SK Hynix Gold S31 review: A great SATA SSD from the largest vendor you’ve likely never heard of - johnsonshaterecer

At a Glimpse

Expert's Paygrad

Pros

• Excellent performance
• 7 mm form gene fits in most laptops
• 5-year warranty

Cons

• Relatively low TBW rating

Our Finding of fact

In real life copies, this first SSD from SK Hynix, proved the quickest SATA drive we've ever tested. The price is right, and the company is actually one of the largest semiconductor device purveyors in the planetary so assume't let the name throw you. All the technology is in-house. A very good drive.

While you may never have heard of SK Hynix (nee Hyundai) , it's one of the largest semiconductor manufacturers on the planet. The company has been underdeveloped NAND and restrainer technology since the get-perish, and piece it's been the SSD OEM for numerous large computer vendors, it more often than not hasn't taken a place for itself along the shelves.

Why the keep company decided to suddenly go retail with its own Gold S31 2.5-inch SATA SSD, we can't say, but we're certainly fortunate about information technology. The drive away aced our material-world performance tests and won't break the bank.

This story is part of our ongoing roundup of the best SSDs. Go there for information connected competitive products and how we proved them.

Design and spectacles

The Gold S31 is a 7mm four-ply, 2.5-inch SATA III, 6Gbps drive that wish consort any PC and the majority of laptops that accept the phase factor. It uses SK Hynix's own 72-layer TLC (Triple-Even Cell/3-bit) NAND and Vitreous silica 4th generation controller. Sk Hynix was mum about the amount of DRAM or NAND cache on board, but kudos to the companion anyhow, it all works well.

SK Hynix

The Gilt S31 of course, has about gold in the logo. It's decent-looking, and an excellent performer on the livelong.

At the time of this writing, the Gold S31 is lendable online in 250GB ($50 on AmazonRemove non-product associate), 500GB ($70 connected AmazonRemove non-intersection link), and 1TB flavors—the size we tested—for $119 along Amazon, respectively. All capacities feature a 5-twelvemonth guarantee just unusually, the TBW (TeraBytes Scrivened—how some you can write to the drive before it degrades) ratings are not strictly linear. The 250GB unit is rated for 200TBW, while the 500GB model is only 300TBW, and the 1TB content, 600TBW. That's hardly Optane-like, merely to a higher degree all but users will spell in ten years, let alone five.

Too, word on the streets has generally been that SSDs regularly outstrip their lifespan ratings, which be given to exist conservative, away a fair piece, then I wouldn't sweat it.

Carrying out

I proved the 1TB rendering of the Gold S31, and the numbers ranged from good to excellent. Unequal some drives such every bit the Samsung 860 QVO on the charts therein article, at no clip did the Atomic number 79 S31 slack during the long 450GB single-file copy.

Our test with CrystalDiskMark didn't quite match the company claims, but we're talking about a subjectively unnoticeable 4-percentage shortfall in sustained writing, which didn't manifest itself in our real-world 48GB copies.

IDG

The Gold S31 wasn't rated quite atomic number 3 fast as the competition by CrystalDiskMark, but information technology proved faster in real globe testing as shown below.

When all was said and through in those real-world 48GB copies, the Golden S31 established the quickest aim we've ever so tested for sustained interpret and write trading operations. The 73-millisecond read, and 44-msec spell seeks measured by AS SSD ( a notoriously fickle test) are too quite good.

IDG

When it comes to real life king-size data transfers, the Gilt S31 is the fastest drive we've tested boilersuit.

Aside the total time copying metric shown above, the SK Hynix Gold S31 is the cream of the crop.

A good drive at the right cost

The Gilded S31 is a great first effort from SK Hynix. Given replaceable pricing, I'd opt for the Gold S31 over the Brobdingnagian majority of the 2.5-edge in SATA SSDs along the market.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/398103/sk-hynix-gold-s31-review-a-great-sata-ssd-from-the-largest-vendor-youve-likely-never-heard-of.html

Posted by: johnsonshaterecer.blogspot.com

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