The MyDigitalSSD SBX SSD Review: NVMe On The Cheap
by Billy Tallis on May 1, 2018 8:05 AM ESTAnandTech Storage Bench - The Destroyer
The Destroyer is an extremely long test replicating the access patterns of very IO-intensive desktop usage. A detailed breakdown can be found in this article. Like real-world usage, the drives do get the occasional break that allows for some background garbage collection and flushing caches, but those idle times are limited to 25ms so that it doesn't take all week to run the test. These AnandTech Storage Bench (ATSB) tests do not involve running the actual applications that generated the workloads, so the scores are relatively insensitive to changes in CPU performance and RAM from our new testbed, but the jump to a newer version of Windows and the newer storage drivers can have an impact.
We quantify performance on this test by reporting the drive's average data throughput, the average latency of the I/O operations, and the total energy used by the drive over the course of the test.
The average data rates from the MyDigitalSSD SBX on The Destroyer are faster than most but not all SATA SSDs of comparable capacity. As expected, the SBX is one of the slowest NVMe SSDs, but it does outperform the Intel SSD 600p.
Average and 99th percentile latencies from the SBX on The Destroyer are generally higher than for other NVMe SSDs, but it isn't a drastic outlier like a DRAMless SATA drive. The larger two capacities actually beat several competitors for 99th percentile latency.
The smaller two capacities of the MyDigitalSSD SBX have slightly better average read latency than the Intel SSD 760p. Otherwise, average read and write latencies are higher than most other NVMe SSDs but are still better than SATA drives.
The MyDigitalSSD SBX has reasonable 99th percentile read and write latency scores—especially the 512GB model. The smaller capacities have much higher tail latencies, but are not as bad as the Intel 760p.
Energy usage by the MyDigitalSSD SBX on The Destroyer varies widely between the different capacities. The 512GB SBX uses very little energy by NVMe standards, but the smaller drives take much longer to complete the test and use substantially more total energy by the time they finish.
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MajGenRelativity - Tuesday, May 1, 2018 - link
The price premium of lower-end NVMe SSDs forms a big part of their problem in my head. When I build a computer for somebody, I usually use an M.2 SATA SSD if I include an SSD, because SATA SSDs are the cheaper alternative, and most people won't use the performance of an NVMe SSD. If they *do* need the performance of NVMe, I find it a little hard to justify stopping at the low end when they can pay a bit more and bump up the performance by quite a lot. My thoughts are that while products like the SBX are a step in the right direction, they really need to match SATA drives in price to become fully worthwhile.Dribble - Tuesday, May 1, 2018 - link
The other thing they have going for them is size. I can see a cheap nvme being used quite a bit in mid range laptops that came with a SATA disk but have a spare nvme slot. For desktops not only does the drive sit flush with the motherboard mostly, but it requires no cabling and no hd cage to put it in. I could see myself getting one as a second drive - it's not like I'd really be able to tell it's any slower then a high end drive for standard desktop usage.Dribble - Tuesday, May 1, 2018 - link
Ah didn't read the previous comment carefully enough "M2 SATA SSD" not "SATA SSD", never mind.MajGenRelativity - Tuesday, May 1, 2018 - link
Yeah. I can see 2.5" SATA going away entirely / being replaced by 2.5" U.2, but M.2 SATA still has a place for meeek2121 - Wednesday, May 2, 2018 - link
My current machine no longer has any type of SATA drive in it. I have a single 1TB Samsung 960 EVO. I thought about going going for the pro or a 2 TB EVO, but this fits my needs perfectly. Now if we could just get a mini-itx threadripper board... ;)MajGenRelativity - Thursday, May 3, 2018 - link
For me, I need bulk storage, so SATA isn't going away any time soon. However, I don't think Mini-ITX Threadripper will happen, as the socket is too bigRatman6161 - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link
Price wise, for a lot of people in your situation, you could get the 500 GB 960 EVO for $200 and also the 1 TB MX500 for $249. That would give you a total of 1.5 TB for the price of a 1 TB 960EVO. Then EVO could then be used for OS and programs with some data while the cheap but still pretty good MX500 could provide the big storage.gglaw - Saturday, May 19, 2018 - link
The popular budget Micron 3D TLC 2TB drives are on sale all the time from $280-$300 range. They don't have much marketing or even a fancy name associated with them, come in a bare OEM type box but the few reviews out are all favorable. I have one as a secondary storage drive with a 960 EVO 500GB boot drive but tbh when I moved my Steam library over to it, I can't even tell the difference in performance between it and the NVMe EVO.https://www.amazon.com/Micron-1100-SATA-2-5-inch-M...
that's the drive but it goes on sale lower than that pretty much every week.
wumpus - Tuesday, May 1, 2018 - link
Why eat the slot? Do your clients get grumpy if they see and "old fashioned" 2.5" drive? I'd rather leave the M.2 slot waiting for a card that really needs it, and still have the SATA drive connected.MajGenRelativity - Tuesday, May 1, 2018 - link
I sell to a variety of clients (I co-own a small business so we cover all sorts), and usually they don't have enough technical knowledge to know the difference between a 2.5" drive and M.2. I use the M.2 slot because it allows me to either disconnect the SATA cable (for a modular PSU), or tuck it out of the way to increase airflow. Most of my customers won't need the performance boost of upgrading to an NVMe drive, so it hasn't been a problem before. In the cases where that is a viable upgrade path, I discuss it ahead of time, and do use a 2.5" drive in situations where necessary/desired.