SandForce SSD Group Test

Adata S599 100GB SSD Review

Manufacturer: ADATA
UK Price (as reviewed): £270.14 (Inc. VAT)
US Price(as reviewed): N/A

Adata isn’t as well known as the more established SSD brands, having only recently launched its JMicron 612-powered S596 drive. Our drive carried the slightly older 302A13F0 firmware, the first release version of the SF-1200 firmware distributed to partners. The drive’s vital statistics are the same as the other SF-1200 drives, with a quoted peak sequential read speed of 280MB/sec and write speeds of 270MB/sec.

Inside the unassuming black aluminium casing hides the SandForce SF-1200 controller, with eight 8GB NAND modules around it. Another eight 8GB NAND chips are on the underside of the PCB.


Like the rest of the SandForce drives on test, the S599 had no trouble delivering on its peak performance claims in ATTO test, with the compression-friendly test delivering 278MB/sec read and 268MB/sec sequential write speeds. The uncompressible data of AS SSD’s tests proved more difficult though, with the S599 - like the other SandForce drives - performing notably slower with a 207MB/sec sequential read speed and a 122MB/sec sequential write speed.

Random read/write performance as measured in Iometer posed no problem however, with the S599 delivering 49MB/sec random read and 45MB/sec 4KB random write. While this is still slower than the Intel X25-M 160GB, it’s a big improvement over Indilinx-based drives. The S599’s earlier firmware did nudge the maximum random read and write latencies up to 72ms, but the average latencies were in line with other SF-1200 drives, so there’s no need for concern.

Like other SandForce drives, there was a notable loss in sequential write speed over time when using uncompressible data, even after TRIMing the drive. However, the drive maintained its performance perfectly when dealing with compressible data over time.

Conclusion

The performance of the Adata S599 is equivalent to the SandForce competition despite the slightly older firmware, and the price is keen too. At £270 it’s the cheapest 100GB SandForce SSD we’ve found in the UK, though the two-year warranty is inferior to the three years of OCZ and Corsair and the five years of cover from Patriot.

Despite being the cheapest drive on test, and packing just as much SandForce goodness as the G.Skill Phoenix and Patriot Inferno, the shadow of 120GB SandForce drives still looms large. OCZ, Corsair and G.Skill are all starting to release less over provisioned 120GB SandForce SSDs, and as these don’t look like they’ll cost much more than the 100GB equivalents and should be just as fast, it’s worth waiting for the final pricing. Adata needs to be quick in replying with its own 120GB SandForce drives, and some better supply into the UK wouldn’t hurt either, because the S599 is a solid starting point for Adata’s high-performance SSDs.

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Score Guide

Specifications

• Max Read: up to 280MB/sec
  
• Max Write: up to 270MB/sec
  
• MTBF: Not stated
  
• Warranty: 2 Years
  
• Formatted Capacity: 93.16GB
  
• Extras None
  
• Part Number: Unknown