The ADATA Ultimate SU800 SSD Review (128GB, 256GB, 512GB)

Sequential Read Performance

The sequential read test requests 128kB blocks and tests queue depths ranging from 1 to 32. The queue depth is doubled every three minutes, for a total test duration of 18 minutes. The test spans the entire drive, and the drive is filled before the test begins. The primary score we report is an average of performances at queue depths 1, 2 and 4, as client usage typically consists mostly of low queue depth operations.

The smallest capacity of the ADATA SU800 has the slowest sequential read speed of all the drives in this comparison, as it only has flash connected to three of the controller's four channels. The larger SU800s saturate the SATA connection.

The SU800's power consumption is middle of the road for TLC drives, giving the larger two capacities slightly better than average efficiency. The ADATA XPG SX930 demonstrates that MLC NAND flash still has a significant efficiency advantage.

ADATA Ultimate SU800 128GBADATA Ultimate SU800 256GBADATA Ultimate SU800 512GBADATA Premier SP550 120GBADATA Premier SP550 240GBADATA Premier SP550 480GBADATA XPG SX930 120GBADATA XPG SX930 240GBADATA XPG SX930 480GBCrucial MX300 525GBIntel SSD 540s 480GBOCZ Trion 150 240GBOCZ Trion 150 480GBPNY CS1311 120GBPNY CS1311 240GBPNY CS1311 480GBSM2258 240GB 3D TLCSamsung 750 EVO 120GBSamsung 750 EVO 250GBSamsung 850 EVO 120GBSamsung 850 EVO 250GBSamsung 850 EVO 500GB

The larger two capacities of the SU800 show modest performance improvement across the first half of the test, while the 128GB model exhibits almost no scaling.

Sequential Write Performance

The sequential write test writes 128kB blocks and tests queue depths ranging from 1 to 32. The queue depth is doubled every three minutes, for a total test duration of 18 minutes. The test spans the entire drive, and the drive is filled before the test begins. The primary score we report is an average of performances at queue depths 1, 2 and 4, as client usage typically consists mostly of low queue depth operations.

The sustained sequential write speeds of the SU800 are quite poor, but this is no surprise after seeing how much a full drive hurt performance on the ATSB Heavy and Light tests.

Power consumption is at least better than average, so the SU800 isn't too far behind the average for efficiency.

ADATA Ultimate SU800 128GBADATA Ultimate SU800 256GBADATA Ultimate SU800 512GBADATA Premier SP550 120GBADATA Premier SP550 240GBADATA Premier SP550 480GBADATA XPG SX930 120GBADATA XPG SX930 240GBADATA XPG SX930 480GBCrucial MX300 525GBIntel SSD 540s 480GBOCZ Trion 150 240GBOCZ Trion 150 480GBPNY CS1311 120GBPNY CS1311 240GBPNY CS1311 480GBSM2258 240GB 3D TLCSamsung 750 EVO 120GBSamsung 750 EVO 250GBSamsung 850 EVO 120GBSamsung 850 EVO 250GBSamsung 850 EVO 500GB

Aside from the initial effects of filling up the SLC cache, performance and power consumption during sequential writes don't scale with queue depth on the SU800.