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SATA II: ADATA S599 vs 320

D

dhtmlkitchen

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 23, 2010
34
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A 15" MacBookPro5,1 (2008) Supports SATA II. And for this MBP, the newer SATA III drives degrade to SATA II speeds, providing no extra value for a lot of extra cost.

Intel 320 series is an SATA II drive that has been noted for its reliability as well as good random access speeds.

I want to compare Intel 320 to A-DATA's S599 drive -- a not often mentioned drive on these forums (I mroogled).

According to http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.p...sk=view&id=484&Itemid=60&limit=1&limitstart=8, A-DATA's S599 seems to outperform even Intel's X25-E drives for linear reads and writes. According to the author:
Linear disk benchmarks are superior tools in my opinion, because they scan from the first physical sector to the last. A side affect of many linear write-performance test tools is that the data is erased as it writes to every sector on the drive. Normally this isn't an issue, but it has been shown that partition table alignment will occasionally play a role in overall SSD performance (HDDs don't suffer this problem).
Click to expand...

The A-DATA's S599 seems like a better option. A 256GB S599 is now $531.14 on amazon, compared to $548.99 for a 300GB Intel 320 on newegg.

Tired of researching; time to get this deal done!
 
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Are there any compelling reasons why not to buy the A-DATA drive? Or is it just not that good of a deal? Or did I stumble on a better drive that is competitively priced?

I want to make a purchase but want to hear of any problems or insights about these drives first. Eagerly awaiting smart replies...
 
dhtmlkitchen said:
Are there any compelling reasons why not to buy the A-DATA drive? Or is it just not that good of a deal? Or did I stumble on a better drive that is competitively priced?

I want to make a purchase but want to hear of any problems or insights about these drives first. Eagerly awaiting smart replies...
Click to expand...

Is it just me or is this thread back to front ...
 
dhtmlkitchen said:
Are there any compelling reasons why not to buy the A-DATA drive? Or is it just not that good of a deal? Or did I stumble on a better drive that is competitively priced?

I want to make a purchase but want to hear of any problems or insights about these drives first. Eagerly awaiting smart replies...
Click to expand...

Maybe it is just me, but I have been following the SSD market pretty well for the last few months and I have never even heard of A-DATA? I would go with a known and respected vendor like Intel.

I don't see anything significant in the test results you linked that would push me toward the A-DATA product.
 
Weaselboy said:
Maybe it is just me, but I have been following the SSD market pretty well for the last few months and I have never even heard of A-DATA?
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I'll interpret that sentence with a fullstop, as it seems not to be a question.

A-DATA is well-known for RAM.
I would go with a known and respected vendor like Intel.
Click to expand...
Appeal to popularity?
I don't see anything significant in the test results you linked that would push me toward the A-DATA product.
Click to expand...

The tests compare Linear read/write. They test the A-DATA not against the Intel 320, but against the much faster Intel X25-E. In MB/s, the results are:
A-DATA S599 257/249
Intel X25-E 238/195

The MB/transfer rate percentage differential of the of S599 to 320 was:
read: +8%
write: +22%

For linear reads and writes, the S599 was significantly faster. I do not know that test is any good for determining perceived performance for launching apps, reading large files, recording digital audio.

Can someone here explain what linear read/write is in simple terms? (and if so, please do).

I don't know of a comparison with the S599 to Intel 320, but if the S599 is beating Intel x25-E, I suspect it would crush the 320.
 
You posed a question and I took the time to answer, then you respond with smartass remarks. Good luck getting help here. :rolleyes:
 
Up for discussion is the A-DATA S599, the Intel 320, the Intel X25-E, and the tests linked. Anybody here have insights and criticism? I'd love to hear it.
 
Daytona 360 said:
When buying a SSD, the LAST thing I look at is the sequential speed.

Read through this article and you will see why:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2738
Click to expand...
The author finds that the tested drive which launched apps so quickly would hang and pause.
The issue ended up being random write performance. These “affordable” MLC drives based on the JMicron controller were all tuned for maximum throughput. The sequential write speed of these drives could easily match and surpass that of the fastest hard drives.
Click to expand...

So linear performance does not matter for small reads writes, but does that mean it is unimportant?

He goes on to state:
The problem is that modern day OSes tend to read and write data very randomly, albeit in specific areas of the disk. And the data being accessed is rarely large, it’s usually very small on the order of a few KB in size. It’s these sorts of accesses that no one seemed to think about; after all these vendors and controller manufacturers were used to making USB sticks and CF cards, not hard drives.
Click to expand...

From the A-DATA reviews article, the test for 4k reads/writes 120 sec, the S599 had 23448. The SandForce controlled drives were nearly double that.

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.p...sk=view&id=484&Itemid=60&limit=1&limitstart=7

I wonder why the author did not compare the same drives in that benchmark. There is no test for Intel's X25-e there.
 
dhtmlkitchen said:
The author finds that the tested drive which launched apps so quickly would hang and pause.


So linear performance does not matter for small reads writes, but does that mean it is unimportant?

He goes on to state:


From the A-DATA reviews article, the test for 4k reads/writes 120 sec, the S599 had 23448. The SandForce controlled drives were nearly double that.

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.p...sk=view&id=484&Itemid=60&limit=1&limitstart=7

I wonder why the author did not compare the same drives in that benchmark. There is no test for Intel's X25-e there.
Click to expand...

I'm going to be captain obvious here: are you trolling?

On topic. People are buying Intel drives mostly because of it reliability. If that's important to you, buy the Intel. Otherwise buy ADATA, or any other faster drives you prefer.
Btw, I've used ADATA rams on my old PC desktops before, and they are honestly not that good :)
 
SATA II: ADATA S599 vs 320

Just a friendly reminder: This thread is about "SATA II: ADATA S599 vs Intel 320".

Negative personal remarks, name calling, and flame bait are all off-topic. Please try to contribute smart replies, not noise.

My personal motivation is to learn enough about these two drives so that I can make an informed decision to buy one of them. The discussion is publicly available and archived for future MRoogler's, thus having the potential to benefit more than just me.
 
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A-Data's S599 is a SandForce driven.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AData/S599_128_GB_SSD/4.html
4k random read:174.5 MB/s
4k random write: 61.68 MB/s

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4244/intel-ssd-320-review/3
4k random read: 60.9 MB/s
4k random write: 66.3 MB/s

Kitguru features some "real world" testing on it:
http://www.kitguru.net/components/ssd-drives/zardon/adata-s599-256gb-ssd-review/10/

Can't seem to find both the S599 and the Intel 320 in the same article.

I've read some complaints about not being able to get a firmware updates for S599.

How does SandForce 1222 compare to Intel 320's controller?
 
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