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While magnetic hard drives have been the mainstay of storage for the better part of the modern computer's history, there has been foreshadowing of the demise of using magnetic spinning platters to hold information. It was years ago that pundits said the hard disk drive would be phased out in favor of new solid state technology. The idea was simple; Remove the mechanical components from the computing experience and replace it with something that could be manufactured like a traditional electronic component.
The advantages touted were saving power, saving space, and having greater reliability along with a proper failure curve. The draw back to the SSD technology as it lives today is the storage space offered by the drives on the market as well as the cost. The latter problem is going away as manufacturers ramp up production and the former seems to still be slipping away as traditional magnetic storage reached the 2 Terabyte milestone just last month. Regardless, SSD technology is the future of computing. Traditional magnetic storage will most likely be relegated to high capacity backup instead of tape.
There are many new players in the storage market due to the advent of flash technology. Flash was the major driver of the push to SSDs. While there are similarities between Secure Digital cards and a Solid State Disks, it is the extras in a SSD that really push the technology forward. Flash memory has a limited number of write cycles and it is important that companies use proper wear leveling techniques to ensure a proper failure rate of the product.
Mtron was founded for SSD market since 2005 and has products that comprise all ranges of the market. The product being reviewed is the MOBI 3500 32GB 2.5" SSD. It is a value segment product but uses SLC (Single Level Cell) technology instead of using the cheaper MLC (Multi Level Cell). SLC products usually provide better performance and have a lower failure rate compared to MLC drives, but products such as the Intel X25-M have really proven that a company can make MLC drives that perform exceptionally well without compromise.
Mtron is a distributor of SSDs and manufacturers their own line of drives. Its technology is used in a few other manufacturer's product lines as well. The retail box has a very Apple-esque look to it. Additionally, the drive has a three year warranty.
Specs
| Host Interface | Interface | SATA revision 2.0 |
|---|---|---|
| Transfer Mode | PIO mode (0~4), DMA mode (0~2), Ultra DMA mode(0~6) | |
| Capacity (GB) | 16GB 32GB 64GB 128GB | |
| Form Factor | 2.5" | |
| Performance | Average Access Time* | 0.1 msec |
| Sustained Read** | 100 MB/sec | |
| Sustained Write** | 100 MB/sec | |
| IOPS*** (Sequential Read / Random Read) | 76,000 / 16,000 | |
| Power | Input Voltage | 5VCC±5% |
| Endurance | Write Endurance | >140 years @ 50GB write per day**** |
| Read Endurance | Unlimited | |
| Wear-leveling algorithm | Dynamic and static wear-leveling | |
| Data Retention | 10 years at 25℃ | |
| Reliability | MTBF | 1,000,000 hours |
| ECC | 7-bit Error Correction Code (ECC) | |
| Bad Block Management algorithm | ||
| Environment | Operating Temperature | 0~70℃ |
| Test Environment | 1. Test Item : MSD-SATA3525 ( 2.5 , 32GB, SATAâ…¡ ) 2. Test PC : AMD Athlon™ 4800+ DDR2 PC6400 1GB*2pcs (Dual channel), NVIDIA nForce 570 Ultra MCP (UDMA133), Window XP SP2 * HD Tach 3.0.1 ** ATTO Disk benchmark 2.41 *** IOMeter 2006.02.2704 **** based on the quarantined 100,000 program and erase cycle of flash memory from vendors and assumption, Sequential write | |