GOODRAM IRDM PRO 480GB SATA SSD Review

Introduction GOODRAM IRDM PRO 480GB SATA SSD Review We welcome a new brand into our storage review categories today as I take a look at my first GOODRAM SSD, the IRDM PRO (product link). The GOODRAM IRDM PRO is a SATA3 drive which comes in the capacity options of 240, 480, and 960 GB. Who is GOODRAM? GOODRAM is a brand of Wilk Elektronik which was established in 1991. So, even if you haven't heard of them before, they aren't new to the field of memory products. They started out as a distributor of memory products and in 1996 they became the largest distributor of memory products in Poland. Then in 2003, the company launched their GOODRAM brand for memory products. The IRDM product lineup was launched in 2017 and it is one of them which I take a look at today. A Classic Form Factor and a Simple Design Let's start out small, with the drive design and form factor. The IRDM PRO is a classic 2.5-inch SSD with a height of 7 mm and a SATA connector. That combination makes it compatible with close to any system out there. The capacity options also offer something for everyone, from 240GB to 960GB. The design is as simple as the form factor, but it looks great. The casing is black and it has a black sticker on the top. On it, is the logo, drive name, and company name. Simple, but beautiful with the black and red colour theme. There is another large white sticker on the rear with the important drive details such as firmware version and serial number. GOODRAM also includes a 9.5mm spacer for those who need it. Some slot-in drive bays and portable systems will require these to mount the drive properly and securely. Hardware Components Inside the IRDM PRO are quality components. At the heart of the drive is a quad-core Phison PS3110 S10 controller which is paired with Toshiba A19 MLC NAND. It is rare to see MLC drives these days as most companies have transitioned to TLC. However, it is a pleasure for me whenever I do. MLC based drives, while a bit more expensive, deliver a better performance and endurance. The drive also comes with up to 1GB DDR3 cache to further boost the performance. How Well Does the IRDM PRO Perform? GOODRAM promises best-in-class performance and reliability which are some tough words to utter in such a competitive field. However, the base hardware does warrant such a statement. I need to note here that GOODRAM has to be commended for their specification transparency. They don't hide any facts, neither slower performance tests nor the actual capacity. There are few who do this. The three different drive capacities have almost the same performance rating. No doubt due to the MLC NAND and controller. All three read with 560MB/s and write with 530MB/s sequential. Write speeds for incompressible data drops to 520MB/s on the smallest and largest version of the IRDM PRO. The random 4K performance is rated at 100K IOPS when reading and up to 90K IOPS when writing on the 960GB drive. The 480GB and 240GB write with up to 88K IOPS. Those are some great figures for a SATA drive! Then What About the Endurance? Endurance is at least as important as performance. The IRDM PRO shines here too with a TBW rating of close to 1000TB. The 960GB version can handle a write load of up to 500GB a day for a 5-year period. We can divide that number by two to get the 480GB rating and again to get the 240GB drive rating. With the above TBW being calculated with a 5-year period, you probably already guessed it. GOODRAM offers a 5-year warranty on the drive. The MTBF is rated for over 2 million hours. Data Integrity and End-to-End Protection Features GOODRAM packed the drive with the features you'll want to make sure that your data is safe in any situation. The ECC protection with up to 120 bits per 2KB keeps the data save while the SmartRefresh offers end-to-end data protection. GOODRAM also added power loss protection through the proprietary SmartFlush and GuaranteedFlush technologies. Even in the event of a sudden power loss, your data will be flushed to the NAND and kept safe. Feature Highlights available capacity 240, 480 and 960 GB Phison S10 quad-core controller Toshiba A19 NAND flash MLC proprietary technologies like SmartRefresh™, SmartFlush™ and GuaranteedFlush™. 5 years warranty with free technical support Package and Accessories Black and red have traditionally been a symbol for high-performing and gaming products. The GOODRAM IRDM PRO could be considered as such and therefore it's fitting. The front shows the performance ratings and warranty along with a representation of the drive. On the rear side is a see-through part where you can see which drive is included. The backside itself has more details in regards to the specifications and usage scenarios. Inside is the drive itself as well as an adapter bracket for 9.5mm-sized drive trays. Testing & Methodology In a bid to make our testing as thorough and as accurate as possible, we have devised a testing methodology that will give us the maximum amount of data. While this means that testing each drive will take considerably longer – easily up 36 hours – the overall picture that we can gather is bigger too. It helps both you as the reader and us as the reviewer’s to gain a clearer view of the drive’s overall performance, strengths, and weaknesses. It also provides a more accurate analysis of how each drive performs under different conditions. Data Fillage There are many ways to test a storage drive, and we have chosen to include close to every test possible. We will start with a typical benchmark analysis of the formatted drive with various village scenarios. However, depending on how a drive is built, the performance may differ depending on how much data it is already storing. Testing this, the drive will be tested empty as well as with 25%, 50%, and 75% space usage. For these tests, we will be using Anvil’s Storage Utilities, AS SSD Benchmark, ATTO Benchmark, and CrystalDiskMark. Application and Gaming Besides these synthetic fill tests, the drive is tested with PCMark 8’s storage benchmark to get real-world performance results. Plain Drive Performance Following the fillage tests, the partition gets removed, and we check the drive’s raw performance. These tests will determine the hardware’s capabilities while eliminating any interference from the set file system. AIDA64’s storage benchmark and IOmeter are both great tools for this, and they help us paint an even clearer picture of the drive. The IOmeter tests I run are quite different from the rest as they will give a final result after a longer performance test rather than a maximum or average score; this gives us yet another view of the tested drive over the regular tests. Drive Conditioning Durability is a vital factor when it comes to NAND-based drives as the chips only can be rewritten so many times before they’ll stop working properly. Modern SSDs come with wear-level algorithms to increase the lifetime and reduce this factor as much as possible. We also take this into consideration in our reviews even tho it would take years to simulate this under real-world conditions. Luckily, Anvil’s Storage Utilities comes with an endurance test that can perform this action much faster, but it is still a time-consuming process. Depending on the hardware, this can easily take several days, and we write thousands and thousands of small files in various sizes and compressibility to drive over and over. Following this conditioning process, all of the previous benchmarks will be run again in the same scenarios and the same order. This will give us a great view of how a drive will perform after prolonged usage, and that is a very vital factor when you pick out your storage drive. The Preparation and In Between The drive will be formatted as NTFS with default settings, as most users will do. The quick format option isn't used as that might affect the performance the first time data is written. Modern operating systems all take care of the TRIM command in the background and it isn’t something to worry about for regular users. However, for these reviews, I will add a waiting period between each benchmark to make sure that the TRIM command has been fully executed and finished. After all, we want a clear picture of the drive’s performance with minimal interference from the operating system. On each page that follows with the benchmark results, I have inserted result screenshots from the benchmarks, created drive analysis chart for the fill-level performance, and added drive comparison charts where possible. Hardware Supermicro C7Z270-PG Intel Core i7-7700K Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4 2400MHz (4x8GB) Toshiba OCZ VX500 512GB SSD be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 (1200W) Noctua NH-D15S Cooler Master HAF XB EVO with Noctua NF-A14 FLX fans Software AIDA64 Storage Benchmark Anvil's Storage Utilities AS SSD Benchmark ATTO Benchmark CrystalDiskMark IOMeter PCMark 8 Storage Benchmark Windows 10 AIDA64 AIDA64 is a streamlined Windows diagnostic and benchmarking software for home users with a broad range of features to assist in overclocking, hardware error diagnosis, stress testing, and sensor monitoring. The app has unique capabilities to assess the performance of the processor, system memory, and disk drives and is compatible with most Microsoft Windows operating systems. It also has a disk benchmark tool, and that is the one I'll be using. Fresh Drive The Linear Read and Write tests measure the sequential performance by reading or writing all sectors without skipping any. It gives us a view of the drives overall performance from start to end. The Random Read and Write tests measure the random performance by reading or writing variable-sized data blocks at random locations on the surface of the drive. The Random tests are a combination of both speed and access times as it moves the position before each new operation. The Access time tests are designed to measure the data access performance by reading or writing small 0.5KB data blocks at random locations on the drive surface. Conditioned Drive The Linear Read and Write tests measure the sequential performance by reading or writing all sectors without skipping any. It gives us a view of the drives overall performance from start to end. The Random Read and Write tests measure the random performance by reading or writing variable-sized data blocks at random locations on the surface of the drive. The Random tests are a combination of both speed and access times as it moves the position before each new operation. The Access time tests are designed to measure the data access performance by reading or writing small 0.5KB data blocks at random locations on the drive surface. Drive Performance Analysis With the performance analysis, we get a good view of the drive's consistency. The straight line and a higher average performance are the things to look for here. Anvil's Storage Utilities Anvil’s Storage Utilities is a complete benchmark solution used to test any writeable storage drive. It also has a drive endurance test that consistently reads and writes data to the selected medium to deliver days, months, and potentially even years of use in a shorter period. Fresh Drive Conditioned Drive Drive Performance Analysis With the performance analysis, we get a good view of the drive's consistency. We want as straight a line as possible for a good result. Drive Comparison For the drive comparison, we will use the performance figures from empty drives here. AS SSD Benchmark The AS SSD software determines the performance of Solid State Drives (SSD). The tool contains five synthetic and three practice tests. The synthetic tests determine the sequential and random read and write performance of the SSD, and they aren't using the operating system cache. The copy tests are cached and as such not viable results at this time. Fresh Drive Conditioned Drive Performance Analysis With the performance analysis, we get a good view of the drive's consistency. We want as straight a line as possible for a good result. Drive Comparison For the drive comparison, we will use the performance figures from empty drives here. ATTO The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customise your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Fresh Drive Conditioned Drive Performance Analysis With the performance analysis, we get a good view of the drive's consistency. We want as straight a line as possible for a good result. Drive Comparison For the drive comparison, we will use the performance figures from empty drives here. CrystalDiskMark CrystalDiskMark is a small HDD and SSD benchmark utility that allows you to measure a drive's sequential and random performance. Fresh Drive Conditioned Drive Performance Analysis With the performance analysis, we get a good view of the drive's consistency. We want as straight a line as possible for a good result. Drive Comparison For the drive comparison, we will use the performance figures from empty drives here. IOMeter IOMeter is an I/O subsystem measurement and characterisation tool for single and clustered systems. As a benchmark and troubleshooting tool, it is configurable to replicate the behaviour of many popular applications. One commonly quoted measurement provided by the tool is IOPS. Sequential Performance Random 4K Performance Drive Comparison IOmeter is run on an unpartitioned drive. PCMark 8 Storage Benchmark PCMark 8 Storage benchmark tests the performance of SSDs, HDDs, and SSHD hybrid drives with traces recorded from Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office and a selection of games. You can test any recognised storage device, including local external drives. Unlike synthetic storage tests, the PCMark 8 Storage benchmark highlights real-world performance differences between storage devices. Fresh Drive Conditioned Drive Drive Comparison For the drive comparison, PCMark runs with an empty drive. Final Thoughts Pricing and Availability At the time of this review, the 480GB version which I tested isn't listed yet. Neither is the 960GB drive. But you can get the 240GB GOODRAM IRDM PRO for £89.61 at the time of this review. Final Thoughts Let us just start with the design, as usual. With a drive, there isn't a whole lot to play with in regard to design. It is a square element with a connector. Still, it is possible to make it stand out and look good. GOODRAM shows that with their IRDM PRO. The black casing with black and red sticker makes it look great. It's also a drive that will display very well in systems with visual drive mounts. The classic 2.5-inch form factor and 7mm height will make it fit and work with most systems. There's also a 9.5mm adapter bracket included in the event that your drive caddy is made for bigger drives. Performance and Endurance We saw a really strong performing SATA3 drive today. The IRDM PRO doesn't just perform at the maximum possible performance of the SATA3 interface, it also does so steadily. The combination of provent technology in the Phison S10 controller and Toshiba A19 MLC NAND pays off. It's great to see MLC-based drives in a time where TLC sits on the majority of the market, simply due to the costs per GB. MLC costs a little more, but it performs better too. We saw a truly steady performance across the whole test setup, and that's something I rarely see these days. A job which is very well done! GOODRAM knows they created a great drive with the IRDM PRO which shows in the 5-year warranty and high endurance ratings. Extra Features Two great features to have in any drive are end-to-end data protection and power-loss protection. In both cases, data could be lost in various situations without these protections. GOODRAM calls them SmartRefresh, SmartFlush, and GuaranteedFlush. So, you're covered in that aspect too. Pros Good and steady SATA3 performance Compatibility with most systems Available up to 960GB ECC, End-to-end Data Protection, and Power-loss Protection MLC-based drive which increases consistency and endurance Cons None "GOODRAM shows that the market for SATA3 drives isn't dead. The IRDM PRO performs well and with consistency as well as endurance." We would like to thank GOODRAM for this sample.