The Intel SSD 545s (512GB) Review: 64-Layer 3D TLC NAND Hits Retail
by Billy Tallis on June 27, 2017 6:00 AM ESTAnandTech Storage Bench - Light
Our Light storage test has relatively more sequential accesses and lower queue depths than The Destroyer or the Heavy test, and it's by far the shortest test overall. It's based largely on applications that aren't highly dependent on storage performance, so this is a test more of application launch times and file load times. This test can be seen as the sum of all the little delays in daily usage, but with the idle times trimmed to 25ms it takes less than half an hour to run. Details of the Light test can be found here. As with the ATSB Heavy test, this test is run with the drive both freshly erased and empty, and after filling the drive with sequential writes.
The Intel 545s delivers a much faster average data rate on the Light test than the 540s, and is even slightly faster than the Crucial MX300. It isn't quite up to the level of the Samsung drives, but it's reasonably close. The ADATA SU800 takes first place here, showing that it is optimized for high peak performance at the expense of very poor performance under sustained heavy workloads.
The average latency of the Intel 545s on the Light test is nothing special, but that's still an improvement over the 540s, or the MX300 when the test is run on a full drive.
All of the TLC SSDs suffer from significantly higher read latency when the Light test is run on a full drive rather than an empty drive. The MLC-based Samsung 850 PRO is only slightly affected, and the Intel 545s is less severely affected than the Crucial MX300 or the Intel 540s. The empty-drive write latency of the 545s is significantly better than the 540s but still slightly behind the other 3D NAND SSDs. When the test is run on a full drive, the write latency of the Crucial MX300 spikes and the 545s ends up tied with the SU800 and trailing only the Samsung drives.
The Light test is easy enough that the Crucial MX300 has the best power consumption whether the test is run on a full drive or an empty drive. The Intel 540s and 545s are essentially tied for second place, with the Samsung 850 EVO right behind. The Samsung 850 PRO is the only true outlier here: it generally sacrifices some power efficiency to deliver the best performance, but the Light test doesn't stress it enough for that to matter.
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Billy Tallis - Tuesday, June 27, 2017 - link
I expect it'll be M.2 2280 for all the same capacities, though the 2TB M.2 would probably have to be double-sided. If Intel does a shorter M.2 version it'll more likely be sold as the OEM or embedded model.Rictorhell - Tuesday, June 27, 2017 - link
Thank you for your reply. Yeah, I am looking for a shorter model with a higher capacity than what is currently available. You have given me some hope that something that suits my needs may be released.Glock24 - Tuesday, June 27, 2017 - link
Nice to finally see a competitor to the 850Evo. Hopefully it's not overly expensive.Over at Storagereviews they experienced lockups due to firmware:
"Unstable firmware that causes SSD and attached system to lock under certain repeatable conditions"
Was your experience similar?
Billy Tallis - Tuesday, June 27, 2017 - link
I haven't experienced any lock-ups from the 545s yet, but I would expect the synthetic tests to be more likely to trigger something like that.tigz1218 - Tuesday, June 27, 2017 - link
Can someone explain to me why they still make these? Isn't m2 the better solution with 3,000mbs read/write?I am a noob so please go easy, thanks!
A5 - Tuesday, June 27, 2017 - link
These are cheaper and there are still a ton of computers that don't have M.2 slots.Vast majority of the market doesn't really need something that totally saturates SATA.
tigz1218 - Tuesday, June 27, 2017 - link
Cool thank you. I figured it was due to something like that.I noticed that difference in price between m2 and SSD isn't as drastic as when SSDs first came out compared to disc drives. Wondering if that means we will see m2 get adopted at a faster rate.
Thanks again :)
Kwarkon - Friday, June 30, 2017 - link
Hi there, you mean NVME SSD that use usually x4 PCIe with m.2 form factor.Because in fact there are also m.2 SATA SSD that perform and cost the same as 2.5" SATA SSD.
fanofanand - Tuesday, June 27, 2017 - link
How is M.2 more expensive? It's less hardware, I would assume it's vastly cheaper. They just charge more because it's still "new", but I fail to see how adding the enclosure etc. reduces cost.Tadashi130 - Tuesday, June 27, 2017 - link
Finding a way to route all connections on a smaller PCB is much harder.