14 DAY TRIAL // Yet another set of solid-state drives has appeared, or perhaps we should say two different sets, since they use different controllers and connectivity interfaces.
We don't mean to say that the storage devices from ADATA have different form factors or something other than SATA for communicating with the host system.
In fact, the XPG SX300 and Premier Pro SP300 are both mSATA solid-state drive series equipped with the SATA interface.
The difference lies in their capacity ranges, the types of SATA and, by extension, the controller chips.
Like so many other companies, ADATA chose to employ SandForce controllers, such as they are.
The Premier Pro SP300 has a somewhat misleading name though, being unable to communicate at SATA 6.0 Gbps speeds. Instead, it is limited to SATA 3.0 Gbps connectivity and, thus, speeds of 280 MB/s when reading and 260 MB/s when writing data.
The capacities that one will get to choose from are 24 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB. Indeed, the Premier Pro SP300 are supposed to fill the role of SSD cache drives (Intel Smart Response Technology), while an HDD (hard disk drive) stores the bulk of the data.
Now we get to the other series, which isn't just a glorified means of boosting system speed. The XPG SX300 has SATA III support (SATA 6.0 Gbps) and, thanks to the SandForce controllers, have 550 MB/s read and 505 MB/s write speeds.
The capacities are 64 GB, 128 GB and 256 GB, quite impressive considering how small the mSATA form factor actually is. Furthermore, the random write performance is a solid 85,000 IOPS.
Both the SX300 and the SP300 possess optimized firmware that maximizes storage capacity. To be more specific, ADATA's SSDs have 7% more capacity than other SandForce-based models.
Other specs include compliance with ATA/ATAP1-7 standard, SMART support, NCQ and TRIM, plus a MTBF (mean time between failures) of 1,200,000 hours. Sales should already be on, for $50-80 / 39-63 Euro (Premier pro SP300) and $90-$300 / 71-238 Euro (XPS SX300).
