The Intel SSD 660p SSD Review: QLC NAND Arrives For Consumer SSDs
by Billy Tallis on August 7, 2018 11:00 AM ESTPower Management Features
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.
For many NVMe SSDs, the closely related matter of thermal management can also be important. M.2 SSDs can concentrate a lot of power in a very small space. They may also be used in locations with high ambient temperatures and poor cooling, such as tucked under a GPU on a desktop motherboard, or in a poorly-ventilated notebook.
| Intel SSD 660p 1TB NVMe Power and Thermal Management Features |
|||
| Controller | Silicon Motion SM2263 | ||
| Firmware | NHF034C | ||
| NVMe Version |
Feature | Status | |
| 1.0 | Number of operational (active) power states | 3 | |
| 1.1 | Number of non-operational (idle) power states | 2 | |
| Autonomous Power State Transition (APST) | Supported | ||
| 1.2 | Warning Temperature | 77°C | |
| Critical Temperature | 80°C | ||
| 1.3 | Host Controlled Thermal Management | Supported | |
| Non-Operational Power State Permissive Mode | Not Supported | ||
The Intel SSD 660p's power and thermal management feature set is typical for current-generation NVMe SSDs. The rated exit latency from the deepest idle power state is quite a bit faster than what we have measured in practice from this generation of Silicon Motion controllers, but otherwise the drive's claims about its idle states seem realistic.
| Intel SSD 660p 1TB NVMe Power States |
|||||
| Controller | Silicon Motion SM2263 | ||||
| Firmware | NHF034C | ||||
| Power State |
Maximum Power |
Active/Idle | Entry Latency |
Exit Latency |
|
| PS 0 | 4.0 W | Active | - | - | |
| PS 1 | 3.0 W | Active | - | - | |
| PS 2 | 2.2 W | Active | - | - | |
| PS 3 | 30 mW | Idle | 5 ms | 5 ms | |
| PS 4 | 4 mW | Idle | 5 ms | 9 ms | |
Note that the above tables reflect only the information provided by the drive to the OS. The power and latency numbers are often very conservative estimates, but they are what the OS uses to determine which idle states to use and how long to wait before dropping to a deeper idle state.
Idle Power Measurement
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 if supported.
The Intel 660p has a slightly lower active idle power draw than the SM2262-based drives we've tested, thanks to the smaller controller and reduced DRAM capacity. It isn't the lowest active idle power we've measured from a NVMe SSD, but it is definitely better than most high-end NVMe drives. In the deepest idle state our desktop testbed can use, we measure an excellent 10mW draw.
The Intel 660p's idle wake-up time of about 55ms is typical for Silicon Motion's current generation of controllers and much better than their first-generation NVMe controller as used in the Intel SSD 600p. The Phison E12 can wake up in under 2ms from a sleep state of about 52mW, but otherwise the NVMe SSDs that wake up quickly were saving far less power than the 660p's deep idle.
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mapesdhs - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
If you have quite literally "valuable info" then don't use a consumer SSD at all. Heck, damn the speed, you're far better with even a used 840 Pro. That's why I obtained one for this build I did, along with an SM951 for a scratch video drive:http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/charitypc1.html
BurntMyBacon - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
First point of interest is always have a backup plan. If information is valuable, don't rely on any single copy of it.As to your question of endurance, I don't think most personal use cases are likely to have an issue. If you have a professional workload, get a professional drive. The 840 Pro that mapesdhs keeps evangelizing is actually a pretty good option, though a Pro series (MLC) nvme drive will provide better performance while still providing endurance is the same ballpark as the 840Pro.
As to whether it will refresh the cell if powered on, I would expect most Samsung drive will, though it is not known whether
BurntMyBacon - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
As to whether it will refresh if powered on, I don't believe that Samsung flash required the refresh cycle once the moved to 3D NAND with a larger feature size. That said, since QLC halves the voltage swing (and corresponding charge) vs TLC, it is likely that Samsung will need to do something to prevent voltage drift. This may not necessarily require active refreshing, though. It is not known (by me) whether this is a requirement for other manufacturer's 3DQLC NAND either.BurntMyBacon - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
I get why they don't want an edit feature, but would it really hurt if they added a time limited recall type edit feature for when you fat thumb a hot key that posts your unfinished message before you are done with it. Maybe give you five minutes after a post initiate the edit to catch typos or grammar issues. It wouldn't really be enough to alter a conversation as it is unlikely that others will have responded within this time frame.AbRASiON - Tuesday, August 7, 2018 - link
Considering the abysmal performance of this thing, I think you really need a $/GB chart on the page and it would be nice to put in a very fast, modern hard drive. Something huge and 7200RPM with a lot of cache on it.Just to put it in perspective, because as it stands, wow this thing looks terrible. I expect VERY cheap prices if they're gonna run like this.
Oxford Guy - Tuesday, August 7, 2018 - link
No matter how terrible QLC is it is going to succeed in the market because consumers respond well to big and cheap.So, I think one interesting question is going to be how much disguising there will be of products having QLC. Microcenter, for instance, is apparently selling a TLC Inland drive, calling it MLC.
piroroadkill - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
That's how I want QLC drives to be compared - to the best hard drives people might actually buy today to store their games on, for example.I'd love a cheap and large 4TB drive for my games, but it has to be both much faster than the HDD setup I use for games (2× 2TB 3.5" Seagate Hybrid drives in RAID0) and not too far off the same price.
zodiacfml - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
Impressive performance. Easily beats my SATA 850 EVO in performance and twice the capacity I bought last December for the same price.There should be no reason for notebook manufacturers to settle for HDD except the cheapest laptops.
mapesdhs - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
Given the 850 EVO's strong reliability reputation though, I wouldn't be overly eager to recommend this new QLC model for anyone wanting a decent degree of confidence that their data is safe. But then, most consumers don't have backup strategies anyway. :DSpunjji - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
If you want safe data, make regular backups. Anything else is a false sense of security!