Personal computers are gradually moving to using SSDs with NVMe interface. Such SSD already ceased to be exotic solutions to individual enthusiasts in pursuit of maximum performance, and took place in the minds of the General consumer. Even in the domestic market, which is a severe inertia, NVMe SSD now is about a quarter of the total volume sales of consumer drives. And if we talk about models with capacity from terabytes and higher, in this segment, the proportion is even higher NVMe SSD – these drives prefer every third buyer.
However, no particular surprise is not the cause. Drives based on flash memory generally much cheaper this year, having lost in the price more than 50 %, and among NVMe devices began to appear a large number of models that try to come close in price to the SATA drives. And sometimes they do it. In some cases, an overpayment for a more modern interface is less than 10-20%, despite the fact that NVMe solutions more compact, more convenient when assembling the system, and most importantly, obviously more productive.
Of course, one of the main initiators of the rapprochement of the prices of SATA and NVMe SSD was the Kingston, which flooded the market with a very affordable NVMe drives A1000 series, and during the year, gradually extending the cost of this proposal to the price of a SATA SSD of the middle class. However, we can say that mass recognition NVMe drives happened only to the efforts of Kingston. There was an inexpensive SSD with a progressive interface and other manufacturers the second or third echelons. And if Kingston A1000 – is largely a compromise solution, which is using for data transfer mini-bus PCI Express 3.0 x2, then other developers began to offer drives with a similar price but with more impressive specs. Here as examples are the previously reviewed drive Transcend SSD 110S with the technology of HMB or a hero of today’s review – ADATA XPG SX6000 Pro.
To do tests of this new ADATA made us of the fact that it is presented as the best option among inexpensive consumer NVMe-based solutions. ADATA is of great love to all kinds of experiments with the platforms of solid-state drives and the XPG SX6000 Pro this plan is excellent successor of the traditions. It is extremely rare unbuffered controller Realtek development, which nevertheless promises quite high for its class performance. In the case of controllers Realtek we have not yet seen, therefore, to give at least some preliminary evaluation of this solution we can’t. So, to get acquainted with the XPG SX6000 Pro will have to carefully and in detail. That is what got this review in which we try to answer the question of whether XPG SX6000 Pro as a good system of SSD for computers the middle class.
So, ADATA XPG SX6000 Pro is a drive-based controller Realtek RTS5763DL. And this is important, because no other SSD manufacturers second tier on the basis of the chip at the time of writing did not exist. Consequently, the drive that we have today – a unique model. However, XPG SX6000 Pro is not the first experience of cooperation ADATA and Reaktek. Previously, the range existed ADATA XPG model SX6000, which used controller Realtek RTS5760, so we can say that the appearance of the updated “professional” drive with a more recent base chip special surprise is not.
But still seems a little strange that when switching to another controller ADATA limited to only appending to the name of the word Pro. And in General the new drive radically different from its predecessor. Moreover, initially XPG SX6000 Pro have been displayed at exhibitions under the name SX7100, and it would be a fairer name. Judge for yourself: in the new model communication with the system takes place through four, and not two lines PCI Express 3.0, and the performance increased about twice. In addition, XPG series SX6000 Pro appeared compatible with the Protocol NVMe Express 1.3, increase of capacities has expanded the model range, and the drives have become more reliable by adding in the firmware technology of error correction in LDPC encoding. Is just not enough in order to increase the index number in the product name?
Used as the basis XPG Pro SX6000 controller Realtek RTS5763DL is a stripped-down version of the chip RTS5763, representing a complete high-performance controller with DRAM buffer and up to eight channels. However, a senior chip RTS5763 to the final products has not yet reached, and to take the rap for two and have four-channel UN-buffered RTS5763DL, which, however, is also quite good in its niche. Because from the specs it follows that the speed of XPG SX6000 Pro should be higher than that based on the controller Phison E11 Kingston A1000 and than Transcend SSD S110 on the basis of chip Silicon Motion SM2263XT, and its resources – at least not worse.
I must say that now there is a clear trend of transfer budget SSD to QLC-memory. She touched and NVMe storage devices — for example, four-bit memory based Intel and Crucial SSD 660p P1. But ADATA XPG SX6000 Pro, despite the close price, traditional uses TLC memory, which should have a positive impact both on reliability and performance. Moreover, ADATA is used not just any TLC memory, and a good 64-layer TLC 3D NAND production of Micron, which is formed from the small capacitance of the crystal and allows to obtain a memory array with a very decent performance.
However, XPG SX6000 Pro case is not without technology SLC-cache, which in this case is completely dynamic in nature. To illustrate her work with graphics speed continuous sequential write of data to the drive capacity of 512 GB (measurements performed on the free SSD).
In the fast SLC mode, the drive manages to write approximately 174 GB of data, while the write speed is about 1.5 GB/s, that is, the specification value. But then the free space in the array of flash memory ends, and the recording switches to slow TLC-mode. Moreover, simultaneously with the recording of the drive controller is forced to vacate the seat and to summarize data in cells that are written in SLC mode. As a result, the performance droped to around 170 MB/s. But under normal home use such situations will have to face uncommon – they can occur only in the single-step migration to SSD volumes of information that can take over a third free space.
As you can see, SLC-caching quite well compensates the shortcomings of TLC-memory, and the problem is not here. Much trouble in practice is able to deliver the lack of ADATA XPG SX6000 Pro dedicated DRAM buffer, which is needed to store the copy of the table of address translation with fast access. But controller Realtek RTS5763DL ready to provide some compensation technology HMB (Host Memory Buffer). The bottom line is that instead of allocated dynamic memory inside the SSD to store the working copy of the table of address translation controller uses the main memory of the computer. Direct access from the peripheral devices is one of the features of PCI Express, so for drives with the NVMe interface this is not a problem. Everything works out of the box and requires no additional configuration.
However, specific technology implementation HMB may vary. Different drives may ask the operating system to fit your needs different amounts of memory and to dispose of it differently. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of HMB in ADATA XPG SX6000 Pro, we checked the performance of the SSD in case of accidental melloblocco reading, which requires multiple search matches in the table of address translation. The dependence of the speed of random read from the data volume, in which requests are made and allows you to identify which part of the translation table is cached in RAM PC, and under what conditions, the performance of reading ADATA XPG SX6000 Pro does not suffer from a lack of the design of the drive allocated DRAM buffer.
When we tested unbuffered Transcend SSD 110S, convinced that the HMB technology can allow quite effectively cache the most popular part of the table address translation. However, considering today ADATA XPG SX6000 Pro RAM of the computer is used not so intensively. High speed arbitrary transactions are provided only within the smaller, 4-Gigabyte region, so that when the real load may not be enough. In other words, the technology of HMB in XPG SX6000 Pro compensates for the lack of this SSD DRAM buffer only partially. Under severe loads melkoplodnogo nature in which the assumed treatment of large data volumes, the performance of this SSD can drop dramatically.
In addition, this approach, involving the placement of the table of address translation in RAM the PC requires special support from the operating system. At the moment it can only provide Windows version 10 1709 and later, or Linux, starting with the release 4.14. In all other cases (for example, Windows 7) ADATA XPG SX6000 Pro will run “in compatibility mode” – as a very slow, UN-buffered memory.
For testing we used an average representative of the model range ADATA XPG SX6000 Pro — of a capacity of 512 GB. On the one hand, this version no longer has artificially limited performance due to lack of parallelism of the array of flash memory, and with another – is quite inexpensive, only the area of 7,5 thousand roubles.
The ADATA XPG SX6000 Pro is a familiar configuration fee in the form factor M. 2 2280, made on a black PCB. Conveniently, all of the chips in this Board are placed on one side: this drive can be installed in low-profile slots M. 2, which are found in some thin laptops.
Another positive feature XPG SX6000 Pro is that the manufacturer, despite the budget nature of this model, have paid some attention to the issue of heat dissipation. In the box with the SSD it is possible to detect the heat-spreading aluminum disc with an adhesive layer, which the user can optionally stick on the surface of the chip. However, its small thickness and the sleek profile is unlikely to provide a high efficiency of heat dissipation, but even this option is still better than nothing.
Circuitry, which was used ADATA XPG SX6000 Pro includes five chips. First and foremost is the actual controller Realtek RTS5763DL. Please note — it has a fairly small size, due to its inner simplicity: four-channel architecture and the lack of an integrated controller DDR4/DDR3 SDRAM.
The other four chips is flash memory. They XPG SX6000 Pro have their own marking ADATA, which means that the producer buys TLC 3D NAND in the form of plates of semi-independently and cuts them into individual crystals, testing and packing. This approach allows to reduce the cost of the drive, but you need to keep your eyes open. Despite the fact that the manufacturer of the flash memory in the XPG SX6000 Pro is the company Acer, ADATA determines crystals what quality is acceptable to use in this drive. In other words, formally, considering a drive based on a 64-layer TLC 3D NAND second generation of one of the leading manufacturers, but actually the reliability of such a memory may differ from the same original 3D TLC NAND used in SSDS are more high-class.
The crystals are 64-Micron-layer 3D TLC NAND have a capacity of 256 GB, therefore, the controller Realtek RTS5763DL in ADATA XPG SX6000 Pro storage capacity 512GB works with an array of flash memory with a fourfold alternating devices in its four channels. It is this factor which makes considering the drive is a fairly productive solution for serial operations.
Traditional sticker labeling is ADATA XPG SX6000 Pro on the back. However, very informative, it is no different: it is reported only the name, capacity and serial number of the SSD. Information about the firmware version or the date of production.
With the service software from ADATA, the situation is far better. Proprietary tool for storage companies exist, but is it extremely sluggish, but its features and interface leave much to be desired.
However, the utility SSD Toolbox with XPG SX6000 Pro compatible and the basic functionality still provides.
So, ADATA SSD Toolbox not only provides full diagnostic information about the device, but also allows to check the flash memory drive, send him a package of TRIM commands, or perform the automatic adjustment of operating system settings (disabling Superfetch, Prefetch and Defrag).
In addition, after registration, acquired XPG SX6000 Pro on the manufacturer’s website you can get the key to a popular program for cloning data Acronis True Image HD 2013/2015.
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