Solid State Drives
GROUP TEST
This makes it decidedly bulkier and less convenient
than most other SSD options, but top-line
performance still makes it a tempting proposition.
This 400GB version is quite a bit slower than the
largest capacities but it can still hit 2200MB/s
sequential read and 900MB/s sequential write, and
that’s a sustained write speed too. What’s more, if
random read and write performance is what you’re
after then Intel is still the fastest you can get.
This 400GB drive can manage 430,000 read
IOPs and 230,000 write IOPs, which is 100,000
IOPs faster than the 512GB 960 Pro for read,
though 100,000 IOPs slower for write.
One advantage of the 750 Series over M.2 drives
is heat management. The larger drive enables Intel
to add metal heat sinks that keep it cool.
However, nearly two years have passed since its
launch, and the 750 Series is let down by Intel’s
uncompetitive pricing. With the arrival of
the 960 Pro it doesn’t look like great
value for money anymore.12
INTEL SSD 750 SERIES 400GB
http://www.intel.com £350
Where the 512GB 960 Pro can maintain up to
2100MB/s sequential write, the 500GB 960 Evo
can only hit 1800MB/s, and only for a short period.
This is because the Evo uses the same trick as many
other TLC drives where it converts a small portion
of the drive to work in an SLC mode to enable fast
writes. Once it’s full, write speed drops until the SLC
memory can be cleared. Here the speed drops to
600MB/s after 22GB have been written. The Evo
also has a lower rating – 200TB vs 400TB – for the
total amount of data that can be written to it.
All that, though, is in comparison to the fastest
drive you can buy. Compared to everything else the
Evo is lightning fast for both sequential and random
workloads. In many ways it’s still overkill, but the Evo
is priced more competitively than the Pro.
All told, the 960 Evo is the performance SSD to
buy right now. It does demand a premium but it’s
super fast yet far cheaper than any drive
of comparable speed, and has all the
performance you’ll ever need.SAMSUNG 960 EVO 500GB
Intel’s 750 Series was the first drive to arrive with the new
NVMe connection standard. But rather than an M.2 slot, the
750 Series uses the classic PCIe slot, and there’s a version that
looks like a 2.5in SATA drive but uses an SFF 8639 connector.The little brother to the 960 Pro, the 960 Evo is essentially
the same drive but rather than using MLC (two-level) NAND it
uses TLC. This means you get much of the same performance
when it comes to read speed but write speed is slower.70 % 95 %
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