Transcend SSD: IDE vs SATA - dishonest difference?

A

Alojzy Zakalec

Why when 2 analogous models of SSD are offered, from which one is SATA
and the second is IDE, then they so significantly differ in speed
although their price is identical?

For instace Transcend:

1.) IDE (PATA)
TS32GSSD25-M
Read up to 66MB/s, Write up to 47MB/s (32GB)
http://www.memoryc.com/storage/solidstatedisk/transcend32gbinternalssd.html

2.) SATA
TS32GSSD25S-M
Read up to 150MB/s, Write up to 90MB/s
http://www.memoryc.com/storage/solidstatedisk/transcend32gbsatassd.html

How to explain this? If they really were identical inside then just
IDE interface limited a transfer rate for IDE so the (PATA) numbers
rather should be:
Read 100MB/sec, Write up to 90MB/sec

------
If somebody have doubts about the source of these specs then voila -
there similar numbers on Transcend site:

The same models of SSD - with the exception of interaface:

1.) IDE http://tinyurl.com/ks4n9t
Performance:
SLC - Read up to 74MB/s, Write up to 62MB/s (8GB to 32GB)
Read up to 80MB/s, Write up to 70MB/s (64GB)
MLC - Read up to 74MB/s, Write up to 45MB/s (32GB, 64GB)
Read up to 68MB/s, Write up to 46MB/s (128GB)

2.) SATA http://tinyurl.com/loawg2
Performance:
SLC - Read up to 150MB/s, Write up to 90MB/s (8GB)
Read up to 150MB/s, Write up to 100MB/s (16GB)
Read up to 150MB/s, Write up to 120MB/s (32GB)
Read up to 170MB/s, Write up to 140MB/s (64GB)
MLC - Read up to 150MB/s, Write up to 50MB/s (16GB)
Read up to 150MB/s, Write up to 90MB/s (32GB to 192GB)

Simply THE SAME but 2 times faster than IDE (PATA), how does the name-
brand Transcend justify this *dishonest* difference?
 
A

Alojzy Zakalec

Offering the same capacity at the same price does not imply
they are necessarily otherwise identical.  Obviously they
cannot be, the controller is different and the controller
(and the tuning of it's firmware) largely determine the peak
speeds.

but the impression is PATA version has been neglected too much by the
producer which could do much more to saturate ATA100 limit -- it is
possible as other brands show:
http://www.dvnation.com/benchmarks-Solidata-SSD.html
 
A

Alojzy Zakalec

You won't find any "budget" SSD that saturates an ATA100 bus
on a regular basis, this is why other SSDs with better
controllers still have a premium price.

But in for SATA *also* are either budget SSDs or more "luxurious"
ones!
Please compare the same producer's, which offers PATA drives that
saturate ATA100 (Solidata), SATA SSDs:
http://www.solidata.hk/onlineshopitems/k6.htm
to Transcend SATAs:
http://tinyurl.com/loawg2
which is analogous to Trandcend's PATA drives.
And then take also into concideration the recent Transcend generation:
http://tinyurl.com/klkhp6
Not to mention in the above are relevant differences in price.

So this is still dihonest...
Wait a few years
and this may change, but then fewer and fewer will be
released with an ATA100 or ATA133 interface, will require an
adapter which is ok in a desktop but usually too bulky for
the available space in a laptop.

This adapter:
http://tinyurl.com/kvnccn
would fit to my laptop's hdd bay, as far as physical measuremnts are
concerned. But the problem is the benchmark
http://tinyurl.com/l3po79
shows it can do only as much as 66MB/s, none knows why... I am afraid
this could be true what is suggested in this article:
http://tinyurl.com/l5cop2
that many models of PATA SSDs (like this in the article) essentially
are SATA but with built in converter to PATA/IDE (maybe based on the
same controler which the adapter has) limiting the throughput to below
66MBps (while very SSD chips themselves run much faster!)
 

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