ADATA S599 Solid State Drive Review

ADATA is a finished-goods company with deep roots in the enthusiast system memory market. Like nearly every company that sells DRAM-based products, ADATA has gone the way of the SSD. Promising 280/270 MBps read/write speeds with Windows-7 TRIM support, the ADATA S599 Solid State Drive offers 100GB of high-speed storage capacity. Built from the SandForce SF-1200 SSD processor, Benchmark Reviews tests ACHI speeds and performance with the ADATA AS599S-128GM-C against some of the fastest storage devices available.

The SandForce SF-1200 SATA-3GBps controller is new to the industry, yet many manufacturers are already hailing it as the replacement for Indilinx's industry-leading Barefoot processor. Both are second-generation SATA products limited to 3.0 GB/s transfer speeds, and both offer similar specifications. SandForce adds DuraClass technology to their SF-1200 processor, which claims to provide best-in-class endurance, performance, and lower power consumption. DuraWrite technology extends the endurance of MLC-NAND memory by providing at least five year lifecycles measured with 3000-5000 cycle MLC flash. Additionally, SandForce RAISE technology provides RAID-like protection for single SSD computer systems, and data is secured with AES-128 automatic encryption.

In a very short time span the entire SSD market has created and recreated itself many times over. Counting the generations of SSD processors has become difficult for experienced experts, and keeping-up with controller architecture has come with its own set of challenges. Benchmark Reviews has tested dozens of Solid State Drive products, and we've seen everything from dual-SATA controllers in RAID-0 to extremely large cache buffer modules used inside of them. While the SSD industry grows daily, only a few select manufacturers offer popularly-accepted Flash NAND SSD controllers. As of April 2010 the most popular consumer SSD controllers are designed by: Indilinx, Intel, JMicron, Toshiba, Samsung, SandForce, and Marvell.

For decades, the slowest component in any computer system was the hard drive. Most modern processors operate within approximately 1-ns (nanosecond = one billionth of one second) response time, while system memory responds between 30-90 ns. Traditional Hard Disk Drive (HDD) technology utilizes magnetic spinning media, and even the fastest spinning desktop storage products exhibit a 9,000,000 ns - or 9 ms (millisecond = one thousandth of one second) initial response time. In more relevant terms, The processor receives the command and waits for system memory to fetch related data from the storage drive. This is why any computer system is only as fast as the slowest component in the data chain; which is usually the hard drive.

The theoretical goal for achieving optimal performance is for system memory to operate as quickly as the central processor, and the storage drive to operate as fast as memory. With present technology this is an impossible task, so enthusiasts try to close the speed gaps between components as much as possible. Although system memory is up to 90x (9000%) slower than most processors, just consider that the hard drive is an added 1000x (100,000%) slower than that same memory. Essentially, these three components are as different in speed as walking is to driving and flying.

Solid State Drive technology bridges the largest gap. The difference a SSD makes to operational reaction times and program speeds is dramatic, and takes the storage drive from a slow 'walking' speed to a much faster 'driving' speed. Solid State Drive technology improves initial response times by more than 450x (45,000%) for applications and Operating System software, when compared to their HDD counterparts.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Benchmark Reviews has used this SSD to publish our SandForce SF1200 RAID-0 SSD Performance review.

About ADATA Technology

Founded in May, 2001 by Chairman and CEO Mr. Simon Chen, ADATA Technology Co., Ltd. has quickly risen to become one of the world's largest memory product providers. At the beginning, with DRAM modules as the major product line, ADATA Technology's mission was to become "The Global Leading Brand of Memory Products." Later on, recognizing the market's trend, ADATA Technology diversified its product portfolio to include Flash peripherals and to capitalize on the strong growth of the Flash-based product market. With the ability to quickly develop high-quality DRAM memory and Flash memory products that meet market demand, ADATA Technology has experienced outstanding growth. Based on an May, 2009 iSuppli report, ADATA ranks second in the world for DRAM Module, seventh for USB Flash Disk and tenth for Memory Card respectively.

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