14 DAY TRIAL // Enterprise solid-state drives usually have higher performance than normal units, since companies are more comfortably paying high prices when they also have a chance to get discounts for large orders.
The new storage units from ADATA Technology is a bit strange in that regard, however, as there is a rather large difference between the top read speed and the top writing speed.
More specifically, while data can be accessed at up to 560 MB/s, it can be written on the units at 340 MB/s at the most.
Then again, for running programs and the operating system, the write speed is not so important, so there might be a scenario where the small writing speed could be an acceptable drawback. It is beyond whatever HDDs can offer anyway.
The new drives from ADATA are called SX1000L and are made of multi-level cell NAND Flash memory chips (MLC).
They also have enhanced Flash chip sorting though, “for outstanding sustained performance, lower latency, and superior endurance.”
Speaking of performance, the random 4K reads and writes aren't too shoddy either: 73,000 IOPS and 45,000 IOPS, respectively.
Furthermore, the drives are not lacking in endurance, thanks to their mean time between failures (MTBF) of 1,500,000 hours.
Then there is the greater over-provisioning (with higher efficient data compression than normal SSD controllers). Sustained performance, endurance and reliability all gain significant improvement from the fact that most data is compressible in real-world applications.
All in all, the ADATA SX1000L should be very good for, say, web and VOD (Video on demand) servers. Their capacities aren't too high (100 GB and 200 GB), but this problem can be addressed by using more than one of the 2.5-inch drives inside each server rack or tower. Prices have yet to be determined.