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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TheinsanegamerN - Sunday, September 17, 2017 - link
Talk about mountains and molehills.the "performance bottlenecks" of SATA III are only of concern to .01% of buyers. For most tasks, your network interface will be the bottleneck. And when sata IS the bottleneck, the difference between PCIE and SATA are minimal at best.
As for price, I agree that prices are high, but I also know that, having built multiple SSD machines, you are overblowing the issue. 512GB drives can be had for $100 on sale, and that is more storage then 90% of users need.
A drive capable of 500MB/s speeds is hardly low performance.
Magichands8 - Sunday, September 17, 2017 - link
Actually SATA bottlenecks should be of concern for anyone who has to wait for their data to be moved, recovered or otherwise accessed. Which can easily happen if anyone transfers anything on the order of a few gigabytes. It's especially concerning when those bottlenecks are imposed by borderline obsolete technology which is absolutely, completely unnecessary. And the response as to why always seems to be "just because" as if in defense of tech companies dragging their asses. One of the reasons why SSDs were adopted as slowly as they were is because most users weren't even aware of the benefits. For people just checking their Facebook and reading e-mails why even care about SATA III? Just stick with SATA I. Or better yet just ignore SSDs all together and stick with spinning rust. Or hell just use a 15 year old computer. Or by a $200 smart phone and bypass computers all together. More and more it's the case that a smartphone is 'good enough' for most people such that more and more of those of us with actual computers are going to run into the limitations of SATA III. There's just no excuse. I'm aware of the better technology which is one of the reasons why I ignore every SSD release like these here with specs no different than any other SSD. Like I said, if someone is in desperate need of a replacement drive it makes some sense but by and large these releases are pointless. Companies SHOULD have an interest in giving us a reason to upgrade, a reason to buy their products.Slaveguy - Thursday, September 14, 2017 - link
You're crippled by your twisted little kid leg, slaveMajGenRelativity - Thursday, September 14, 2017 - link
What?MrSpadge - Thursday, September 14, 2017 - link
What's a "wrong" form factor, then?Bullwinkle J Moose - Thursday, September 14, 2017 - link
" the SanDisk Ultra 3D is a long-overdue replacement for the Ultra II. Both of the new products use the same technology under the hood; they differ primarily in the stickers on the outside of the drive and the retail packaging it arrives in. "-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yup, those new stickers are long overdue!
MajGenRelativity - Thursday, September 14, 2017 - link
The comment on the same tech is in comparison to the WD Blue 3D. The Ultra 3D is clearly different from the Ultra 2kmmatney - Thursday, September 14, 2017 - link
I bought my 1TB Ultra II 3 years ago for $219 - still running great. What is long overdue is lower pricing.ddhelmet - Thursday, September 14, 2017 - link
Why buy this over 850 EVO for 250 and 500 GB? They're both the same price.MajGenRelativity - Thursday, September 14, 2017 - link
Higher endurance and lower power consumption are the advantages the article mentions.