The MyDigitalSSD SBX SSD Review: NVMe On The Cheap
by Billy Tallis on May 1, 2018 8:05 AM ESTAnandTech Storage Bench - Heavy
Our Heavy storage benchmark is proportionally more write-heavy than The Destroyer, but much shorter overall. The total writes in the Heavy test aren't enough to fill the drive, so performance never drops down to steady state. This test is far more representative of a power user's day to day usage, and is heavily influenced by the drive's peak performance. The Heavy workload test details can be found here. This test is run twice, once on a freshly erased drive and once after filling the drive with sequential writes.
The average data rates of the MyDigitalSSD SBX on the Heavy test make it clear that while it is not the slowest NVMe SSD we've tested, it is the slowest we've encountered so far from the current generation. The Intel SSD 760p is tied with the SBX at 128GB but has a clear performance advantage at higher capacities. Compared to the SATA SSDs, the SBX doesn't have much advantage over the 860 PRO but is clearly faster than more mainstream drives like the Crucial MX500.
The average and 99th percentile latency results show that the 128GB SBX suffers significantly more than its larger siblings when the test is run on a full drive. The 128GB Intel 760p shows an even larger impact that puts its average latency up in the range of the DRAMless SATA drives.
The average write latency scores show much greater variation between drives than the average read latency scores. For both scores, the SBX ranks about where expected: worse than most other NVMe drives but usually better than SATA drives.
The 99th percentile read latency scores highlight how the 128GB SBX is particularly challenged by its low capacity. All capacities of the SBX have reasonable QoS on the write side of things, where the SBX consistently scores better than the Intel 760p.
The MyDigitalSSD SBX completes the Heavy test while using less energy overall than almost all NVMe SSDs. Its energy usage is slightly higher than typical for mainstream SATA SSDs, but this is no surprise: even a two-lane PCIe link requires more power than a SATA link.
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dgingeri - Tuesday, May 1, 2018 - link
For $53 for a 128GB one, with a 5 year warranty? That's now the boot drive of my server.dgingeri - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link
It has worked remarkably well as a server boot drive. I highly recommend it.vailr - Tuesday, May 1, 2018 - link
An external USB 3.0 connected PCIe M.2 type NVMe adapter would be faster than any USB thumb drive, and would be ideal for a bootable external "Windows to Go". Is such a device available yet?Something like this: https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-M-2-SATA-SSD-E... but compatible with PCIe NVMe M.2 80mm drives, such as this MyDigitalSSD, or the Samsung 960 NVMe, for example.
MajGenRelativity - Tuesday, May 1, 2018 - link
The only ones I've seen are Thunderbolt adapters, which require a Thunderbolt port. They all come populated with an SSD too. The "cheapest" I've seen is the TekQ Rapide, which while priced below others and with decent performance, isn't exactly cheap at $250PeachNCream - Tuesday, May 1, 2018 - link
Since NVMe SSDs still command a price premium even with low cost drives like the SBX out there, it may just not make a lot of sense to build NVMe-to-USB drive enclosures. After all, SATA 3.0 is rated to 6 Gbit/s and USB 3.0 is rated at 5 Gbit/s which means you're already going to be at the saturation point of USB 3.0 with a SATA SSD in a USB enclosure at a relatively low cost for a removable boot drive. I've been doing something like that with a 2.5 inch SATA to USB 3.0 enclosure and a spare 120GB Patriot Torch. Ubuntu happily boots from it and I can't really discern much difference (responsiveness, performance, read/write speed, etc.) between using the drive in the external enclosure and using that same drive on my laptop's internal SATA connector.Death666Angel - Tuesday, May 1, 2018 - link
http://www.microsatacables.com/m-2-ngff-pcie-ssd-t...This explicitly states PCIe (and is out of stock), all others just state SATA M.2. But as Peach described, USB 3.0 is already saturated by SATA 3.0.
You could frankenstein something. Get one of those PCIe slot to USB things the mining community uses, then a PCIe to M.2 NVME adapter and then hope it somehow works. :D Not pretty though. ;)
MajGenRelativity - Tuesday, May 1, 2018 - link
The PCIe slots to USB cable just repurpose the pins on the connector to carry PCIe signals. They do NOT follow USB communication protocolsDeath666Angel - Tuesday, May 1, 2018 - link
Thanks for that info and sorry for my misinformation. :)MajGenRelativity - Thursday, May 3, 2018 - link
No problem. I also checked out the drive you linked, and it only supports the one Samsung OEM drive that uses PCIe with the AHCI protocol, not NVMe. Not sure why it doesn't support NVMe, but it says it doesn't, so good idea to keep an eye on that.dgingeri - Tuesday, May 1, 2018 - link
That would presume that there is a USB to PCIe adapter chip, which there isn't. Thunderbolt, as previously mentioned, is available, but that is because Thunderbolt is based on PCIe anyway. So, no bridge chip is required.