ADATA SSD Ultimate SU800 at Amazon for $39.99

 Features and specification 

Although we tested the 256GB capacity Adata SSD Ultimate SU800, the drive comes in a range of capacities between 128GB to an impressive 1TB, which means if you’re set on the drive, you have the choice of what capacity you want depending on what you need it for. So if you’re looking for an SSD to serve as a boot drive, then a lower capacity model would be for you, and if you wanted to combine speed and file storage in one 2.5-inch drive, the larger capacities would suit your needs.

Adata is very confident of the read/write speeds of the SU800, boasting maximum read speeds of 560MB/s and write speeds of 520MB/s. To put this in perspective, a traditional HDD averages 110MB/s read and write, so you’re looking at theoretical speed increases of up to 500%.

While in use, the Adata SSD Ultimate SU800 averages a power draw of 0.65w, a drop from traditional 2.5-inch HDD’s and their average 3.2w. The power draw when idle is just 12mW, which makes the Adata SSD Ultimate SU800 a good choice if you want your device to keep a low energy consumption overall. As the Adata SSD Ultimate SU800 is a 2.5-inch drive, it’s suitable for laptops, where lower power consumption equals longer battery life, so we’re pleased to see the attention to lowering power consumption that Adata has lavished on the SSD Ultimate SU800.

The Adata SSD Ultimate SU800 also comes with free downloads of Adata’s own SSD Toolbox program, as well as a migration utility to help you swap over from your previous drive. The software itself does the job well, even if the user interface isn’t the most refined we’ve seen.

 Performance

So how does the Adata SSD Ultimate SU800 perform? Remarkably well, in fact, when put through the paces of our various benchmarks. In the Crystal Disk Mark benchmark it scored speeds of 562.6MB/s sequential read, and 507.6MB/s write, which is not too far off the speeds Adata promises. In the ATTO disk benchmark, which tests how fast a disk reads and writes data in various sizes, the Adata SSD Ultimate SU800 scored 562MB/s read and 515MB/s write. 

These scores are largely in line with what most modern SATA III SSDs can achieve, so while 3D NAND doesn’t bring any major speed increases, it does mean that the Adata SSD Ultimate SU800 can easily hold its own against more expensive SSDs from established names.

In our PCMark 8 benchmark, the Adata SSD Ultimate SU800 scored 4960, which is almost identical to the more expensive Kingston SSDNow KC400’s score, again proving that while Adata isn’t as recognisable a name as Kingston, it can go toe-to-toe when it comes to performance. 

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Matt is TechRadar’s Managing Editor for Core Tech, looking after computing and mobile technology. Having written for a number of publications such as PC Plus, PC Format, T3 and Linux Format, there’s no aspect of technology that Matt isn’t passionate about, especially computing and PC gaming. Ever since he got an Amiga A500+ for Christmas in 1991, he’s loved using (and playing on) computers, and will talk endlessly about how The Secret of Monkey Island is the best game ever made.

ADATA Ultimate SU800: modern 3D NAND

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Sergei Gritsachuk

Let’s start with the basics: the presented drive uses 3D NAND memory, which, as you know, significantly increases the density of memory cells. And already due to this, the cost of data storage is automatically reduced, which, in theory, should have made this type of storage mass, widespread and ubiquitous. nine0011

But alas, the long-awaited expansion was delayed: no, vendors are ready to start production and shipment “at least now”, but they simply lack chips of that very memory! Why its release has slowed down — one can only guess; but the reasons are purely technical. The shortage is caused by production difficulties, a large number of defects, unavailability of equipment — there are many reasons, but the result is the same: SSDs based on 3D NAND memory are only available from memory module manufacturers. And suddenly — the unexpected appearance on the ADATA Ultimate SU800 market sounded like a bolt from the blue: this means that the designers managed to agree with the manufacturer on the supply of microcircuits, and, quite possibly, the desired drives will soon appear on the market in large quantities — fast, reliable and inexpensive .
nine0011

But in order not to guess, let’s see what the novelty is. First of all, memory. Surely. Micron MT29F768G08EECBBJ4-37:B! Long-standing partnerships have borne fruit and this time — it is the 32-layer (384 Gb) TLC 3D NAND that is installed in the drive. Complements its buffer, LDDR3-1600, with a capacity of 512 MB, and manages this «sandwich» … SMI SM2258! It’s hard to say how unexpected this is: the “single-chip” was originally created to work with the classic “single-story” TLC NAND, but later Micron explained that due to NAND-Xtend technology and advanced SLC caching algorithms, it became possible to use it as a base platform for a new type of memory. Moreover, Micron invited everyone to start designing their own versions of drives, using a microcontroller with ready-made firmware.
nine0011

Apparently, ADATA did just that, neglecting the fact that it would not be possible to get the highest performance at the output: after all, the SM2258 is not the fastest among 32-bit RISC architectures. But as a result, the maximum linear read speed of the SU800 reaches 550 Mbps, and random read — 85,000 IOPS. The indicators for recording in the first case are only 50 Mbps less, in the second they do not differ at all. Of course, this does not reach the calculated 90K IOPS, but it is very, very good. The recommended price for a 512 GB drive is announced at $ 140, the mean time between failures is estimated at 2 million hours. The form factor of the drive is the expected 2.5 inches, the case thickness is 7 mm.
nine0011

The study showed that the case is of a composite type: the upper half is plastic, the lower half is metal. This is understandable: the metal half also functions as a heatsink for the controller. The fact that the design is a reference one is immediately clear from the board: it has eight seats for memory chips, of which exactly as many are installed as required for the sales capacity of the storage. Accordingly, there are six of them in the 512 GB version, and since there are two modules in each, the storage capacity is 576 GB. It is logical: it is necessary to have a reserve in case of repair of damaged cells! The stock, by the way, is solid, almost 100 GB, so the reliability promises to be high.
nine0011

In order for the user to be able to control this process, a special proprietary utility has been developed — ADATA SSD Toolbox. With its help, you can test the memory of the drive, view S.M.A.R.T. information, and disable unnecessary services of the Windows operating system. However, the «optimization» did not show a clear increase in performance, but this is in tests, and subjectively the computer began to work a little faster. Perhaps the very “washed car effect”, I won’t argue. As for performance, it is at the level declared by the developers, which, on the one hand, is good. On the other hand, it becomes obvious that the controller is still rather weak for cutting-edge memory and does not allow you to fully appreciate its advantages.
nine0011

Well, it’s time to sum up. The appearance of the first SSD based on 3D TLC NAND Flash is a milestone event: it is obvious that Micron in such a simple way demonstrated its readiness to supply a platform for creating ultra-modern budget drives to second-tier vendors. But it is not yet clear whether it is ready to equally generously distribute the memory chips themselves at dumping prices in demanded quantities? While the price of the ADATA Ultimate SU800 is frankly high, but it is the first of the Mohicans, a new generation drive that has already gone into series. And it can be fully felt and evaluated in real configurations, which I recommend doing to the most impatient.
nine0011

IT Expert magazine [No. 04/2021] Journal subscription

Values:
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Estimated price: 5 800 rub

Published 05.05.2021

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ADATA Ultimate SU800 512GB (512GB SATA 6Gb/s) SSD Review GreenTech_Reviews

ADATA Ultimate SU800 512GB (512GB SATA 6Gb/s) SSD Review and Test

3D NAND memory comes to replace classic memory in SSD drives. Such memory is characterized by higher density, improved power efficiency and increased reliability. Every month there are more and more drives based on 3D NAND memory, which increases the time for the user to find a suitable solution for himself. In addition, the presence of 3D NAND memory should not be the main feature, because a lot depends on the cache buffer, error correction mechanism and other technical aspects of the drive as a whole. nine0011

Contents:
1. Drive overview, technical part
2. Software
3. Testing, standard benchmarks
4. Testing according to the international SNIA

methodology

The drive came to us for testing in just an antistatic package, so we took the image of the package from the official website. However, apart from the image of the drive itself and a table with its technical characteristics, there is nothing on the box.

nine0108

Specifications ADATA Ultimate SU800
Volume 128 GB — 1 TB (512 GB reviewed)
Interface SATA III 6Gb/s
Controller Silicon Motion SM2258
Memory 3D Triple-Level Cell (TLC)
Form factor 2. 5″
Dimensions 100.45 x 69.85 x 7 mm
MTBF 2 million hours
Read/Write Serial Rates 560/520 MB/s (in ATTO)
Maximum random read/write speed 4 K in blocks

/54000 IOPS

Wear resistance 400 TB
Warranty 3 years

3D NAND Flash
Thanks to the use of 3D NAND memory, Ultimate SU800 drives achieve large volumes with fewer chips, which makes them more energy efficient and features a good combination of price and quality. The Ultimate SU800 drives achieve read/write speeds of up to 560MB/s and 520MB/s, respectively.

Wide performance range and high TBW
With the versatility of 3D NAND flash, the Ultimate SU800 is available in capacities ranging from 128GB to 1TB. You can choose a drive depending on your purpose — whether it’s an OS boot disk or a disk for recording large amounts of information. All Ultimate SU800 models are equipped with High TBW (Total Bytes Written) technology, which determines how many times the entire capacity of an SSD can be overwritten during its lifetime. The Ultimate SU800 has a higher TBW than comparable models, guaranteeing a longer SSD life. nine0029

Smart SLC Caching Technology and DRAM Cache Buffer
The smart SLC caching algorithm allows the used NAND flash memory to operate efficiently in SLC mode with a significant increase in data read/write speeds. In addition, by supporting the DRAM cache buffer, read/write performance can be up to twice that of SSDs that do not have a DRAM cache, i.e. unable to use system memory as an SSD buffer to perform tasks at high speeds. nine0029

Latest LDPC ECC Error Correction Engine
Utilizing a low-density parity error-correcting code, the Ultimate SU800 greatly reduces transmission errors and improves data integrity equally. Thus, the drive protects your valuable data from damage at a higher level than SSDs without an ECC mechanism, or even SSDs that use the basic BCH error correction mechanism. nine0029

Proprietary Software — SSD Toolbox and Migration Utility
Ultimate SU800 customers can download the free SSD Toolbox and Migration Utility software developed by ADATA. The SSD Toolbox helps users monitor and manage the Ultimate SU800 based on disk health, wear and age information. Data transfer utilities are especially useful for users who migrate data from an HDD to an SSD, as they are designed to easily and quickly back up and move the contents of the entire drive, including the operating system. nine0029

RAID engine and shaping for maximum protection
Supported by an efficient RAID engine and shaping system, the Ultimate SU800 ensures data integrity and longer life for long-term stability and value for money.

The drive itself is made in a black case. Housing materials — metal and plastic. On the main side there is a sticker with the manufacturer’s logos and the name of the series to which the SSD belongs. nine0029

On the back of the case there is a sticker with some general information about the model.

The lower part of the housing, to which the drive board is attached, is made of metal. The top one is plastic.

Since 3D NAND memory is used, the manufacturer needed only six memory chips, which are placed on a compact printed circuit board.

The heart of the SSD is the Silicon Motion SM2258G controller

512MB of LDDR3-1600 buffer memory implemented by one Nanya NT5CC256M16IP-DI chip. nine0029

512 GB of TLC 3D NAND main memory is packed with six Micron 6LB22 NW838 chips in a 768 Gigabit package, which actually gives 576 GB of memory. Unused memory acts as a backup.

Software

Every self-respecting manufacturer develops special software for their products. In the case of ADATA, this software is called SSD Toolbox.
The main section displays all the basic information about the drive, and you can also open advanced SMART information. nine0029

In the «Diagnostics» section, you can check the drive for errors. There are two modes — fast and long.
Here you can also set user notification parameters according to two criteria — temperature and «health» level.

In the «Utilities» section, a mechanism for updating the firmware, updating the program itself and exporting data is implemented.
Here you can also perform Secure Erase — data cleaning without the possibility of their recovery.

The «System optimization» section contains mechanisms for optimizing the operation of the drive and the operating system. nine0029

Testing

For testing, the drive was connected to an ASUS Z170M-PLUS motherboard.

Actual drive capacity available to the user:

AS SSD Benchmark, MB/s

AS SSD Benchmark, IOPS

AS SSD Benchmark, copy data

Extended Benchmark — Anvil’s Storage Utulities

TxBench

ATTO Disk Benchmark showing the peak speeds the drive can achieve

Crystal Disk Mark, 50 MB file

Crystal Disk Mark, 500 MB file

Crystal Disk Mark, 4 GB file

HD Tune Pro, reading test

HD Tune Pro recording test. I was very pleased that even with SLC caching, the speed remains at a high level.

HD Tune Pro, block reading test

HD Tune Pro, multiblock recording test

HD Tune Pro, 9 additional reading tests0029

HD Tune Pro, advanced recording tests

Solid State Storage (SSS) Performance Test Specification (PTS)
The drive was tested in Steady State mode with precondition.

Test 1: IOPS Test
Measures IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second) for various block sizes (1024KB, 128KB, 64KB, 32KB, 16KB, 8KB, 4KB, 512byte) and random access with different read/write ratio (100/0, 95/5, 65/35, 50/50, 35/65, 5/95, 0/100). Queue depth 8, number of threads 8

Test 2: Latency Test
Measures average and maximum latency for various block sizes (8KB, 4KB, 512 bytes) and read/write ratios (100/0, 65/35, 0/100) at minimum depth queues (1 thread with QD=1).
Queue depth 1, number of threads 1

Test 3: Write Saturation Test
Tests change in performance (IOPS) with a continuous random write load in 4 KB blocks. nine0029 Queue depth 32, number of threads 32
This is the most difficult test of all, and the drive performed very well.

Test 4: Throughput Test
Tests throughput for sequential access: reading and writing in blocks of 1 MB and 128 KB.
Queue depth 16, number of threads 16
The low write speed is due to the fact that the SLC caching technology is used. If you write standard data to this disk — games (up to 100 GB), movies, etc., then the speeds will be the same as you saw in the first part of testing. nine0029 And if you need to write a huge array of data, then the controller will not have time to prepare clean memory cells for writing, and the speed will drop to about these values. This is absolutely normal for SLC caching.
By the way, to get this result, the test script wrote about 4 TB of information to the SSD. In your home gaming PC, this situation is not expected, so you should not worry about the speed drop.

Advantages and disadvantages
Advantages:
— good read and write speeds;
— good resistance to enormous loads, taking into account the SLC operating mode;
— low price;

Disadvantages:
— not suitable for systems with extremely intensive loads.

Conclusion
The ADATA Ultimate SU800 512 GB SSD demonstrated good read and write speeds under normal use, and also performed very well under an 80-hour stress test, during which almost 12 TB of data. Even taking into account the use of SLC caching technology, when many competitors fail in write speed and when testing in classic benchmarks, ADATA Ultimate SU800 withstood everything almost perfectly. The model has good speeds, high reliability, as well as an adequate price. This SSD is perfect for a PC of any level — from simple tasks to demanding gamers and enthusiasts.