Conclusion
Transcend's TS16GSSD25-S is a very solid offering for its intended market, coming in at performance and price levels similar to what we'd expect from the mainstream generation of SSD cards. While the MTRON drive soundly trounces the Transcend in all tests, there's no comparison between the two devices in the marketplace - the MTRON commands a price of over $1000, which is roughly three times more expensive than either the Transcend or the Super Talent.
As we can see from the overall benchmark scores, the appeal of SSD as a replacement for conventional hard drives is still a mixed bag depending upon your application. The SSD devices in this particular market sector simply cannot produce the throughput of a modern conventional hard drive, and this keeps it marginalized in most situations. Access times are much better, but overall performance typically favors conventional drives.
The capacity of the unit further limits its appeal - where a large capacity SSD device would seem to be a natural choice for most HTPC or desktop replacement situations based on the strength of its silent and cool operation, 16GB is far too small for any serious home theater user or for most SOHO type designs where a premium is placed on digital content. 32GB (which is the largest SSD in the Transcend product line) may be enough for limited use in these situations; however, we need to keep in mind this product was designed for a different purpose.
Desktop performance is not the real purpose of the Transcend SSD - or notebook performance for the most part, unless the performance happens to involve battery life, temperatures, durability, and/or noise levels. We can't accurately determine how well the current SSDs will hold up over the next few years, but at the very least a drive head crash or bearing failure is no longer going to be a concern. With claims of 10 year MTBF rates, the Transcend drive certainly looks to be more reliable. What we'd really like to see is a warranty to back that up - and considering the price and reliability claims, some provision for data recovery on any failed drives would go a long way toward making the drive more attractive. As it stands, we have lofty claims accompanied by a short two year warranty, and for the price you could purchase several identical conventional drives and set up a backup routine that would provide better long-term data retention.
The Transcend SSD card offers decent write performance, though its read speed trails the Super Talent SSD in all tests. With this in mind, and given the comparable street prices of the two devices, the ideal choice for some users may not be the Transcend TS16GSSD25-S but instead the Super Talent drive, though both serve their purpose well depending upon the configuration utilized. Given Transcend's history and traditional position as one of the leaders in the flash memory business, however, we look forward to Transcend's next generation offerings to see how those devices fare. With further price drops and improved capacities, it seems likely that SSDs will eventually reach the point where they can begin to overtake most conventional drives.
Transcend's TS16GSSD25-S is a very solid offering for its intended market, coming in at performance and price levels similar to what we'd expect from the mainstream generation of SSD cards. While the MTRON drive soundly trounces the Transcend in all tests, there's no comparison between the two devices in the marketplace - the MTRON commands a price of over $1000, which is roughly three times more expensive than either the Transcend or the Super Talent.
As we can see from the overall benchmark scores, the appeal of SSD as a replacement for conventional hard drives is still a mixed bag depending upon your application. The SSD devices in this particular market sector simply cannot produce the throughput of a modern conventional hard drive, and this keeps it marginalized in most situations. Access times are much better, but overall performance typically favors conventional drives.
The capacity of the unit further limits its appeal - where a large capacity SSD device would seem to be a natural choice for most HTPC or desktop replacement situations based on the strength of its silent and cool operation, 16GB is far too small for any serious home theater user or for most SOHO type designs where a premium is placed on digital content. 32GB (which is the largest SSD in the Transcend product line) may be enough for limited use in these situations; however, we need to keep in mind this product was designed for a different purpose.
Desktop performance is not the real purpose of the Transcend SSD - or notebook performance for the most part, unless the performance happens to involve battery life, temperatures, durability, and/or noise levels. We can't accurately determine how well the current SSDs will hold up over the next few years, but at the very least a drive head crash or bearing failure is no longer going to be a concern. With claims of 10 year MTBF rates, the Transcend drive certainly looks to be more reliable. What we'd really like to see is a warranty to back that up - and considering the price and reliability claims, some provision for data recovery on any failed drives would go a long way toward making the drive more attractive. As it stands, we have lofty claims accompanied by a short two year warranty, and for the price you could purchase several identical conventional drives and set up a backup routine that would provide better long-term data retention.
The Transcend SSD card offers decent write performance, though its read speed trails the Super Talent SSD in all tests. With this in mind, and given the comparable street prices of the two devices, the ideal choice for some users may not be the Transcend TS16GSSD25-S but instead the Super Talent drive, though both serve their purpose well depending upon the configuration utilized. Given Transcend's history and traditional position as one of the leaders in the flash memory business, however, we look forward to Transcend's next generation offerings to see how those devices fare. With further price drops and improved capacities, it seems likely that SSDs will eventually reach the point where they can begin to overtake most conventional drives.
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Pirks - Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - link
Everybody read this! -> http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/RAID-Flash-SSD,revie...">http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/RAID-Flash-SSD,revie...This is what I would like to see from anandtech
Raid them guys, RAID 'em
mmmm! [salivating again]
AnnihilatorX - Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - link
Indeed. I wish Anandtech did something similar but with more testing.I plan on building such a setup with SATA adaptors and motherboard RAID instead of using a PCI channel.
It'd be much more affordable for such a performance for my next PC set-up. ($300 24GB ultra fast SSD anyone?)
Someone can even have 4*16GB CF cards for ultra fast 64GB RAIDing. It may even match a 64GB MTRON at quarter the price.
Pirks - Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - link
Actually, this is the best and the most brilliant avenue for anandtech reviews! Hey Anand and Co - drop this PSU stuff, that's boring - give us at least some regular reviews of this CF RAID stuff. Looks like the tech is ripe and people are doing it already. Time to wake up, Anand! Give us a regular monthly column with updates and fresh links/info of the best cost effective way to build our own cheap and darn fast RAIDed SSD clones!Everybody cheer with me! Woohoo!
We need Anand to do this ASAP!
JarredWalton - Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - link
It doesn't seem like the CF + RAID approach is really very affordable either. Top quality 266X CF cards cost as much as these SSDs. For example, here's the http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">IDE Super Talent 16GB that costs $290. Or there's the http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">32GB IDE Super Talent for $489 - not even twice as much anymore! So we're down to a price of only $15.28 per GB.Looking for fast 266X CF cards, they currently top out at 8GB sizes, which start at around $120. $30 for an adapter makes it $150, and you'll need two for 16GB which brings you back to $300. Two 8GB CF 266X cards in RAID 0 would indeed be faster than the single 16GB Transcend/Super Talent SSD, but then two 8GB SSDs cost around $170 and would also be in the same performance range.
The Raptor 150GB in contrast is a whopping $1.20 per GB, or you can pick up something silly like the 750GB Hitachi for $0.27 per GB - not that anyone could possibly fill 750GB, right? (And yes, there's some sarcasm in those statements.) While these are desktop drives, RAID and SSD basically means using a desktop in most cases as well.
The one oddity right now is that the SATA SSDs seem to cost about twice as much as the IDE SSDs, probably a supply/demand thing. (Or a "milking the bleeding edge" thing - which is just another facet of supply/demand.) None of the various flash drive options are even remotely affordable, however. That will likely change over time, and when we can get 64-128GB SSDs with something in the realm of 100-150 MB/s transfer rates for under $100, I can see them being nice for people that don't need lots of storage. With Vista sucking down 15GB or so, though, and increasing application sizes, 32GB would be a bare minimum I think.
AnnihilatorX - Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - link
The fact that SATA SSDs are much more expensive than IDE counterparts is not mainly down to the interface. The link to the IDE SSD you posted are generally quite old intermsof flash I/O tech and performance in ranges of 20-30 MB/s; 25% slower than a 266x CF card.Therefore, CF cards are still more cost effective if you want to match HDD in terns of transfer rate with a RAID setup than buying either IDE/SATA SSDs. (you need to RAID three slow IDE SSDsfor same performance as two 266x CF cards.)
Pirks - Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - link
Guys, I can't believe you haven't put two and four of these cheaper 8GB transcends in RAID0 and tested them.Holy creepers, I can't even imagine how FOUR such drives would work in RAID 0.
Arghhhh... you guys just were afraid to do this, that's be just toooo damn good to show us, huh?
Just kiddin'
I'm sure four such transcends would kill any raptor or anything. 90 megabytes/sec sustained transfer and 1 ms seek - gosh I need me some lucky lottery ticket!
[salivating violently and dreaming about raid 0 with these babies]
cableman67 - Friday, July 22, 2011 - link
I have a netbook which utilizes the new solid state drive and I have to admit that although I prefer the regular sata and ide hard drives that these new drives do have a lot of good options going for them.For one thing there is not really the space for conventional hard drives in these new netbooks which are so small and I have found the performance to be really great. It really exceeded my expectations because I didn't really see it performing any where near the performance I received.
The only thing that I really regret so far is the fact that it is hard to get the size memory that I would like to have but for what I use my netbook for it hasn't really been a problem yet. Overall I must say that I am impressed with the performance and well satisfied fr now.
For those people that aren't happy with these drives then just spend the few extra bucks and get a full fledged laptop and be done with it.
oletagust - Wednesday, June 15, 2022 - link
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