SK Hynix Canvas SC300 Review (256GB)

Performance Analysis

As this is our first SSD review with our new test system and benchmarks, we only had time to test one SSD for comparison. As such, we chose the OCZ Arc 100 240GB, which earned itself an Approved award in our initial review and which, at £65, has a very similar price per GB to SK Hynix's SC300 256GB. We have more SSD reviews planned for the near future and will also look into retesting popular older models to add to the data set.

With CrystalDiskMark, the first pattern we see is that, relatively speaking, the SC300's read performance is stronger than its write, which isn't uncommon for a value-based drive and also no bad thing – most workloads for home users are read heavy. The results are actually a little better than the listed specifications, and in each of the read tests it's able to trump the OCZ SSD. Conversely, OCZ leads when it comes to writes, albeit by a smaller margin.


In steady state, the SC300 is underwhelming, especially next to the Arc 100 – OCZ's drive uses the Barefoot 3 controller, which is arguably the best in its category for sustained workloads. Its average IOPS in the recorded period is over three times higher than SK Hynix's, and the average response time is almost three times lower too. This is in part due to the Arc 100's extra overprovisioning (240GB vs 256GB advertised capacity). On the plus side, the SC300's consistency is much better; it achieves a standard deviation of 1,590.7 compared to 5,111.5 for the OCZ SSD. Ultimately, neither SSD is well suited to professional or workstation environments, but neither one demonstrates flaws in this test that should worry home users either.

The SC300 recovers well from the consistency testing, as its sequential performance afterwards is right on the money as far as listed specifications are concerned – around 530MB/sec read and 380MB/sec write. It's a close and fairly meaningless call between it and the Arc 100 – the most significant difference is in low queue depth sequential reads, which is very important for mainstream users, and where the SC300 wins out by about 80MB/sec.


The random read and write tests in Iometer give the lead to OCZ's Arc 100 in each case. The Barefoot 3 controller thus seems to be a bit more optimised for handling small files, but the discrepancy is still unlikely to make a massive difference in your day to day experience.

Mixed workloads are handled well by the Hynix Pearl controller. In sequential operations, the SC300 enjoys a slight lead over the Arc 100 when the mix is read heavy, which tallies with the superior read performance we've seen thus far, and otherwise the two are neck and neck. Interestingly, it beats the OCZ SSD every time for random throughput, although it does slightly decrease in performance as you increase the write workloads, while OCZ's Arc 100 improves when you scale up writes (random writes have always been a strong point of the Barefoot 3 controller).

Ultimately, the minor differences between these two SSDs end up being meaningless in typical consumer workloads, as PCMark 8 shows. There are some very minor differences e.g. when it's read heavy (Battlefield 3) the SC300 is faster, and when write heavy (Photoshop) the Arc 100 wins, but in real terms the differences are usually fractions of a second – not anything you'd notice. We suspect this will be the case with most SSDs we test, which is of course why price per GB is and should be the overriding factor when purchasing an SSD today.

Conclusion

Success in the 2.5in SSD market relies on being the fastest or the cheapest around. At £68, SK Hynix is clearly aiming for the latter with this 256GB model and it's undeniably excellent value. Performance is solid, particularly on reads, and there are no major pitfalls for everyday home use. There's no power loss protection or advanced encryption, which is a shame given the controller is listed as supporting the TCG Opal 2.0 standard. Nonetheless, with DEVSLP support it's suited to mobile use as well as desktop and it also comes with a very generous five year warranty or 72 TBW rating.

SK Hynix is entering this market at a very late stage, but with DRAM, NAND and controller development all handled in-house it has the ingredients for success – whether it can compete at the high end of the consumer market remains to be seen. We'd like to see it release an SSD software suite, as its major competitors all have one. As such, if encryption is vital for you and/or you want an easy way to monitor and manage your SSD, the Crucial MX200 and OCZ Arc 100 are better choices. Nonetheless, for a no nonsense, great value and fast SSD, the SC300 fits the bill, and the impressive warranty only sweetens the deal.