SK Hynix SH910A SSD 256GB Review

Performance Analysis

Sequential read speeds are more than adequate (as is the case with most modern SSDs) and the SH910A manages 534MB/sec in CrystalDiskMark. Sequential writes, meanwhile, peak at 421MB/sec, and although the charts suggest that this is a low result it's still very fast, particularly for a drive of this price. The OCZ Arc 100 has a similar price and is only a few MB/sec ahead. Meanwhile, Samsung's SSD 840 Evo is faster in the charts, but that's due to its TurboWrite function – once the TurboWrite buffer is filled, the SSD 840 Evo will start writing much slower than the SH910A until it can flush the buffer. Then there's the MX100, and we only have results for the 512GB version. The 256GB one is only specified to write sequentially at up to 330MB/sec, so it's a safe bet the SH910A is again faster at this capacity.


Single queue depth random performance is undeniably lacking, however, as read and write tests in both AS SSD and CrystalDiskMark reveal sub-par results. Home users ideally want drives as fast as possible in these benchmarks, so it's a shame not to see something a bit better form the SH910A. At high queue depths, the situation certainly improves, especially for read speeds, though these benchmarks are pretty irrelevant to anyone shopping at this price-point, as the workload simply won't reach queue depths anywhere near this level.

The middling performance in the synthetics results in speeds in PCMark 7 which are hard to praise – the SH910A 256GB comes second from last in the Starting Applications test and last in the Gaming workload. The other LAMD-based drive in the charts, the Neutron GTX 240GB, has similarly low performance, so the controller is likely at fault here. In fact, performance between these two drives is similar throughout the benchmarks. The PCMark 7 results suggest that other SSDs will give you a slight advantage when it comes to application and game loading times. However, in an unexpected twist, the SH910A produces the best result yet for Windows boot times. Booting Windows is a read-intensive process, and the SH910A is certainly stronger with reads than writes, so this may help explain this apparent anomaly. Either way, we're not complaining.


The mixed workloads in Iometer again leave the SH910A fairly low down the charts. In most cases, it does manage to beat two other budget drives, the Samsung SSD 840 Evo and the SanDisk Ultra Plus, but both of these SSDs are handicapped – the former uses slower TLC NAND while the other has a controller with just four channels, which stifles the available bandwidth.

Finally, performance in the 12 hour sustained write test is again fairly unexciting, and the SH910A 256GB is the worst drive we've seen so far here, ending with the lowest IOPS and highest average response time. The lack of overprovisioning is detrimental in this test, but again at this end of the market where value is key, having those extra GB is more important. Still, the LAMD controller could do with a performance boost when it comes to garbage collection and dealing with write requests in a near-full state.

Conclusion

SK Hynix's production facilities for NAND, DRAM and SSD controllers (via Link_A_Media) allow it to keep overheads down and ultimately sell the SH910A for a low and attractive price. Its performance in our benchmarks isn't particularly outstanding, but with the price in mind it's still more than acceptable. Remember, at this end of the market, price is the critical factor for SSDs – it's hard to justify a £10 or £20 premium for the same number of gigabytes, since even if a drive does have superior performance in benchmarks, end users are nearly always going to be hard-pressed to tell the difference between a fast SSD and a slightly faster one.


However, this very reasoning counts against the SH910A too. It may not be expensive, but it's still £10 more than the Crucial MX100. This does buy sequential writes speeds that are about 80MB/sec faster when looking at the 256GB models, but elsewhere the SH910A does little to inspire. The lack of available information regarding endurance and encryption is worrisome, and there's no built-in data redundancy or power-loss protection as there is with the Crucial drive – not necessary features, but nice to have anyway. The LAMD controller is showing its age somewhat and could do with a new revision and feature bump, and there's also no software to accompany the SH910A. This is in stark contrast to the Samsung SSD 840 Evo, which is backed by the excellent and highly user-friendly Magician software. In the end, the price for the SH910A is undeniably appealing, and you certainly won't regret the purchase if it's your first SSD. On the other hand, there isn't enough here for the SH910A to usurp the Crucial MX100 as the king of budget SSDs.