HP S700 Pro 512GB SSD review - Final Words & Conclusion

Final Words & Conclusion

Over the years SSDs have evolved and enhanced. Recent tests have been showing that they will last a tremendous amount of time. For HP this TLC based drive should work out well, the performance is really good with an occasional exception here and there. They do need to lower the price a tiny bit more though to be able to keep up with the competition, and that competition is harsh and plentiful. Would you really notice the difference in-between 400 and 500 MB/sec writes?, we doubt it. Perf wise even on TLC, I will still class this SSD as high-end to enthusiast class as the S700 Pro retains its high performance even with sustained writes. The read performance is excellent for a SATA3 unit, writes are plenty fast for normal and PC gaming usage. This SSD is rated a 310TBW, thus guaranteed at 310 Terabyte written I mean ... if you write say 20 GB a day / 365 days a year that would be 7.3 TB per year.  That could be over 42 years of lifespan, easily even as these units often write way beyond what is rated. Typically we often see TLC NAND issues with linear and sustained writes, e.g. after writing a couple of GB the performance drops. We think next to the DRAM buffer that HP makes use of an SLC written NAND cache, next to that 512MB SDRAM cache. During our tests it'll write fast up-to roughly 50GB continuously written at ~475 MB/s, after that number the perf likely will start to drop to say 280 MB/s. That SLC cache does the trick as it is by far big enough to avoid any write issues. But realistically, how often do you write THAT MUCH data at once? I do not see it as an issue whatsoever.

Performance

This SSD writes and reads serious amounts of tiny files in a fast enough fashion. IOPS is not something you as a consumer should worry about too much unless you are doing a lot of database related work or create similar workloads on your PC, but this SSD certainly ranks high within this aspect. Trace testing - we think by far the best test in our entire benchmark suite is PCMark Vantage 64-bit. This is a trace test and can emulate what you guys do on your PC but then multiply it by a factor of 100, this test puts more focus on read performance opposed to writing though. The outcome of the results with the HP S700 PRO; sustained read / write performance, again fine. Zoom in at both IOPS and trace performance and you'll notice that the SSD can manage serious workloads without breaking so much as a drop of sweat. So whether you write lots of small files, copy big MKV movies or do it all together, the unit remains a solid performer on all fronts.
  

 
Overall

Right, an SSD is enjoyable. Very much so. If you put a drive like this into your SATA 3 compatible laptop or SATA 3 compatible PC, you'll have no idea what is about to hit you. We very much enjoy the grand sustained performance of this SSD series. Make no mistake, replacing an HDD with an SSD in your desktop PC or laptop eliminates the random access lag of the HDD head, it is no longer mechanical. That, combined with the performance SATA 3 offers these days, is simply a massive difference and probably the best upgrade you can make for your computer anno 2017.

Controller

Some overall recommendations then. Should you be in the market for a SATA 3 SSD then we have a couple of hints. First and foremost if you have a SATA 2 controller only on your motherboard, then you'll be limited at roughly 270 MB/sec read and writes. SATA 3 (6Gbps) will free you up from that allowing the SSD to perform in the 500 MB/sec range. It is, however, important that you connect your SSD to the proper controller. Internal chipset based integrated SATA 6G controllers are the best, thus say the Z270 Intel SATA3 interface or the AMD X370 internal chipset interface. If you run the SSD from a 3^rd party controller like, say, a Marvell / ASMedia 6G controller, you will often see lower performance. The new AMD chipsets offer fantastic performance btw. The more recent Asmedia controllers we spotted lately on motherboards also offer good performance, albeit still 20% ~ 25% slower than Intel's controllers. Also make sure you run your drive in AHCI mode, it does make such a difference in performance, a big difference.

Concluding

You know, this actually was the first HP SSD we tested and granted, the S700 Pro does its job pretty darn nicely. I do hope to see bigger volume sizes in the future though as 512GB is the new norm with 1TB becoming more popular fast. We hardly have any comments on this SSD, however it is critical that HP keeps the price level affordable. Currently the unit as tested today was spotted for 210 USD on Newegg. Granted this is the Pro model, but the competition is steep and stiff. Consumer choose the best price as performance wise all the SSDs reach that 400~500 MB/sec marker these days. The SATA3 port is the bottleneck, not the NAND memory or its controller. The overall performance the S700 Pro is plenty for your normal PC user and PC gamer. For the money you are receiving a nice SSD storage and performance with this 512 GB SSD, it is a proper amount in capacity. Also on the endurance side (yes even with TLC) we cannot complain as the unit is rated at a very comfortable 310 TB written (and typically they will last even much longer but at least twice that number).  Concluding, the S700 Pro 512 GB model with its nice volume size and rated 310 TBW feels pretty good. HP will also give this SSD a three year warranty. If you need a little more back for you bucks, the none-Pro model will offer that, but at the cost of the loss of the DRAM cache (which really helps out in more heacy workloads) So, if your workload lines up towards PC gaming and/or regular usage on an internet PC, then we have to admit, this is looking to be a great SSD to work with, frankly speaking it's fine. We would like to see a little more value pricing wise, but the SSD offers very respectable performance and as such comes recommended by Guru3D.com

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