Zalman N series 128GB SSD review

Zalman N Series 128GB SSD

What, you didn't know that the goddesses of cooling are also selling SSDs ? Yeah they sure do, and they even embed a SandForce SF-1222 controller in its N Series line. Now granted that's not the hot new SATA 6G stuff, but if you feel that up-to 280 MB/sec reads and 270 MB/sec writes do not suck ... then you better read this review alright.

Being fashionably late to market with this product series the SSD series will sell at 64GB ($169) and 128GB ($289). Performance wise this drive should be as fast as the Vertex 2 series for example. Yeap, we'll be peeking at the new N series SSDs from Zalman.

But allow me to explain this first ... Zalman actually has two series active and running in the market as we speak. One of them is labeled as the S Series and will employ controller chips created by JMicron, while the more powerful N Series (tested today) will use SandForce controllers.

The S Drives will be, at least at first, three in number, will have capacities of up to 128 GB and will sport read and write speeds of up to 280 MB/s and 210 MB/s. The 32 GB and 64 GB models will be limited to about 60 MB/s and 120 MB/s, respectively.

The prices for each drive are: $100 (32 GB), $150 (64 GB) and $250 (128 GB) and will be optimized for ACHI mode and sure, Windows 7 TRIM command is fully supported.

The second product line we test today is based on the more popular and powerful SandForce controllers, it will offer higher performance, of up to 280 MB/s when reading and 270 MB/s when writing.

Armed with a decent three year warranty the N series will be available in only 64 GB and 128 GB capacities, with prices of $170 and $289, respectively. Have a peek at the product after which we'll dive straight into the full review.

Zalman N Series SATA II 2.5" SSD

Zalman recently started to introduce new SSDs based on SandForce controllers into the market, we expect good availability starting April 2011. The performance of this all new N series SandForce 1200 based SSD is advertised at 280/270MB/Sec (Read/Write). This SSD series initially became available in 64GB and 128GB volume storage sizes due to large data-compression partitions, upcoming TBA models will include 40GB and 256GB volume sizes as well.

Check out the features

• N series 64/128GB
• WIndows 7 TRIM support
• Seek Time: .1ms
• Slim 2.5" Design
• 99.8 x 69.63 x 9.3mm
• Operating Temp: 0°C ~ 70°C
• Storage Temp: -45°C ~ +85°C
• Low Power Consumption: 2W in operation,
  .5W in standby
• Max Read: up to 280MB/s
• Max Write: up to 270MB/s
• Sustained Write: up to 200MB/s

The SSD utilizes SandForce's SATA II version of the SF-1200 controller, which is adopted by other players in the market as well, e.g. Corsair, GSKILL, ADATA and OCZ. The controller adds support for newer NAND memory types as in 32nm and 25nm memory. New 25nm NAND Flash memory is cheaper to manufacture, thus cheaper for companies to implement, and for you as a consumer cheaper to purchase.

The read and write speeds for the tested model are advertised at a blazing 280 MB/sec read and 270MB/sec write performance (measured with ATTO test software), which makes the product position itself in the extreme high-end SSD segment. Good performance but at a price alright.

Now normally we see the competitive Indilinx Barefoot controller paired with 64MB of Elpida cache memory in the latest SSDs. SandForce however does not need that cache memory. Sandforce uses a complex real-time data compression, saving on cache needs. Enabling it to write random I/O extremely fast, instead it hogs some of the NAND FLASH memory to use as cache. To manage all the multi-channel controller loving embedded into the controller we see a tiny processor inside the controller, and next to it a small NAND memory cache.

Why is that a so important to that random I/O you ask. Well, history tought us the hard way that most budget SSDs had a 1st generation JMicron controller with very little cache (8KB / 16KB), and the issue there is that if they need to write a lot of really small files simultaneously these drives start to choke up every now and then, your a-typical data bottleneck within a storage unit. Large data-caches solve that issue very well.

JMicron now has gotten a bit of a bad reputation in the SSD market because its controllers suffered from that bottleneck issue due to lacking caches, but the new JMF612 incorporates 128MB of DDR2 cache for stuffer-free performance.

So a big help totally bypassing the small files issue for SSD drives is using a nice big mamma SDRAM buffer, or the approach that SandForce takes should be more than sufficient as well. Let's strip the product down though.

In the above photo we see the SSD. The is paired with (MLC) flash memory chips. Including a count on the backside we spot 16 chips in total. As stated a chunk of the NAND Flash memory is reserved for drive wearing and data compression, hence the somewhat weird final SSD size, after a format you'll have a 111GB partition, out of the 128GB advertised.

To the middle you can spot the SandForce SF1200 controller chip. Everything combined form the heart and soul of the SSD.

We have stated it many times and explained this quite a bit, but the seek time on SSD drives are insane; nothing short of amazing, at less than 1ms -- 0.1ms as we actually can measure. The average seek time for a traditional HDD is roughly 9ms. Do the math, hey, no more moving and spinning mechanical components is the key here.

The traditional HDD is a limiting factor on the overall PC experience. Also, storage performance like this will, for example, greatly enhance load times of Photoshop, Generic applications, Office, games load times and even simple stuff like browsing the web will become a much faster experience.

One small note before moving on, you'll receive a three year warranty on the product, which we feel is quite good.

Installation and recommendations

On this page we want to share some thoughts on how to increase the lifespan and performance of your SSD. But first, the installation.

Installation of an SSD drive is no different than installing any other drive. Connect the SATA and power cable, and you are good to go. Once you power on that PC of yours, the first thing you'll notice; no more noise. That by itself is just downright weird opposed to the old fashioned spinning platters in an HDD.

My system boot drive many moons ago was a WD Raptor and when that HD is crunching, you know the HDD is alive alright. That's just no longer a reality. You will look at the SSD wondering "is that thing even working?", while the Windows 7 logo has already appeared on your monitor.

So no more purring and resonating or other weird noises. Completely silent, I like that very much.

The second factor you can rule out is heat. Modern day HDDs tend to get hot, or at the least quite warm. When not cooled down they can reach 40-50 Degrees C pretty easily. No worries though as the HDD can handle it, yet the SSD remains completely cool to lukewarm. Most SSD drives will get to roughly 25 Degrees C.

Then there's that first boot up on the SSD, weird ... it's fast ... really fast. That's where you'll get the first smile on your face. But let's talk about taking some precautions, remember this is an MLC based drive, we want it to last at least ten years right?

SSD life-span recommendations

Drive wearing on any SSD based drive will always be a ghost in the back of your mind. Here are some recommendations and tips for a long lifespan and optimal performance. Basically, what is needed is to eliminate the HDD optimizations within Vista (that cause lots of small file writes like superfetch and prefetch), things like background HDD defragmentation (that causes lots of small file write drive activity). In short (and this is for Vista and Windows 7):

• Drive indexing disabled. (useless for SSD anyway, because access times are so low).
• Prefetch disabled.
• Superfetch disabled
• Defrag disabled.

So make sure you disable prefetchers. Also, especially with Vista and windows 7, make sure you disable defragmentation on the SSD disk. You do not have a mechanical drive anymore so it is not needed, let alone you do not want defragmentation to wear out your drive, and Vista does this automatically when your PC is in idle (picking it's nose).

Don't get me wrong though, you could do a defrag without any problems, you just do not want that to be regular.

For Superfetch/prefetchers and other services, at command prompt just type: services

Use Windows 7 / Vista's services to disable them. To disable defragmentation:

Windows 7 and Vista Automatic Defrag:

1. Click Start
2. Click Control Panel
3. Select the Control Panel Home
4. Click System and Maintenance
5. Under the Administrative Tools section at the bottom, click Defragment your hard drive
6. You may need to grant permission to open the disk defragmenter
7. Click or unclick Run automatically (disable) depending if you want this feature enabled or disabled.
8. Click OK

OR alternatively at the Vista start prompt just type : dfrgui

Now over time your SSD will get a little fragmented but it's NAND flash and there's no mechanical head moving back and forth to access that data so just leave it disabled.

Windows 7 and the SSD TRIM feature

Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 support the TRIM function, which the OSs use when they detect that a file is being deleted from an SSD.

When the OS deletes a file on an SSD, it updates the file system but also tells the SSD via the TRIM command which pages should be deleted. At the time of the delete, the SSD can read the block into memory, erase the block, and write back only pages with data in them. The delete is slower, but you get no performance degradation for writes because the pages are already empty, and write performance is generally what you care about.

Note that the firmware in the SSD has to support TRIM, but the good news is that firmware updates are coming out for many SSDs to add TRIM support.

TRIM only improves performance when you delete files. If you are overwriting an existing file, TRIM doesn't help and you'll get the same write performance degradation as without TRIM.

Enable AHCI

The last tip we want to give you to gain a little extra performance boost is that you enable AHCI mode. AHCI mode can help out greatly in performance for SSDs. Now, if you swap out an HDD for an SSD with the operating system cloned and THEN enable AHCI in the BIOS, then you'll likely get a boot error / BSOD.

The common question is, is there a solution for this ?

To answer that question (and as we do safely with all modern chipsets) there is a way to safely enable AHCI mode. Here we go:

1. Startup "Regedit"
2. Open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SYSTEM / CurrentControlset / Services
3. Open msahci
4. In the right field left click on "start" and go to Modify
5. In the value Data field enter "0" and click "ok"
6. exit "Regedit"
7. Reboot Rig and enter BIOS (typically hold "Delete" key while Booting)

In your BIOS select "Integrated Peripherals" and OnChip PATA/SATA Devices. Now change SATA Mode from IDE to AHCI.

You now boot into windows 7 or Vista, and the OS will recognize AHCI and install the devices. Now the system needs one more reboot and voilla ... enjoy the improved SSD performance.