SSD by stefan @ 2013-09-11
Silicon Power has recently launched a mainstream SSD with decent transfer speeds and a lower 7mm height in order to increase the compatibility and include ultrabooks and other slim devices to the list. Besides the 16 NAND Flash chips, the SSD also features a 72-bit processor from Phison, the PS3108-S8-1 and also 512MB of DDR3 RAM for caching purposes.
We would like to thank at first Silicon Power for supplying a sample of their S55 Slim SATA III SSD for testing and reviewing.
“Silicon Power Computer & Communications Inc., founded in 2003 by a group of enthusiastic specialists in International Business, Global Marketing, and Technical Engineering of flash data storage industry. Well dedicated in brand image and product quality, Silicon Power has been recognized and well accepted by millions of end-users in more than 100 countries, becomes the world's leading manufacturer of flash memory cards, USB flash drives, card readers, DRAM modules, solid state disks, and portable hard drives in less than a decade. Headquartered in Taipei, we continuously established various branches throughout the world including Netherlands, Japan, Russia, Mainland China and other emerging market to reach the worldwide market.
Silicon Power's overall performance has gradually drawn great attention worldwide. In 2006, we received Taiwan Rising Star Award for our foreign business achievement. In 2008, we won 17th National Outstanding Small & Medium Enterprise Award for our outstanding progress. Moreover, with superior quality and innovative design, our products stood out in several competitions and awarded Taiwan Excellence and COMPUTEX Design & Innovation Award in 2009, 2010 and 2011. Winning trust of global consumers, Silicon Power holds a record of successive double-digit revenue growth for last seven years. According to the Common Wealth Magazine's 2010 Survey of Taiwan Top 1000 Manufacturers, our 2009 revenue growth rate was ranked No.11 among Taiwan's top 1000 manufacturers, and even ranked No.1 in semiconductor industry.
Positioned as Passionate, Creative and Hungry for Success, Silicon Power introduces products for users who are seeking individualized, unique and personal digital storage devices. With the mission of creating unprecedented experience for users, Silicon Power will endeavor to deliver a full range of high quality products that have innovative designs, distinctly unique features and comprehensive after sales services to create and fulfill your personal memory.”
- 7mm slim design suitable for Ultrabooks and Ultra-slim notebooks
- SATA III 6Gbps backwards compatible with SATA II 3Gbps
- ATTO high transfer rate: Read speed: 550 MB/s max; Write speed: 500 MB/s max
-CrystalDiskMark 5cycle/1000MB high transfer rate: Read speed: 510 MB/s max; Write speed: 460 MB/s max
-AS SSD high transfer rate: Read speed: 500 MB/s max; Write speed: 470 MB/s
- Smartest Choice for System Upgrade
- Supports TRIM command and Garbage Collection technology
- NCQ and RAID ready
- Implemented with ECC technology to guarantee data transmission reliability
- Built-in with SMART monitoring system
- Low power consumption
- Shockproof & Anti-Vibration
- Noiseless operation, no latency delay and no seek error
- 3 year warranty
The SSD we are going to look upon in this article sports the later 7mm format, which also makes it suitable for ultra-portables. On the front page of the packaging we can see a photo of the main product, along with the total drive capacity and the rated speeds:
On the back side we have the product features in more details, along with a speed comparison with the regular HDDs:
For additional security, Silicon Power has sealed the box on both ends:
Besides the SSD, we will also get a small manual and a bag of screws:
The manual we have mentioned before has instructions for mounting the SSD in different systems:
The drive chassis is made from aluminum and on the top side we can find a nice sticker:
The bottom side is quite plain, without any extra specifications:
Silicon Power has also placed here a warranty sticker to avoid opening up the product:
Along the SATA Data/Power connectors we can also find a set of small additional pins:
After removing the four bottom screws, we can pop up the top cover only to discover that this drive does not feature the well-know SandForce controller, but a Phison one:
The Phison PS3108-S8-1 is a 72-bit processor, a cost-effective which gives decent performances:
Near it we have a 512MB DDR3 RAM chip branded PSC A3P4GF4BLF which acts as a buffer:
On the same side we have 8 TT57G2GAHC NAND Flash chips with a density of 128Gbit (16GB):
On the back side of the PCB we have the rest of 8 NAND Flash chips:
CPU : Intel I5 3750K Retail @ 4.7GHz
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14
Motherboard : ASRock Z77 Extreme6
RAM :GeIL PC3-17000 2133MHz 8GB EVO Leggera
Video : Sparkle X560 Calibre
Power Supply : Cooler Master 850W
HDD : Seagate Barracuda 320GB 7200.10
Case: Cooler Master ATCS 840
The Silicon Power S55 240GB SSD comes unformatted out of the box:
After the SSD has been formated NTFS, here is the total free space reported by Windows 7:
With the help of AIDA64, we can extract more information regarding the drive:
HDTach Short Test
Blank SSD
Filled SSD
HDTach Long Test
Blank SSD
Filled SSD
CrystalMark HDD Test Suite
AIDA64 Disk Test Suite
PCMark05 HDD Test Suite
CrystalDisk Test Suite (Random)
HDTune Test Suite
Blank SSD
Filled SSD
PCMark Vantage HDD Test Suite
PCMark 7
Anvil Reads
Anvil Writes
AS SSD Benchmark
Blank SSD
Filled SSD
AS SSD Benchmark (IOPS)
Blank SSD
Filled SSD
ATTO Disk Benchmark
Blank SSD
Filled SSD
Silicon Power has come to the market with a slim 7mm drive model in order to include in the compatibility list thin devices like ultrabooks. Even if the product does not break any records, the read speed is quite good and succeeds to stay in line with other more expensive drives. This drive was thought as an upgrade for people still on HDDs and should experience quite a nice speed boost; of course, if the laptop permits and we have an additional adapter, we could always remove the optical drive and keep the HDD inside the system for storage purposes.
The manufacturer is not holding back and is also offering a full 3-year warranty for the S55 SSD.
As negative points we could enumerate the lack of a metallic bracket for installation inside desktop computers and the smaller write transfer speeds in some of the cases.
The Silicon Power S55 Slim SATA III 240GB SSD can be found online for about 180 Euros.
We would like to thank again to Silicon Power for making this review possible!