ADATA SX900 256GB SSD review - Introduction

ADATA has released their XPG series SX900 SSDs based on SandForce, well LSI these days. The XPG (Xtreme Performance Gear) SX900 SSD's use new optimized firmware to utilize greater storage capacity.  Combined with sequential read and write speeds of 550/530 MB per second and with maximum random 4k write speeds as high as 85,000 IOPS the new SSD series promises a lot. And heck it even comes in capacities of 64, 128, 256, and 512GB.

With a continuously changing market the dominance of SandForce based SSDs however seems to decrease. OCZ for example released products with their proprietary Indilinx controllers and a handful of companies started selling products based on that Marvell controller. And that's an interesting dynamic to witness in the technology channel alright.

ADATA's SX900 series comes with the 2281 series SandForce controller. According to ADATA that will increase sequential read and write performance to 550MB/s which makes the SX900 the fastest SSDs they have ever produced. However, we stated it already, the market is fierce and competitive, the 2281 controllers have been widely adopted by many players like OCZ's  Vertex and Agility 3 series, or Corsair's Force 3 series and so on really. Giving them a huge head start.

With 4K random write performance estimated at 85,000 IOPS (input/output operations per second) the product is definitely in the right performance bracket we like to see ADATA in.

Have a peek, after which we'll dive into the technology behind it and obviously we'll present you a nice phat performance overview.