Myce SSD Awards 2014

2014 has been a busy year for the SSD editors here at Myce.wiki. Last year we gave a single award for what we considered was the best consumer grade SSD then available. This year we have elected to make a number of awards, covering both Consumer and Enterprise SSDs.  We have also decided to give an award for what we consider to be the best innovation in SSD technology.

The awards we are presenting this year are:

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For Enterprise grade SSDs

  • Best Enterprise Performance SSD
  • Best Enterprise Value SSD

For Consumer grade SSDs

  • Best Consumer Enthusiast SSD
  • Best Consumer Value SSD

For Innovation in SSD technology

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  • Best Innovation in SSD Technology

The only rules we have applied are, all the SSDs (and innovations) must have been tested by our SSD editors here at myce.wiki, and all SSDs must be available for purchase at the time of the article's publication.

Enterprise SSD Awards 2014


It’s been an impressive year for Enterprise SSDs.There were some outstanding candidates in both the Value and Performance categories, including:

The Sandisk Optimus ECO, an SAS SSD that shows how 19nm eMLC NAND can be used to great
effect in a thoroughly competent, highly consistent drive that can exceed sequential read throughput of > 1 GB/s in Dual/Wide port mode.

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The classy Toshiba PX02SMF020, a high endurance, high performance SAS 3, 12Gb/s drive, whose launch coincided with Toshiba’s 25th Anniversary as the inventor of NAND.  The PX02SMF020 was the first SAS drive we have seen delivering sequential read throughput of > 1 GB/s through a single port.

More recently, the innovative Samsung 845 DC EVO which brings the use of 19nm 3 bit TLC NAND to the Enterprise market.

After careful consideration, the winners are as follows.

Best Value Enterprise SSD Award

The award goes to the Samsung 845DC PRO SATA SSD.

The Samsung 845DC Pro introduced the use of Samsung’s innovative 24 layer 3D V-NAND technology.  It delivers class leading write performance, first class endurance, and exceptional quality of service at a competitive price.

Jeremy Reynolds, Myce’s Enterprise SSD Reviewer commented – “the Samsung 845DC PRO settles into a steady state for random 4K writes (at a queue depth of 32) at over 50,000 IOPS.  To put this in perspective, this is 10,000 IOPS higher than any other SATA or SAS Enterprise drive that we have tested.  Samsung is to be congratulated for its success with 3D V-NAND. The Samsung
845DC PRO is a breakthrough product that thoroughly deserves our Best Value Enterprise SSD Award for 2014”.

Best Performance Enterprise SSD Award

The award goes to the Intel DC P3700 NVMe SSD.

Jeremy commented – “Outright Performance! There can only be one winner this year - the ‘Awesome Machine’.  The Intel DC P3700 set new performance records in every category of our tests – simply stunning.  Intel is to be congratulated for the leadership role it has adopted in bringing NVMe solutions to market.  The Intel DC P3700 thoroughly deserves our Best
Performance Enterprise SSD Award for 2014”.

Consumer SSD Awards 2014


Value Consumer SSD

There were many extremely good SSDs to choose from in this category. Our SSD editor Antonis Sapanidis wrote -  "I didn’t have to over think it, the Crucial MX100 is a drive that has lots of performance, and most of the time can be
found at a very low price, and also it comes from a manufacturer that has almost full control of their product. What more can you ask for?

There is also the OCZ ARC100, and this is a drive that also comes at a great price, it’s also very fast and Toshiba is a guaranty that you will get high quality components."

Wendy Robertson wrote - "You also can't ignore the Toshiba HG 6 series of value SSDs, which are extremely fast in the real world, and can be found at a very attractive price."

Best Value Consumer SSD Award

After careful consideration we decided the award goes to the Crucial
MX100

Consumer Enthusiast SSD

In this category, there was a large number of SSDs to choose from and the Plextor M6e M.2. rated very highly in our thoughts here at myce.wiki. The M6e uses the increased bandwidth available from M.2. to great effect, and proved to be the fastest single controller SSD we have tested here at myce.wiki.

The fastest SATA SSD available, the Samsung 850 Pro also rated very highly. With its outstanding performance, and its ground breaking high endurance 32 layer 3D V-NAND, the Samsung 850 Pro is an excellent choice as a high performance SATA SSD.

Another SSD, although getting a little bit long in the tooth but still rated very highly, is the OCZ Vector
150
, with its outstanding sustainable performance it is still an SSD to be reckoned with.

Best Consumer Enthusiast SSD Award

After careful consideration  we decided that the award goes to the OCZ
RevoDrive 350
.

Wendy Robertson wrote - "Enthusiasts will spend a bit more to get the best of the best, the fastest of the fastest. The OCZ RevoDrive 350 is a no compromise PCIe SSD, with up to four Sandforce SF2282 SSD controllers. It's an SSD that at first glance looks more like a graphics
card than an SSD, but make no mistake, it is an SSD, and what a machine it is.

According to our tests,  it's capable of transferring data at over 2GB/s, and is able to generate over 215,000 4K random write IOPS. Although there is nothing to stop you using the RevoDrive 350 as a system drive, as its bootable. The RevoDrive 350 really comes into its own when used as a 'scratch disc' for video, graphics, or audio editing."

Innovation in SSD technology


It is true to say that innovation happens all the time, in all walks of life. With SSDs being a relatively new technology, the speed of innovation in SSDs in the last four or five years has been nothing short of breathtaking.

In this category we are looking at what we consider to be groundbreaking innovations that have pushed SSD technology towards its current limits.

Antonis wrote - "There are two drives that I find to be innovative, each in their own way, first is the Plextor M6e M.2. and for all the reasons that are explained a few lines above. There is also the Corsair Voyager GTX, I know that this appears to be a USB3 flash drive, but inside we will find an SSD, relatively small when it comes to size but at the same time very powerful, made for people for whom speed is important.

As expected you can only say good things about Samsung, especially for their 3D V-NAND, and in my opinion, this was the most innovative moment of 2014."

Wendy Robertson wrote - "There have been many groundbreaking products this year. Intel and their DC P3700 enterprise grade PCIe SSD, and its innovative NVMe compliance. The Plextor M6e M.2. for taking the additional bandwidth available of an PCIe x2 M.2. interface, and making the best use of that extra bandwidth to increase performance.

The standout innovation in SSD technology this year, in my opinion, was Samsung's 3D V-NAND, a type of NAND that could be used in any SSD, and which offers faster NAND programming speeds, lower power consumption, and outstanding NAND endurance."

Best innovation in SSD technology Award

This award goes to Samsung for 3D V-NAND as deployed in their 850 PRO, 845DC PRO, and 850
EVO
SSDs.

So there we have it, the award winning SSDs of 2014 according to the myce.wiki SSD editors. But what do you think of our choices for this year? So go read our reviews, and from the selection of SSDs that we have tested, would you have chosen the same SSDs, or perhaps something different?

Have your say below as we'd love to hear your opinions.

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