Transcend is one of the top manufacturers when it comes to flash-based storage products. The company recently announced the new SSD220S on the market.
The SSD220S is an entry level range of TLC NAND SSD. The range comes in three capacities – 120GB, 240GB and 480GB. We received the 120GB version for a review. The device itself uses a combination of Silicon Motion SM2256KAB controller and 16nm TLC NAND.
According to Transcend, the sequential performance for the drive is 550MB/s for reads and 450MB/s for writes with random 4K IOPS figures of 80,000 IOPS for both reads and writes. We think this is pretty good for an entry level drive.
In case you were wondering, the “S” suffix on the drive’s model number means that the drive comes in an aluminium enclosure. Transcend backs the drive with a three-year warranty.
Transcend has also packed the SSD220S in with a RAID engine and low-density parity check coding to keep data secure. The Transcend SSD220S also features multiple built-in technologies. The drive comes with Error Correction Code (ECC) to help detect and correct potential transfer errors.
It also comes with Device Sleep (DevSleep) mode to reduce power consumption and shorten the response time upon wake-up from Sleep or Hibernate. In addition, the drive also comes with the S.M.A.R.T. function to efficiently monitor SSD health conditions.
The drive comes with an SSD management utility called SSD Scope which can be downloaded from the company’s website. SSD Scope has four main sections: Status which provides information about the drive; Next up which holds a performance benchmark; a disk scanner (either quick or full scans); and the secure erase function.
You also get a disc cloning tool with the utility that allows you to either clone just the OS partition or the extended disc. In addition, there is a firmware update tool which checks the drives firmware and enables you to download any updates.
Measuring just 6.8mm and weighing at 58g, the drive fits most notebooks on the market. A 3.5mm bracket is also included for desktop upgraders. We ran a bunch of benchmarks on the SSD and came away satisfied with the performance.
In order to run the benchmarks, we first used HDDerase V4 to erase and reset the drive to factory settings. We then ran Crystalmark and ATTO Disk Benchmark to check out the performance of the drive.
We were able to clock a sequential read/write performance of 523MB/s and 429MB/s, which is almost in line with what Transcend claims on the packaging. At a very affordable price tag of $49 (AED 180), the Transcend SSD220S is a good SSD to consider.
[highlight color=”yellow”]Price: $49 (AED 180)[/highlight]
