The ADATA GAMMIX S50 Lite 2TB SSD Review: Mainstream PCIe Gen4
by Billy Tallis on April 30, 2021 8:00 AM ESTBurst IO Performance
Our burst IO tests operate at queue depth 1 and perform several short data transfers interspersed with idle time. The random read and write tests consist of 32 bursts of up to 64MB each. The sequential read and write tests use eight bursts of up to 128MB each. For more details, please see the overview of our 2021 Consumer SSD Benchmark Suite.
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The ADATA XPG Gammix S50 Lite performs well on most of the burst IO tests, especially when the test is confined to a narrow range of the drive so that it won't overflow the SLC and DRAM caches. When the test ranges over 80% of the drive, the S50 Lite's write speeds are much lower (due to less available SLC cache) and the random read performance is also a bit lower (due to insufficient DRAM).
Sustained IO Performance
Our sustained IO tests exercise a range of queue depths and transfer more data than the burst IO tests, but still have limits to keep the duration somewhat realistic. The primary scores we report are focused on the low queue depths that make up the bulk of consumer storage workloads. For more details, please see the overview of our 2021 Consumer SSD Benchmark Suite.
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Adding in some slightly higher queue depths and longer test durations doesn't substantially change how the S50 Lite ranks. Its peak performance is still competitive with the best PCIe Gen3 drives, but as the drive fills up and the locality of the workload drops, it loses more performance than those 8-channel Gen3 drives with the full amount of DRAM.
The power efficiency score on these tests generally look better for the S50 Lite than the energy usage scores from the ATSB tests. Its efficiency is generally at least middle-of-the-road except in the situations where performance starts seriously dropping.
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Looking across the full range of queue depths shows the same performance patterns for the S50 Lite continuing and amplifying. Except on the sequential read test, the S50 Lite shows huge performance disparities between the narrow 32GB range test runs and those that cover 80% of the drive. The lower DRAM ratio is a handicap on the random read test, and the SLC cache often overflows when testing writes against an 80% full drive. But when the tests are only covering a small slice of the drive, the S50 Lite shows good performance scaling that is comparable to the best gen3 drives.
Random Read Latency
This test illustrates how drives with higher throughput don't always offer better IO latency and Quality of Service (QoS), and that latency often gets much worse when a drive is pushed to its limits. This test is more intense than real-world consumer workloads and the results can be a bit noisy, but large differences that show up clearly on a log scale plot are meaningful. For more details, please see the overview of our 2021 Consumer SSD Benchmark Suite.
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The ADATA S50 Lite starts out with decent random read latency at low loads, but the 99th percentile latencies climb quite a bit during the early part of the test. The S50 Lite ultimately fails to make it to the high IOPS range we expect from such a drive, and instead loses control of its latency around 150k IOPS—behavior that's more fitting of a QLC drive.
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Tomatotech - Friday, April 30, 2021 - link
Which is better, TLC or SLC?SLC of course!
Any decent QLC drive will operate in SLC mode for as long as it can (e.g an empty 4TB QLC drive has 1TB of SLC space, and a half-full 4TB QLC drive will have around 500GB of TLC space). So you can rest easy, they’re even better than your precious TLC drives.
FunBunny2 - Friday, April 30, 2021 - link
"QLC drive will operate in SLC mode"many times the 'experts' here at AT have asserted that 'SLC mode' by xLC NAND just ain't like 'real' SLC. don't recall how large the falloff is, but it exists.
sonny73n - Saturday, May 1, 2021 - link
"Any decent QLC drive will operate in SLC mode for as long as it can (e.g an empty 4TB QLC drive has 1TB of SLC space,"How many QLC drive can operate in SLC mode? But hey, I'm paying for 4TB, I expect to have a full 4TB of reasonable quality NAND, not 4TB of crappy NAND and hoping it would work well if I use only 1/4 of its capacity.
sonny73n - Saturday, May 1, 2021 - link
"So you can rest easy, they’re even better than your precious TLC drives."Stop spreading misinformation! Internet have enough fake news already.
TheinsanegamerN - Monday, May 3, 2021 - link
"So you can rest easy, they’re even better than your precious TLC drives"Imagine thinking the above line justifies your technology being "good". You can take your condescending attitude and shove it. Nobody buys a drive to use a quarter of its capacity just to try to keep speeds up to previous generation tech just to pay as much as said previous gen tech. Unless QLC brings 2TB NVMe drives under $100 it's worthless to most consumers.
Linustechtips12#6900xt - Monday, May 3, 2021 - link
let's just admit that nand is nand and it's honestly pretty great, do we need something new yes, was that intel 3d x-point, possibly but according to them no, so we are gonna have to deal with cheaper higher capacity SSD's for a while as long as I can still get an SLC/MLC/TLC SSD for my boot drive I don't care about having my games on qlc or whatever comes after and as long as OEM for laptops dont use qlc or later for boot drives im fine with it.FunBunny2 - Monday, May 3, 2021 - link
"as long as OEM for laptops dont use qlc or later for boot drives im fine with it."whose going to stop them from putting QLC or whatever the next xLC is called in your laptop? the FTC? not even Biden's cabal has the stones to do that.
Linustechtips12#6900xt - Wednesday, May 5, 2021 - link
yeah I agree, not that any president would care about nand but anyway if it does happen which it will, I know i can probably buy a 120gb model and just buy a tlc or lower drive either way and flip the 120gb or something maybe put it into an HPC machine something like that.Linustechtips12#6900xt - Wednesday, May 5, 2021 - link
HTPC*eastcoast_pete - Friday, April 30, 2021 - link
So, do I get this correctly? Basically a waste of perfectly good PCIe4 channels? I guess if you have plenty, not so bad, but otherwise, not really.