One Design, Two Products: The SanDisk Ultra 3D (1TB) and WD Blue 3D (1TB) SSD Reviews, with BiCS 3D NAND
by Billy Tallis on September 14, 2017 9:00 AM ESTPower Management
Real-world client storage workloads leave SSDs idle most of the time, so the active power measurements presented earlier in this review only account for a small part of what determines a drive's suitability for battery-powered use. Especially under light use, the power efficiency of a SSD is determined mostly be how well it can save power when idle.
SATA SSDs are tested with SATA link power management disabled to measure their active idle power draw, and with it enabled for the deeper idle power consumption score and the idle wake-up latency test. Our testbed, like any ordinary desktop system, cannot trigger the deepest DevSleep idle state.
Idle power management for NVMe SSDs is far more complicated than for SATA SSDs. NVMe SSDs can support several different idle power states, and through the Autonomous Power State Transition (APST) feature the operating system can set a drive's policy for when to drop down to a lower power state. There is typically a tradeoff in that lower-power states take longer to enter and wake up from, so the choice about what power states to use may differ for desktop and notebooks.
We report two idle power measurements. Active idle is representative of a typical desktop, where none of the advanced PCIe link or NVMe power saving features are enabled and the drive is immediately ready to process new commands. The idle power consumption metric is measured with PCIe Active State Power Management L1.2 state enabled and NVMe APST enabled.
Orange is for the new drives, Blue is for the previous generation models
Not much has changed with the power management situation for the WD and SanDisk drives; they're still using the same Marvell 88SS1074 controller, and the choice of NAND doesn't have much effect on idle power. Both active idle and slumber state idle power draw are good.
The idle wake-up latency of the WD/SanDisk drives is plenty quick, but not quite as fast as the Phison-based drives. The drives that most often outperform the WD Blue 3D NAND and SanDisk Ultra 3D all take several times longer to wake up from idle.
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MrSpadge - Thursday, September 14, 2017 - link
The production cost is pretty much the same, be it SATA or PCIe. So "SATA being tapped" doesn't help price at all, except for the fact that manufacturers can't bill you for extra performance. But that was always the case with the slower SSDs.nathanddrews - Friday, September 15, 2017 - link
I know it's not realistic, hence "it would just be nice if".CheapSushi - Sunday, September 17, 2017 - link
V-NAND QLC will make that happen. I think for bulk storage, QLC SATA drives will be perfect for that duty and will decrease price per GB.Magichands8 - Thursday, September 14, 2017 - link
Unfortunately, it's still about 3 times more expensive than it should be for it to be viable. Still wouldn't buy either as they're both crippled by the SATA interface but hey, at least they got the form factor right by offering them in 2.5".MajGenRelativity - Thursday, September 14, 2017 - link
I'm not aware of any SSDs that are 1/3 the price, and there certainly aren't any that are 1/3 the price and have competitive performance. The SATA interface will not be going away for a while, and most people don't need the performance afforded by PCIeDanNeely - Thursday, September 14, 2017 - link
I assume he's sulking because it's still about 5-6x as expensive as spinning rust. ($50 for the 1TB blue at 5400 RPM on amazon). I haven't seen any more recent projections but as of a a year ago the crossover in price per TB was predicted to occur in the mid 2020's; so we've still got a way to go.MajGenRelativity - Thursday, September 14, 2017 - link
Fair point, but SSDs are still viable without a price drop, mass-market adoption is what requires the price dropMagichands8 - Friday, September 15, 2017 - link
Oh I don't mind paying a premium for the SSD tech but I do mind the ridiculously inflated prices and performance bottlenecks that we've had to put up with for years and years. From the other posts here it's obvious that there are a lot of people comfortable with that though and willing if not eager to pay very high prices for low capacity and low performance drives even while manufacturers have had years to differentiate their products. Even when said people must know of the supply shortages and the impending lower prices only a matter of months away. Like I've said before, drives like these might be real last ditch options for people in a crunch who absolutely need a replacement drive immediately or perhaps some other niche reason. But otherwise it just doesn't make much sense.CheapSushi - Sunday, September 17, 2017 - link
Are you saying this because you want to have ONE drive in your system to function as a performance panacea? I can see why someone would advocate for that particular setup if JUST a gamer with a mini-ITX system. But with ATX systems, there's nothing wrong with multiple drives; fom NVMe Optane, to NVMe PCIe to AHCI SATA, each have a place.Magichands8 - Sunday, September 17, 2017 - link
EVERYONE should advocate for that setup. You're obviously very accustomed to think it natural for someone to have 3 or 4 different kinds of storage to achieve their goal(s). Are you telling me that if I offered you a single drive and interface that satisfied all of those rolls you would reject it? Are you actually advocating that computer users should be FORCED to compromise at every step of the way when they use their system?