A-DATA S592 128GB SSD Review

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IOMeter / IOMeter Stutter Test

IOMETER

IOMeter is heavily weighted towards the server end of things, and since we here at HWC are more End User centric we will be setting and judging the results of IOMeter a little bit differently than most. To test each drive we ran 5 test runs per HDD (1,4,16,64,128 que depth) each test having 8 parts, each part lasting 10 min w/ an additional 20 second ramp up. The 8 subparts were set to run 100% random, 80% read 20% write; testing 512b, 1k, 2k,4k,8k,16k,32k,64k size chunks of data. When each test is finished IOMeter spits out a report, in that reporst each of the 8 subtests are given a score in I/Os per second. We then take these 8 numbers add them together and divide by 8. This gives us an average score for that particular que depth that is heavily weighted for single user environments.

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Whew. This really comes as a relief, especially after that string of disappointing results we were starting to wonder if we had a lemon on our hands. As it turns out, the performance of this drive is slightly lower when compared to the other two but the differences are minor enough that it can be chalked up to older firmware.

IOMeter Stutter Test

In our usual IOMeter test we are trying to replicate real world use where reads severly outnumber writes. However, to get a good handle on how well a Solid State Disk Drive will handle a worse case scenario (and thus how likely the dreaded stutter issue will happen) we have also run an additional test. This test is made of 1 section at que depth of 1. In this test we ran 100% random. 100%writes of 4k size chunks of information. In the .csv file we then found the Maximum Write Response Time. This in ms is worst example of how long a given operation took to complete. We consider anything higher than 333ms (one third of a second) to be a good indicator that stuttering may happen, with the higher the number the worse the duration of the stutter will most likely be.

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Once again, and as expected, the differences between the various Indilinx SSD drives are minor. Is the slightly worse stutter performance due to older firmware or variances in the chips? In the end it doesn’t matter as it is doubtful you will ever notice the difference and only synthetic tests like this will ever highlight the issue.

 

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XP Start Up / Adobe CS3

XP Start Up

When it comes to hard drive performance there is one area that even the most oblivious user notices: how long it takes to load the Operating System. For our tests the clock starts as soon as the system “beeps!” and stops when our Anti-Virus splash screen disappears. While all the other tests were run with a streamlined XP image this particular image is the test bed's “day to day” OS and it has accumulated a lot of crud over the months from installs and removals. We chose the Anti-Virus splash screen as our finish line as it is the last program to be loaded on start up.

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As expected, the boot time of this drive is lower than the others we have tested. Is this unexpected? Not in the least, and it shouldn’t have been a surprise for you either. Older firmware which translates to lower performance should equal lowered real world tests…especially when this drive doesn’t have the Samsung’s 128MB of cache to hide its failings.

Adobe CS3 Load Time

Photoshop is a notoriously slow loading program under the best of circumstances, but when you add in a bunch of extra brushes and the such you get a really great torture test which can bring even the best of the best to their knees. Let’s see how our review unit faired in the Adobe crucible.

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The Adobe test seems to agree that the firmware differences really are that important. As we have said in the past, the 1-2 combination of synthetic and real world tests really help paint one heck of a clear picture. Unfortunately, for this drive (and A-Data) this is not a pretty picture, it may not be at the level of 4Chan bad but it is not exactly pretty either.

 

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Real World Data Transfers / Stutter Test

Real World Data Transfers

No matter how good a synthetic benchmark like IOMeter or PCMark is, it can not really tell you how your hard drive will perform in “real world” situations. All of us here at Hardware Canucks strive to give you the best, most complete picture of a review item’s true capabilities and to this end we will be running timed data transfers to give you a general idea of how its performance relates to real life use. To help replicate worse case scenarios we will transfer a 4.00GB contiguous RAR file and a folder containg 49 subfolders with a total 2108 files varying in length from 20mb to 1kb (1.00 GB total).

Testing will include transfer to and transferring from the devices, timing each process individually to provide an approximate Read and Write performance. To then stress the dive even more we will then make a copy of the large file to another portion of the same drive and then repeat the process with the small one. This will test the drive to its limits as it will be reading and writing simultaneously. Here is what we found.

Well this is a bit of a dogs breakfast now isn’t it? Except for the occasional silver lining in amongst the storm clouds, these numbers do lag behind the other Indilinx based SSDs we have looked at. Of course, a slightly inferior Indilinx SSD is still better than the majority of the competition.

Real World Stutters

Over a three day period we used the SSD as our main OS drive. During this period we did everything in our power to make the drive stutter. This is what we found out.

As with the all the other Indilinx based drives we have tested, the S592 does not stutter. As we have said in the past, you can however overload the drive, but just like a regular drive your system just becomes slow but will not crash. Of course, if you pile on enough past this point it will then stutter but this is way, way past the point where even an HDD would start to complain.

 

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Value

Value

The term “Value” is such an amorphous term that it truly has different meanings for different people. For some a hard drive is only as good as its performance potential, for others it is how quiet or durable it is; for others still it’s how effective it is for its cost. We here at HWC try to provide as many answers as possible for the term “Value”. Hopefully by this point in the review people looking at performance potential will have a fairly good idea of what its Value is. For the “best bang for the buck” crowd we have included a chart below showing how much a give drive costs per GB . No consideration has been made for performance, “durability” or any other extraneous factors; this is just raw performance vs. monetary cost. All prices are based on the lowest price found in our Price Comparison engine at the time of their initial review.

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Well it really doesn’t get much clearer than that. This drive has easily the worst value Indilinx SSD we have tested to date. In the end only you can decide if its lighter weight design is worth giving up a boat load of support and a significant chunk of change as well.

 

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Conclusion

Conclusion

Well it certainly has been a rocky ride and one which we were not expecting when we first received the A-Data S592 since it is actually the first Indilinx-based SSD which has truly disappointed us on almost every level. SSD’s live and die by their firmware and without an easy way to update it or a guarantee of the latest revision; any drive in the S592’s situation would end up in our black book as well.

Our issues with this drive do not stem from performance (or lack thereof), or the warranty or even so much the cheapish material the exterior shell is made out of. Rather, it is tied to the absolutely ancient firmware our S592 came with and the fact that there is just no quick, free way to upgrade it at this point. Considering the date we received this drive, it really is too bad that it came with pre-version 1.1 firmware as even the 1.3 revision has been out for a long, long time now. This could translate into the consumer who buys this drive missing out on additional features like the Nand Launderer (Indilinx’s version of Idle Time Garbage Collection), SMART based average cell usage information and the TRIM function. Considering nearly all of the competition allows for the users to upgrade their firmware, A-Data’s misstep here can and will cause them sales.

Let’s play devil’s advocate for a second here, give A-Data the benefit of the doubt and assume that somehow they come out with a jumper-less firmware update process. We know it is possible as since OCZ has been doing it now for a few updates like 1.3, 1.4 beta and 1.4.1. If by some miracle A-Data can do this (even after us waiting for months) the fact of the matter is you are still left with a plastic cased drive which frankly reeks of cost cutting on A-Data’s part no matter how much we can spin it off as a “lightweight alternative”. Our concern here is that by not having a metal case the chips inside have no way to dump their heat load. While yes the controller and ram and even NAND do not need active heat sinks they do need either some air flow (not going to happen inside a sealed case) or have something absorb the heat. The sad truth of the matter is that plastic is a terrible heat conduction medium and a plastic clad case will result in higher internal temperatures. It really is a myth that SSDs produce no heat and in fact they can get down right warm after our IO tests.

In the end what it comes down to is this: with so many great choices to pick from, why should you settle for anything less than perfection? Why deal with a plastic case, why deal with potential firmware issue, heck why deal with only a two year warranty? The only exception to this is if you are looking for a fast drive for your ultra thin, or ultra lightweight laptop and less weight is your main and only priority. For everyone else, unless you get this at bargain bin prices we would recommend going with one of the better thought competitors; preferably from a company which has a better grasp of SSDs and their unique requirements.


Editor’s Note (Oct. 28th, 2009)
As I mentioned in the Firmware section, A-Data has contacted us with some new information regarding this drive and their future plans for it. Supposedly, they have been working with Indilinx to provide users with a quick and easy jumperless firmware update option. We should see firmware updates become available sometime in November 2009 with the 1819 version. In all seriousness, if this simple promise from A-Data comes to pass the S592 may become a competitor in the SSD arena since non-upgradeability really was the major issue we found with it.

Stay tuned as we will be posting a new S592 article when the new firmware is released to users.



Pros:

- Light weight design


Cons:

- Ancient firmware
- No way for a user to update the firmware
- Price
- Drive is lighter weight because it is a PLASTIC cased drive
- 2-year warranty

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