14 DAY TRIAL // Transcend is not the first brand that would pop into one’s mind when thinking about purchasing a new SSD, but the company does offer quite a few solid state drive models that can deliver top notch performance, thanks to the inclusion of fast SATA 6Gbps controllers built by SandForce.
This includes the recently launched SSD720 series which, initially, will comprise four models with capacities going from 64GB to 512GB, while using the standard 2.5-inch form factor characteristic to most notebooks.
At the heart of all the units there stands the SandForce SF-2281 controller, which features native support for the SATA 6Gbps interface, as well as eight memory channels that are to be connected to NAND Flash memory chips.
No information regarding the type of NAND used in these solid state drives is available, but Transcend has provided us with a series of performance numbers.
According to these details, the fastest drives in the series, the 256GB and 512GB units, are able to read data sequentially at speeds of up to 550MB/s, while their sequential write performance is rated at 500MB/s.
Furthermore, Transcend also mentioned that the maximum 4K random write performance of the SSD720 SSDs should reach 85,000 IOPS (input/output operations per second).
As always, performance varies depending on the capacity of the drive, since the 64GB and 128GB models don’t have all the eight NAND Flash channels available in the controller populated with memory chips.
Like all the other SandForce SF-2200 based drives available out there, the SSD720 series includes the DuraClass and DuraWrite technologies, as well as full support for the TRIM command.
Transcend’s SSD720 series solid state drives are available right now with prices starting at $149 (113 EUR) for the 64GB.
The 128GB and 256GB models retail for $249 and $449 (189 and 342 EUR), respectively. The price of the 512GB drive hasn’t been revealed yet.