ADATA's XPG SX950 SATA SSDs: Up to 960GB, 3D MLC NAND, Six Year Warranty
by Anton Shilov on February 16, 2017 1:00 PM EST
ADATA has launched a new lineup of its XPG-series SSDs, with the new models featuring 3D MLC NAND flash and targeted at gaming PCs. The new XPG SX950 family drives use a SATA interface and on paper deliver the performance expected mainstream SSDs. The key selling point of the new XPG SX950 products will be their six-year warranty and enhanced endurance ratings.
The ADATA XPG SX950 resembles the company’s Ultimate SU900 drive announced late last year: both come in 2.5” form-factor, are based on the Silicon Motion SM2258 controller (four NAND flash channels, LDPC ECC technology, a DRAM buffer and pseudo-SLC caching support) as well as 3D MLC NAND - we presume from Micron. The XPG SX950 is a bit faster on paper as it supports sequential read speed of up to 560 MB/s as well as sequential write speed of up to 530 MB/s when pseudo-SLC caching is used. As for random performance, the XPG SX950 can perform up to 90K read IOPS and up to 90K write IOPS (see the table for details), which is a listed feature of the controller.
The key advantages of the ADATA XPG SX950 drives are their long warranty as well as endurance/reliability, which is why the manufacturer did not maximize capacities of the SSDs and left some extra memory for overprovisioning. The XPG SX950 family includes 240 GB, 480 GB, and 960 GB models.
| ADATA XPG SX950 Specifications | |||
| Capacity | 240 GB | 480 GB | 960 GB |
| Model Number | ASX950SS-240GM-C | ASX950SS-480GM-C | ASX950SS-960GM-C |
| Controller | Silicon Motion SM2258 | ||
| NAND Flash | 3D MLC NAND | ||
| Sequential Read | 560 MB/s | ||
| Sequential Write | 520 MB/s | 530 MB/s | |
| Random Read IOPS | Up to 80K IOPS | Up to 90K IOPS | Up to 90K IOPS |
| Random Write IOPS | Up to 90K IOPS | Up to 90K IOPS | Up to 85K IOPS |
| Pseudo-SLC Caching | Supported | ||
| DRAM Buffer | Yes, capacity unknown | ||
| TCG Opal Encryption | No | ||
| Power Management | DevSleep | ||
| Power Consumption | Active: 0.82 W Slumber: 0.41 W |
||
| Warranty | 6 years | ||
| MTBF | 2,000,000 hours | ||
| TBW | 200 TB | 400 TB | 800 TB |
| MSRP | $139.99 | $249.99 | $449.99 |
The ADATA XPG SX950 SSDs are the fastest SATA drives from ADATA that are rated for 2 million hours MTBF and featuring the longest warranty (six years). ADATA would seem to have maximized the performance of the XPG SX950 vs. predecessors and improved endurance of the products at the same time, in exchange for a small amount of space for provisioning.
The ADATA XPG SX950 SSDs are about to hit Amazon/Newegg soon and are expected to be available shortly. MSRPs for 240 GB, 480 GB and 960 GB drives will be $139.99, $249.99 and $449.99, respectively. The recommended prices of the XPG SX950 SSDs are slightly higher than the Ultimate SU900 series. Moreover, prices of the latter have dropped in retail since their announcement in 2016, so the actual difference will be even more significant initially. The slightly higher performance, improved endurance, and a six-year warranty will cost money, but it remains to be seen whether customers are willing to pay significant premiums for SATA drives today.
| ADATA XPG SX950, SU800 and SU900 MSRP Comparison | |||||
| 128 GB | 256 GB 240 GB |
512 GB 480 GB |
1 TB 960 GB |
2 TB | |
| SU800 | $59.99 | $79.99 | $139.99 | $269.99 | - |
| SU900 | - | $117.99 | $219.99 | $409.99 | unknown |
| SX950 | - | $139.99 | $249.99 | $449.99 | - |
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Source: ADATA
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beginner99 - Thursday, February 16, 2017 - link
Typos in table. TB instead of GB!surt - Tuesday, February 21, 2017 - link
Looks like they fixed it quickly, uses GB for capacity, TB for total write (TBW) now.BrokenCrayons - Thursday, February 16, 2017 - link
3D MLC is always nice, but I'm not sure the pricing is competitive enough to attract much interest.lilmoe - Thursday, February 16, 2017 - link
No it's not. OEMs are milking the crap out of us. It's definitely costs significantly less than 20% to produce tlc nand and we're well past the r&d payback preps. Yes, I'm looking at you Sammy. Smh...ImSpartacus - Thursday, February 16, 2017 - link
Ol' Sammy has some mindshare in the ssd market. A fair number of folks see them as desirability superior.Better milk it while you've got it.
Bullwinkle J Moose - Thursday, February 16, 2017 - link
TBW = 200TB and only a 6 year warranty?256GB Samsung 850 Pro only has a TBW of 150 but with a 10 year warranty for $10 less than the Adata
I would trust a 10 year warranty over an inflated TBW spec any day of the week
Besides, now that the leader of Samsung has been arrested (Today) I hope they can quickly raise the bribe money needed for his release with a massive sale for on Samsung SSD's
I could use a new 80" TV as well
samer1970 - Wednesday, February 22, 2017 - link
The warranty is both TBW AND Years the one that comes first.Meaning , If your samsung dies in 3 years because you write alot on it , they will not repleace it even after 3 years ONLY , they will say "you reached the TBW sorry"
TBW > Warranty
Topweasel - Friday, February 24, 2017 - link
True neither are very realistic on actual write endurance. These things should be able to go through Petabytes of writes. Which makes any failure to be likely electronic failure not related to write total. A long warranty becomes useless if it only covers 10% of the devices capable use.Gothmoth - Thursday, February 16, 2017 - link
give me a 2 TB SSD with 3 years warranty for 300 euro. doesn´t have to be that fastest on the market. if i want best performance i buy a m.2. but for DATA disk a mediocre SSD would be fine.the effort for keeping HDD´s absolutely quiet is killing me. my system is silent.. only think i hear is HDD´s when accessed.
ImSpartacus - Thursday, February 16, 2017 - link
Ikr?We've seemed to have topped out at 1TB for budget drives.
Larger stuff seems to be possible, but it's not getting cheap.