They use the SATA III 6.0 Gbps specification and Marvell controllers

Apr 2, 2014 07:57 GMT  ·  By

Marvell didn't make the best solid-state drive controller at first, a few years ago, but that changed in 2013, and now the SSDs based on its chips are about as good as those powered by SandForce ICs. The latest ADATA models are proof of that.

ADATA has formally introduced the Premier Pro series SP920 solid-state drive, which comes in two capacity options: 128 GB and 256 GB.

As usual, the performance depends on the capacity, the number of chips and interconnects as it were, so the former isn't as fast as the latter.

Still, though ADATA doesn't specify the performance difference, we can assume that the 128 GB Premier Pro SP920 reaches at least 500 MB/s read and 400 MB/s write speed. Either way, the 256 GB one achieves up to 560 MB/s and 500 MB/s, respectively.

In the future, ADATA will launch 512 GB and 1 TB SSDs in this series, so the write speed, at least, might increase. Probably not the read rate though.

SATA 6.0 Gbps SSDs can't exactly go above 560 MB/s very easily, and not by much anyhow. No controllers have managed it, even though 6 Gbps is the equivalent of 768 MB/s.

On that note, the 4K random read / write performance is of 98,000 and 88,000 IOPS (input/output operations per second), respectively.

ADATA promises that the performance will remain consistent even when the drive is 90% full. SSDs have this problem that performance drops because of limited write cycles, and while the TRIM command can remedy that issue, it only works when there is deleted data to clear up from used sectors.

When you fill the SSD with files, there aren't sectors available to clean up and free up write cycles, so performance takes a hit. Not for the SP920 though, ADATA vows.

Moving on, the SP920 SSD, regardless of capacity, ships with some accessories, like a 2.5 mm holder that allows it to mount inside both 7 mm and 9.5 mm laptop bays.

There's a 3.5-inch bracket there as well, enabling it to install in a desktop case. Some PC enclosures have their own mounting Brackets by default, but many do not, so it will be useful to find them in the SSD box for many people. Especially since these accessories don't really sell standalone that much.

Finally, the ADATA Premier Pro SP920 SSD Toolbox software is included in the package. With it, users can change settings, improve SSD lifespan and performance, and obtain all relevant disk information.

You probably won't need to use it all that much, to be truthful, assuming you have an up to date Windows 7 or Windows 8 operating system, but it never hurts to have a way to quickly check the drive status.