MyDigitalSSD Bullet Proof 128GB mSATA Review

[PsyberEMT]

I received my 64GB bulletproof about a week ago. Haven't noticed anywhere near the speeds you guys are seeing. I just upgraded to FW 15 (from 14), and am getting more stable results, but my benchmarks are wayyyy more jagged than the ones I'm seeing on this thread. My rig is a Lenovo W520, i7 2760QM, 16GM RAM. The BIOS is the latest from Lenovo, SATA interface set to AHCI. Running the latest version of Intel Rapid Storage / chipset drivers. Anyone else see results like these? Am I missing a setting / driver somewhere? Not that it matters (I wouldn't think) but my data drive is a Seagate Momentus XT 500GB. O/S and most program files are on the SSD.

The slower of the two benchmarks that is extremely varied and sawtoothed is firmware 14, the more smooth, slightly faster is fw 15.

[MyDigitalSSD]

I received my 64GB bulletproof about a week ago. Haven't noticed anywhere near the speeds you guys are seeing. I just upgraded to FW 15 (from 14), and am getting more stable results, but my benchmarks are wayyyy more jagged than the ones I'm seeing on this thread. My rig is a Lenovo W520, i7 2760QM, 16GM RAM. The BIOS is the latest from Lenovo, SATA interface set to AHCI. Running the latest version of Intel Rapid Storage / chipset drivers. Anyone else see results like these? Am I missing a setting / driver somewhere? Not that it matters (I wouldn't think) but my data drive is a Seagate Momentus XT 500GB. O/S and most program files are on the SSD.

The slower of the two benchmarks that is extremely varied and sawtoothed is firmware 14, the more smooth, slightly faster is fw 15.

PsyberEMT, we are working with people on the 64GB mSATA and there is a thread dedicated to the issues that people are having with the 64GB product.

Check in the main SSD category here and you should see the thread right at the top as it has been a hot topic.

But I will give you some history. The 64GB has never been as fast or stable as the 128GB but recently Toshiba forced us to change over to 24nm flash on this 64GB product instead of the 32nm flash we used to use and that has dramatically increased the differences between the 64GB and 128GB mSATA that we offer.

We are selling many pcs of the 64GB each day and all of our re-sellers have chimed in on the subject saying that so few people are having these problems that is is not time to discontinue or halt sales of the product. For example we have sold well over 400pcs of the 64GB since the change over and have only had around 6 people return their 64GB drive due to poor performance. The controller manufacturer is working to figure out what this problem is exactly but it is gong to take some time.

Side note: They are expecting FW16 to the their best FW yet with many new improvements on Trim and wear leveling.

At this time I am advising anyone with this problem to ether upgrade to the 128GB, hold on for FW16 and possibly other updates specific to this issue, or to send the product back for a full refund.

MyDigitalSSD

[Da3veP]

I received my Lenovo Y470 and MyDigitalSSD 128GB mSATA last Thursday and spent two days trying to get the system to sensibly boot either the mSATA in the 'wan' slot or the original HDD in it's slot, armed with little more than the system restore disks and an old copy of Acronis' Partition Expert... Reached detente as I could never quite get what I wanted... restore disks always make 14 GB partition on the drives which I could not shrink or remove without windows refusing to boot. Also, having two identical windows drives caused windows (7) to move the root drive from C: to E: when I had both HDD and mSATA in at the same time which caused all kinds of program installer problems... Most programs just don't expect that root is E:. Anyway, finally hid the small boot partition on the HDD and so if I want to boot it will have to unhide it, but at least the booting mSATA stays C: and I can read/write data to the HDD and boot it with a little effort if I want to.
Anyway, glad I got the 128GB because I still lose 14GB to the stupid restore partition I can't remove (well, I can remove it, but the system won't boot if I do). This whole process would no doubt be easier if loading windows from a separately purchased copy, but this is the way it is when using the OEM laptop stuff. Just FYI.

Anyway, I ran some tests with PCMark 7 for comparison purposes. I ran the first one with the HDD and Nvidia GPU off, but at some point afterward after the 3rd or 4th system restore I must have accidentally erased it. But I have direct mSATA vs. HDD for with the Nvidia GPU on so that's probably all that is important, in this thread, anyway.

The original HDD Lenovo claims is a 500GB 7200RPM drive, so it is kind of a quick drive compared to some laptop drives at 5400 RPM.

PCMark 7 Basic Edition v1.0.4

Column 1 Original 7200RPM HDD/Nvidia 550M GPU On
Column 2 MyDigitalSSD 128GB /Nvidia 550M GPU On
Column 3 MyDigitalSSD 128GB /Nvidia 550M GPU Off (Intel graphics ON)

PCMark score 2470 3574 3890
Video playback and transcoding:
Video playback 23.03 fps 23.07 fps 23.16 fps
Video transcoding - downscaling 5425.82 kB/s 5443.4 kB/s 17560.78 kB/s
System storage - gaming 4.01 MB/s 10.89 MB/s 11.19 MB/s
Graphics - DirectX 9 24.87 fps 24.6 fps 15.05 fps
Image manipulation 9.47 Mpx/s 9.49 Mpx/s 9.26 Mpx/s
System storage - importing pictures 5.77 MB/s 18.72 MB/s 18.47MB/s
Web browsing and decrypting:
Web browsing 13.75 pages/s 13.07 pages/s 14.22 pages/s
Data decrypting 86.91 MB/s 89.71 MB/s 87.97 MB/s
System storage - Windows Defender 1.32 MB/s 4.26 MB/s 4.36 MB/s

As you can see in the table, the mSATA drive is considerably faster in use than the original HDD. System storage gaming goes from about 4MB/s to about 11MB/s (2.75x) , system storage importing pictures goes up about 3.25x and system storage windows defender goes up about 3.25x as well.
Additionally, the system is super quiet as while I write this, neither the data drive is spun up (I set the hdd off timeout way low) nor the fan is operating.
The system definitely 'feels' quicker running with the mSATA as boot than when running with the HDD drive as the boot drive, it is definitely noticeable.

I included the column for Nvidia 550M gpu off just for the record. Note that the video transcoding is crazy fast for the built in Intel graphics since it has hardware specifically targeted to speed that up in the chipset. However, the Nvidia GPU is faster on actual 3D rendering.

Anyway, hope this is useful to someone. It was many hours of sweat to get this together.

PS. by way of additional Y470 review with msata information, it is a total scream for a 14" laptop and adding an mSATA (which fits easily into the empty WAN slot!) makes it even faster. I imagined that adding the mSATA as boot drive would improve battery life (so the HDD could spin down as a data drive), but Windows predicts battery life anywhere from about an hour and a half to over 6 hours depending on whether the GPU and quad cores are on full or if just idling along on text stuff- I haven't fully discharged it and tested it, but it seems about right. This thing can eat so much power that I can't really tell if the mSATA made any difference. The touchpad bar buttons are awful, though. They are so bad I am compelled to complain about them somewhat off topically (sorry). I was worried about that when I ordered it because every 'bar' button touchpad I've tried has buttons that are very difficult to press vs. Discrete buttoned touchpads. I was not disappointed... in being disappointed . This laptop would be just about perfect if it had the same quality touchpoint/touchpad combo that's on the Thinkpads. Just saying.
_____________
Lenovo Ideapad Y470 (0855-2JU) | i72670QM 2.20/3.10Ghz | 4GBx2 | 14" 1366x768 | GT 550M (w/Optimus)| 128GB MyDigitalSSD mSATA SSD | 500GB/7200RPM | Blu-ray reader/DVD writer

[1806]

Side note: They are expecting FW16 to the their best FW yet with many new improvements on Trim and wear leveling.

I flash FW15 on my Z835.
when we get FW16?

[sisqo_uk]

Would there be any particular reason why my msata would go slower? i had 7.4 wei score. when it was 6.9 i checked with crystaldiskmark software and my speeds where satisfying but the 4k random read was 9 and writes were 23, bit slow compared to website.
i reinstalled the laptop and now my ssd is slower with 6.8 wei score. my firware is 14

what would be the cause for it to be slower despite a fresh install from factory image?

[sonic28]

I received mydigitalssd 128g
and lenovo thinkpad T420 (i5-2420)
I got a wei score 7.3

After a clean install + common software
my test results are:
Sequential Read : 256.417 MB/s
Sequential Write : 215.137 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 158.532 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 144.140 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 7.919 MB/s [ 1933.5 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 33.355 MB/s [ 8143.2 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 70.840 MB/s [ 17294.9 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 46.346 MB/s [ 11315.0 IOPS]

Satisfied

[votinhmirc]

I'm trying to get me one after read 22 pages. And i try to get 10$ back too . So i think put this link in my sign isn't a big deal . Going to order now !!!

[MyDigitalSSD]

I got a sneak peak at the newest FW last night. It will defiantly be an improvement. Should be ready for release sometime next week. The major improvements are on the Trim functions. This should stop any slowdown over time.

MyDigitalSSD

Due to NBR policy constraints regarding linking directly to a reseller sites - everyone with the MyDigitalDiscount link in their sig please change it to the MyDigitalSSD web site. Don't worry you will still get your discount if you haven't already got it.

[AceTech]

Thinking about getting one of these drives for my laptop which is coming in today. Is the 128gb mydigital still made with the 34nm memory?
Also putting the link in for the discount in case I do order it.

Michael

Lenovo Y470P

[MyDigitalSSD]

Thinking about getting one of these drives for my laptop which is coming in today. Is the 128gb mydigital still made with the 34nm memory?
Also putting the link in for the discount in case I do order it.

Michael

Lenovo Y470P

Yes sir it is still 34nm and they are in stock at our resellers right now.

MyDigitalSSD