Does SP 512GB SSD 3D NAND A55 have SLC cache? Its 7mm slim design is suitable for Ultrabooks and Ultra-slim notebooks. Its remarkable transfer speeds that enable faster bootup and improved overall system performance. It comes with advanced SLC Cache Technology. Even more, it supports TRIM command, Garbage Collection technology, RAID, and ECC. Find details in SP 512GB SSD 3D NAND A55 review.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Form factor is great for ultrabooks
- Heatsink
- Free performance software
- Strong sustained write speeds
- SLC cache recovers quickly
- 5-year warranty and Samsung beating endurance
Cons
- Looks and feels cheap
- Performance not consistent
Specs – SP 512GB SSD 3D NAND A55
- Capacity64GB, 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, 2TB
- Interface SATA III
- Dimensions100.0 x 69.9 x 7.0mm
- Vibration Resistance Test 20G
- Shock Resistance Test1500G Max
- Weight 63g (max.)
- Performance Write(max.)ATTO: up to 530MB/s
- Performance Read(max.)ATTO: up to 560MB/s
- CDM: up to 500MB/s
- CDM: up to 450MB/s
- Operation Voltage5V
- MTBF (est)1,500,000 hours
- Adopts 3D NAND flash and “SLC Cache technology” to improve overall performance
- 15 x faster than a standard 5400 HDD with SATA III 6Gb/s interface
- NCQ and RAID ready
- ECC technology to guarantee reliable data transmission
- S.M.A.R.T. monitoring system
Compare SP 512GB SSD 3D NAND A55
| 500GB | 1TB | 2TB | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capacity (User / Raw) | 512GB / 512GB | 1024GB / 1024GB | 2048GB / 2048GB |
| Form Factor | M.2 2280 | M.2 2280 | M.2 2280 |
| Interface / Protocol | PCIe 3.0 x4 / NVMe 1.3 | PCIe 3.0 x4 / NVMe 1.3 | PCIe 3.0 x4 / NVMe 1.3 |
| Controller | Phison PS5012-E12S | Phison PS5012-E12S | Phison PS5012-E12S |
| DRAM | DDR3L | DDR3L | DDR3L |
| Memory | BiCS4 96L TLC | BiCS4 96L TLC | BiCS4 96L TLC |
| Sequential Read | 3,400 MBps | 3,400 MBps | 3,400 MBps |
| Sequential Write | 2,300 MBps | 3,000 MBps | 3,000 MBps |
| Random Read | 290,000 IOPS | 390,000 IOPS | 500,000 IOPS |
| Random Write | 510,000 IOPS | 450,000 IOPS | 600,000 IOPS |
| Security | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Endurance (TBW) | 400 TB | 800 TB | 1,600 TB |
| Warranty | 5-Years | 5-Years | 5-Years |
SP 512GB SSD 3D NAND A55 review
Design
The Silicon Power SSD has a standard 2.5” design with 100.0 x 69.9 x 7.0mm dimensions. The Silicon Power A55 SSD features a metal shell casing with the relevant details printed on it like the serial number, logo, and storage capacity. It uses a SATA 3.0 interface for data transfer and uses the standard M3 screw holes.
Controller
Phison’s PS5012-E12S PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe SSD controller is a quad-core, NVMe 1.3-compliant design that leverages two Arm Cortex R5 CPUs clocked at 666 MHz alongside lower-clocked dual co-processors. Phison’s third-generation Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) ECC, a RAID engine, and end-to-end data path protection ensures reliability and consistency. The drive supports S.M.A.R.T. data reporting and Trim, but it doesn’t support AES 256-bit hardware encryption.
Read and write speed
The Silicon Power A55 SSD has read speeds that are on par with its contemporaries, like the Samsung 860 EVO, however, its write speeds are much slower—sometimes as much as 20%. For example, the ADATA SU800 has write speeds of 520MB/s; the Ace A55 has peak write speeds of 450MB/s, which is about 13% below the SU800. That isn’t terrible, but its write speed would often drop to 370MB/s, which is about a 30% drop in performance compared to the SU800’s write speeds.
Transfer rate
The file transfer test shows a pretty good result for the Silicon Power A55 512GB with it beating the MydigitalSSD by about 15% and the Patriot Burst 480GB trails all the way in the back with 141MB/s. It keeps up a decent pace with the performance king we had earlier this month the Crucial MX500.
Software
Silicon Power provides a very basic SSD Toolbox. With it, you can monitor the capacity used, the total bytes written to the drive, and temperature as reported by the SSD’s S.M.A.R.T. data. It also has a built-in diagnostic scanner.
SP 512GB SSD 3D NAND A55 Customer review
Great bang for the buck
I purchased a Dell laptop for my wife and had the choice of a 256GB SSD or a 1TB hard drive and figured the extra storage was the way to go. That was a mistake. Right out of the box the HDD was constantly pegged at 100% constantly. Her user experience was not great to say the least. Two things solved her problem. The first was getting this SSD, the second was installing bare Windows 10 on it, without all the Dell bloatware. It used to take several minutes before the system was useable after boot, now it is about 20 seconds after turning the system on. I purchased a 256GB Silicon Power Ace SSD a while back to make an old dual core Celeron useable (which it did quite well), and now this SSD makes a Ryzen 5 laptop actually run like a Ryzen 5. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this drive to anyone.
By Winman99 at Best Buy
Alternate of SP 512GB SSD 3D NAND A55
Crucial P5 Plus
Specs
- Capacity: 250GB, 500GB, 1TB, 2TB
- Controller: Crucial PCIe 4.0 Gen
- Memory: Micron 176-layer TLC flash
- Interface: M.2 PCIe 4.0 x4
- Seq. read: 6,600MB/s
- Seq. write: 5,000MB/s
Pros
+In-house eight-channel PCIe 4.0 controller
+Micron’s latest 176-layer TLC NAND memory
+Five-year warranty
Cons
-Runs a tad toasty
-Mediocre 4K random access performance
Crucial is one of the big names in affordable solid state storage, but has been notably slow at getting us a new PCIe 4.0 SSD. It’s been worth the wait, however, as the new P5 Plus is a fantastic entry-level Gen4 SSD. It may not have the peak speeds of the WD or Sabrent competition, but it can make a big splash in terms of those all-important price/performance metrics.
Since the first Gen4 SSDs launched there has been a quite significant price premium as a barrier to entry, and with the P5 Plus that has come down a hell of a lot. Using parent company, Micron’s latest NAND flash memory, and it’s own in-house controller, Crucial has been able to keep costs down and performance up.
And, also importantly, it can easily outperform any PCIe 3.0 drive you can to mention, and for practically the same price. Even if you’re not running a motherboard with a PCIe 4.0 interface this will still work in an older PCIe 3.0 setup, and at the limits of that connection.
In the rarefied air of PCIe 4.0 speeds it’s maybe a little lacklustre in peak and random performance, but it’s rocking TLC memory, not QLC, is still pretty damned quick compared to older drives, and is fantastically affordable.
Editor’s recommendations
- WD Black 1TB SN750 NVMe internal gaming SSD solid state drive – Gen3 PCIe M.2 2280 review
- Crucial MX500 2TB 3D NAND SATA 2.5 inch internal SSD up to 560MB/s review
- WD_Black 1TB SN850 NVMe internal gaming SSD solid state drive – Gen4 PCIe review
- Crucial P5 1TB 3D NAND NVMe internal SSD up to 3400 MB/s – CT1000P5SSD8 review
- Samsung 980 Pro 2TB PCIe NVMe Gen4 internal gaming SSD M.2 (MZ-V8P2T0B/AM) review
