PNY Prevail Elite SATA 3 SSD Review – Performance Meets eMLC Endurance And Consumer Value

ATTO DISK BENCHMARK VER. 2.46

ATTO Disk Benchmark is perhaps one of the oldest benchmarks going and is definitely the main staple for manufacturer performance specifications. ATTO uses RAW or compressible data and, for our benchmarks, we use a set length of 256mb and test both the read and write performance of various transfer sizes ranging from 0.5 to 8192kb. Manufacturers prefer this method of testing as it deals with raw (compressible) data rather than random (includes incompressible data) which, although more realistic, results in lower performance results.

The PNY Prevail Elite is not hitting the performance at smaller file sizes quite as fast as some of the newer SSDs we are seeing lately but read performance of 554MB/s and write performance of 526MB/s is right in line with specifications.

CRYSTAL DISK BENCHMARK VER. 3.0 X64

Crystal Disk Benchmark is used to measure read and write performance through sampling of highly compressible data (oFill/1Fill), or random data which is, for the most part, incompressible. In the PNY Prevail Elite, we have displayed testing using highly compressible data on the left, compared to that of incompressible on the right.

blankblankOne thing that is always great to see is when the low 4k write performance exceeds the 100MB/s mark as we see here with the PNY Prevail Elite.  In comparison to the number of SSDs analyzed to date, very few have actually surpassed that ‘line in the sand’.

AS SSD BENCHMARK VER 1.6

Up until recently, AS SSD was the only benchmark created specifically for SSD testing and it uses incompressible data.  AS SSD, for the most part, gives us the ‘worst case scenario’ in SSD transfer speeds because of its use of incompressible data and many enthusiasts like to AS SSD for their needs. Transfer speeds are displayed on the left with IOPS results on the right.

blankblankAS SSD shows some decent numbers, especially when it comes to 4k-64Thrd IOPS performance, however, we have seen many SSDs boost that ‘Score’ result to over 1000 as of late.  The trade off, of course, is that none could brag about total life span as the Elite can. A recent trend with a few newer SSDs has also been to complete the AS SSD Copy Benchmark testing with consistent SATA 3 speeds and amazing total transfer times as we see here with the Elite:

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31 comments

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    Good one Les! Looks like a super good SSD. Hmmm, this or the 840 Pro???

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    I AM IN LOVE !!!!!!!!!!!!!

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    Wow… performance aside, 10K P/E eMLC, 5 year warranty at $1/GB? Unreal… Excellent review, Les.

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    I do not see the 480GB yet for sale. Soon I hope!

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    need more high performance eMLC and SLC SSDs at large capacity thats for sure. please bring out the 1tb version soon!

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    Are these eMLC NAND considered a ‘toggle’ type?

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    You can drop this baby on my doorstep any time – even the used and abused test drive 😉

    A 1TB version of this would be perfect for my daily laptop.

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    so I have heard, 10k PE is great and all but without proper functioning Trim it’ll just reduce life span of this thing.

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    Got this one instead of an xlr8k pro by mistake. But i can’t get the same writespeeds as this bechmark. About 150 MB/s in seq write. Any thoughts? I have an asus p8p67 pro (i5 2500k). And I don’t use any of the marvell ports.

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    The Prevail Elite I received has firmware 5.0.2 and PNY refuses to provide a update to fix the broken TRIM. It was returned. Shame on PNY! After staring at those warehouses full of Elite’s maybe they’ll get the point.

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      First and foremost, TRIM is not broken where it doesn’t work; it simply does not work at full capacity. Next, it takes time for companies to roll out updates as they have to validate the upgrades in house. Considering the PNY Prevail Elite is the ONLY consumer level SSD to use this memory…I might understand such.

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        Hi Les, great review. Considering one of these drives to replace my main
        desktops boot drive, however Yankee495’s comment has got me worried.
        What are the implications of running with FW 5.0.2 on a main boot drive?
        I’m also concerned that because PNY is not yet classed as main stream
        SSD supplier that FW updates may be slow to come (or worse still never
        come). Any thoughts on that….? Quick check on their website today shows no FW or any downloads to support this drive, although granted it is early days..

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        I spoke with PNY last week who stated the new FW will be present in the new drives ordered. I cannot answer with respect to their site but they are updating it continuously. IMHO…great drives at a great price. Today on Amazon the Prevail Elite eMLC drives were miss priced and a bunch of guys got them at a steal!

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        LOL that’s cool, wish I saw that.. might have had a few.

        Over here in the UK these are pretty had to find, although they are starting to show. Based on your excellent reviews I’ll certainly be fitting this or Sammy 840 Pro in the next few weeks as I’m out of space on my Tiny 60GB OCZ Agility 3! This drive might be small but it’s been a real trooper with no Sand-force firmware related BSOD or any problems for that matter and I’m running the old 2.15 FW (OCZ are upto 2.25!) You know the old saying, If it ain’t broke….

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        Absolutely…I have been listening to the vocal minority for years now with respect to dying SSDs and BSODs. It is an always has been a very rare occurrence, one I have never experienced in the hundreds we test and use. It’s similar to the SF broken firmware saga where people don’t realize but the firmware is actually not broke whatsoever, but rather, not working at full capability. TRIM still functions and very well for the average user.

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        Got mine yesterday, great drive which is working well. However it did come with FW 502 so hopefully PNY will have an update soon….

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        I just received update that PNY will be posting their update tool within the next week or so.

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        Thanks Les for the update. I’ll keep an eye out. Cheers Andy.

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    Hej Les! Can you tell me what’s your opinion on the PNY prevail elite 256GB vs. Samsungs SSD 840 Pro series 256 GB? Pricevise they are about the same… What about the durability and performance? As an ssd consumer which do you think is more important ? the PNY in better at durability but samsung has better performance…

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      The Elite has enterprose eMLC memory and this is the first consumer accessible drive to have this, whereas the pro is not yet available. Endurance definitely goes to the prevail Elite, whereas performance would go to the Samsung for high end audio or video work as it moves incompressible data quicker.

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    Sorry to hear that. We were told by PNY there would be no FW update as I posted here. I actually posted on the PNY blog which was never posted publicly by PNY but got an email response that PNY was up to 5.0.4 FW. So we bought one, FW 5.0.2, then PNY said no updates and then ignored further emails. In my book if it doesn’t work right, then it is broke. The shame of it is that none of the reviewers are admitting this. CALL THEM BEFORE YOU BUY to verify this yourself!

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    Hi, I purchased one of these and just installed and formatted it. I was a little surprised I was unable to find any firmware for this device anywhere, and judging from the comments here, I am correct.

    I installed on Windows 7, just did a standard format. It shows up as a SSD2SC240GE2DA16B-T ATA Device. But the driver is Microsoft, 6/21/2006, version 6.1.7600.16385.

    I’m a little concerned that what I’ve got installed is effectively the equivalent of running a nice video card under the standard VGA driver.

    I plan to clone my system drive onto this later, but I want to wait until I know I’m not missing a step entirely. I am shocked as to how little information is on the PNY site.

    Any advice would be awesome!

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    puts links of firmware because the site is no longer required

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