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Review on πŸ’Ύ ADATA ASP600S3-128GM-C Premier SATA III Superior Solid State Drive by Robert Farrar

Revainrating 5 out of 5

Excellent speeds but rather high power consumption

I got this SSD to replace a slow and old hard drive in my laptop (circa 2008). The SSD improves performance significantly, delivering a whopping 60x/40x 4K random read/writes over the old HDD in my tests (image attached on the product page in the "Customer Images" section). It is much lighter and stronger than an old hard drive, it is shockproof, does not generate noise and vibration unlike a traditional hard drive. I've only had good experiences with ADATA products (RAM, memory cards, flash drives) so I'm pretty sure this drive will last. However, there are a few minor issues: 1. After installing the drive, I noticed that the battery life was reduced from 5 hours 30 minutes to 5 hours. At first I thought it was just an active garbage collection that the drive is doing after an OS reinstall, but after the problem persisted for a few days I decided to test it by reinserting the old hard drive (I left its contents intact), and the battery life has increased to 5 hours 30 minutes. After searching the web, I found that this drive consumes 0.7 watts in idle mode and 1.5 watts in active mode, which is actually slightly more than a typical 2.5" hard drive (0.2 watts in sleep mode /standby, 0.5W standby and 1.4W active), reducing battery life. . This is by no means a deciding factor as the increased speed/durability more than makes up for it. This shouldn't be a problem for desktop users either. CPU/fan exhaust) gets noticeably hot to the point where it's uncomfortable to use on the lap for long periods of time. Again, this isn't a huge problem or deal breaker for me as I mostly place my laptop on a table. shouldn't be a problem for desktop users either. PROS: - Significantly faster than an older hard drive - More durable and shock resistant in a portable device - Doesn't vibrate or make noise like an old hard drive - Currently the cheapest 64GB SSD model I've found CONS: - Slightly declining battery life - noticeably warms up more than the old HDD ------- ------------------------- --- ------ ------------------- -------------------- ---- ------- -----UPDATE (05/29/13): SSD continues to google nicely. I've gotten used to the slight drop in battery life, but the heat issue continues to bother me. I'm keeping my rating at 4 stars because in the end the SSD made my old machine usable and extended its lifespan by a fraction of what it would take to replace it. But I'm really looking forward to the next version. ADATA will focus on improving power consumption and heat/heat dissipation as the competition in the SSD market increases and many other options with higher capacity and better performance will soon be available around this price. ---- ------ --- ------------------------------------- ----------- --- --- --------------------------------- - - - UPDATE 2 (2014-02-21): The SSD still works fine and works pretty much exactly as if it were brand new, so those interested in durability should can check the problems behind the door. Under normal client usage patterns and as long as TRIM is enabled on your system, the drive should maintain its performance and last a very long time.

Pros
  • Easy setup
Cons
  • There are more interesting options.