AMD Radeon R7 Series 240GB SSD review - Specifications & Features

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 08/19/2014 08:11 AM [

] 16 comment(s)

Specifications & Features

The sample that AMD submitted is the most popular selling volume size of for SSDs, the 240GB version . This series is equipped with Toshiba MLC NAND, flash memory from the A19nm node. The NAND flash used is labeled: TH58TEG70DKA4C, very similar to the OCZ ARC 100 series. This product is fa notch aster though as it has been tweaked a little, and that will show in performance.

AMD will release three models within the Radeon R7 range, 120 GB, 240 GB and a 480 GB version. Due to the architecture and memory channels used, the 120 GB edition will be a notch slower albeit that is a very modest performance difference. This is pretty much the thumb of rule for any brand BTW. Still a 120 GB SSD performing at 550 MB/sec read and 470 MB/sec write performance remains exceptionally fast, especially if you keep the price in mind as starting at 240GB you are seeing 50 cents (USD) per GB, say 40 to 45 cents per GB in EURO. These obviously are suggested retail prices, it would be save to shave off another 10%

SATA 3 - 6Gbp/s Interface
19nm Toshiba NAND Flash
7mm form factor
120 GB, 240 GB and 480 GB models
Performance and endurance without compression/loss of usable capacity
Lower Power consumption IDLE 0.6 W / Active 3.45 W
TRIM support
3 Year Warranty

The slide-deck that AMD presents, makes mention of a small line that states the SSD is rated to be written 30 GB/day of host writes for 3 years under typical client workloads. 20GB x 365 days x 3 years = 21900 GB which is 44 TB written guaranteed. Now do not confuse this with lifespan as this is a warranty indication, OCZ/AMD should seriously consider changing or taking out that line as it almost suggest that this SSD has a 4 year lifespan. Which will prevent people from buying it as they get scared.

On the contrary; with proper drive wearing, amplification and all the safety features at 30GB/day you will easily get 15 to 20 years of lifespan out of the product before the NAND cells are exhausted. Example a recent test from a colleague with a Vector 150 (19nm) rated 20 GB/day for 5 years went as far as 844 TB Host Writes with 1313 Terabyte on NAND writes before the drive went belly up. That's 121 years at 20 GB/day and thus over 5000 P/E cycles.

The Barefoot 3 M10 controller

The flash memory is tied towards the Indilinx (owned by OCZ Storage solutions) Barefoot 3 controller located under product code Barefoot 3 M10. This is an 8-channel NAND flash controller and the third revision from Indilinx, it comes with an all too familiar dual-core ARM architecture. The Barefoot 3 controller makes used of a pretty big memory partition for caching, that means that internal DDR3 memory plastered and hammered shut onto the PCB being used as file and data cache. The SSD has 512 MB of cache divided over two 256 MB ICs from Micron, but as we'll show you later on in the photo shoot, there is room for more. On the next pages we'll be showing you some PCB photo's as well, and what you'll notice is that it carries DDR memory caches as well. In-between the different SKUs the 240 GB has a 512 MB buffer, and some write speed variation with the lower capacity model.

Block diagram of the OCZ Barefoot 3 controller

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