Transcend SSD370 SSD Review (256GB) – Great SSD Value Point

ANVIL STORAGE UTILITIES PROFESSIONAL

Anvil Storage Utilities (ASU) are the most complete test bed available for the solid state drive today.  The benchmark displays test results for, not only throughput but also, IOPS and Disk Access Times.  Not only does it have a preset SSD benchmark, but also, it has included such things as endurance testing and threaded I/O read, write and mixed tests, all of which are very simple to understand and use in our benchmark testing.

Transcend SSD370 SSD Anvil

Anvil Storage Utilities result in a great Total Score, all performance shown here being relatively consistent with listed specifications.  Disk access times played a key role in this Total Score.

PCMARK VANTAGE X64 HDD SUITE

The SSD Review uses benchmark software called PCMark Vantage x64 HDD Suite to create testing scenarios that might be used in the typical user experience. There are eight tests in all and the tests performed record the speed of data movement in MB/s to which they are then given a numerical score after all of the tests are complete. The simulations are as follows:

  • Windows Defender In Use
  • Streaming Data from storage in games such as Alan Wake which allows for massive worlds and riveting non-stop action
  • Importing digital photos into Windows Photo Gallery
  • Starting the Vista Operating System
  • Home Video editing with Movie Maker which can be very time consuming
  • Media Center which can handle video recording, time shifting and streaming from Windows media center to an extender such as XBox
  • Cataloging a music library
  • Starting applications

TRANSCEND SSD370 SSD PCMARK VANTAGE RESULTS

The Transcend SSD370 resulted in a Total Score high of 83585 points, with a high transfer speed of 461MB/s while importing pictures through Windows Photo Gallery.  Something we never expected was the fact that this is the highest PCMark Vantage result we have ever attained in a notebook SSD, and further, all eight HDD suite tests had results that we might only see through SATA 3.  We conducted this test 3 times to ensure the first test wasn’t a fluke, and actually, I did it once more while compiling this report and still got 85383 points.

Transcend SSD370 SSD PCMark Vantage Score

Our SSD Hierarchy shown here places top SSDs in order of ranking, understanding that this hierarchy is ONLY the result of the PCMark Vantage Total Score.

Transcend SSD370 SSD PCMark Vantage Chart

33 comments

  1. blank

    Hi Les. Nice review. I have same ideas with you as being a Transcend owner. I have been using a Transcend SSD 320 SATA III MLC 128GB for two years. It has asynchronous NAND chips and Sandforce 2281 controller. Despite its asynchronous NAND chips and old controller it is perfect. No problem, no fail. I am completely satisfied with Transcend products. I also have some Transcend Jetflash USB drives and they are also rocky. When you look at the electronic market you will see that Transcend SSD 370 is the Top Value SSD on the market. Competitors are Sandisk Ultra II TLC, Samsung Evo 840 TLC and Crucial MX 100. Transcend SSD 370 MLC is cheaper than the cheapest TLC rival (Sandisk Ultra II TLC). Transcend means reliability for me. If you need a GOOD! SSD you can buy this. You will never regret.

    • blank

      Wow… that is a totally unexpected and great voice of support for Transcend. Thank you.

    • blank

      In my oppinion this sounds like a company marketing speech…

      • blank

        Transcend is not an American Company. So it does not need such speeches. And your opinion is an American Opinion.

      • blank

        We can validate that this person has no association with the company.

      • blank

        I thank you Les. I am only a Simple! Tech Reader. I am only a Simple Consumer and have been reading about Computing Technology for years. I am not an expert like you. But I am very curious. On the other hand Transcend is a Giant!! and does not need Trolls!

      • blank

        >. On
        the other hand Transcend is a Giant!! and does not need Trolls!

        Yep, they are really big in memory space. While i agree, that they don’t need trolls, they do need even more competitive pricing. Big guys that manufacture NAND are really crushing them in value segment.

    • blank

      Hate to brake it to ya, but transcend doesn’t really make ssds. Mostly they just slap their badge on the drive and in this case on the controller aswell. So its really not any different from other SM 20nm Micron drives. Same goes for their sandforce and jmicron line. Rebrands and reference designs with transcend badge slapped on it.

      • blank

        Not correct at all and confirmed this prior to responding here. Transcend works with its own manufacturing facility and engineering team, just like the makes of every other manufacturer, and do not use 3rd party assembly where they might simply brand the product.

      • blank

        Still doesn’t change the fact, that don’t actually make anything on their own. As i’ve said, they use 3rd party controllers, nand and dram. Who puts it all together, doesn’t really matter that much.
        Reliability and performance is in most cases determined by controller and nand used, not manufacturing facility, that puts everything together.
        Just look at all the sandforce drives. ALL of them had the same issues (even though lots of companies did manufacturing and packaging nand themselfs) even big guys like intel.

        So yeah. If a SM based drive is sold by transcend, doesn’t make it any more reliable nor faster than any other SM based drive.

      • blank

        I don’t remember anyone claiming a comparison on reliability or quality, simply personal opinion on preference. On the other hand, you tried to change the tied of opinion with a flat out false statement that wasn’t correct. Using your analogy, 99% of SSD manufacturers fall into the same category as Transcend because it is extremely rare to see ANY 100% proprietary component based SSDs. if we are going to provide a viewpoint, let’s keep it factual, thus eliminating our consideration as to whether false info should be removed.

      • blank

        Fair enough. I just figered Transcend falls into the same category as dozens of other OEMs, that really don’t do any manufacturing at all, just rebranding. To be fair, this is a common practice with OEMs, that have to source all the components from 3rd parties. So it was a reasonable conclusinon, that turned out wrong.

      • blank

        Understand completely and thanks for your input. We are both well aware of who I speak.

      • blank

        Hey Benjamin. I do not like arguing like fan boys but I need to write again. I only wanted to share my experince in my first comment. Before this Transcensd SSD 320, I used a Corsair Force GT 60 GB SATA III MLC SSD for six months. And Corsair Force GT uses synchronous NAND chips. And Sandforce 2281. NAND chips of the Force GT are better than SSD 320. But Corsair GT got blue screen more than 16 times in six months. Blue screen more than 16 times in six months. And I have been using this Transcend SSD 320 for two years. Now I am writing these words on it. And during these two years I have never had blue screen! Yes no problem, no fail! I want to reply once more “Transcend means RELIABILITY for me”. Because I experienced!!!! this. So I do not care the opinions of the people like you.

      • blank

        Ok guys…both Nuff said and thanks….let’s stay on track.

      • blank

        Fair enough 🙂

        On a more related subject. Is Trascend ssd340 gonna get some love from tssdr ? It looks like a budget offering, based on jmicron667H

      • blank

        Yeah, but both of those drives you’re mentioning are using the same controller, which was the culprint of BSODs (and nothing else). Its a good chance, the transcend you boungt later had the “fixed” firmware installed and hence no more bsods for you. Even though those two drives are sharing the same problematic controller.

        And let me share my experineces. I own Intel, Adata and OCZ. All of them share the same sandforce controller. And all of them exhibit bsods on lots of occasions. Do i blame intel, adata and ocz ? No. I blame crappy validation on sandforce side.

        With sandforce drives its a draw of luck You either get a problematic combination or not. Manufacutrer doesn’t play a role here. At least not to my knownledge.
        So really, you can’t draw much conclusions here, just personal experience. As it happens, transcend just worked better in your case.

      • blank
        Crippled by UK State goons

        Hate to break it to ya….
        Spelling police here….

        “brake” = Something to stop your bicycle/car/etc.
        “break” = to take it apart (one way or another)

        You needed the latter version.
        Lol

      • blank

        Happens you know…will fix and thanks. It is actually a ploy to confirm someone has written what we write.

      • blank

        I’m sure your momma must be very proud of you 🙂

    • blank

      Yeah, but its not cheaper than MX100 (its actually almost 10€ more expensive). And on top of that MX100 (and other derivates like adata sp920) is faster, powerloss caps, better controller and edrive support. So really, mx100 is an insane value (yeah, this looks like marketing talk, but its really not) and you’d be crazy to pass it. Especially since its also the cheapest drive you can get in EU.

      So really, the only thing 370 has going for it, is the added stuff, that come with it. If you really need them and can spare a few bucks more, than 370 kinda makes sense.

  2. blank

    I notice that some SSDs have 20nm NAND, some have 19nm NAND, and some have 17nm NAND, all MLC; is there any real performance advantage to any particular one? What’s the difference, functionally?

    Jim

  3. blank

    Is there any reason to get this over the 840 evo? It is really not much cheaper than the Samsung in the UK.

    • blank

      It is a personal choice. Samsung wins out on reputation and the controller where the better memory just may be with the Transcend as it is MLC and not TLC.

      • blank

        Yeah, but for consumers, TLC is really not an issue. Samsung bins their TLC really well and coupled with their great MEX controller and more spare space than MLC drives, it will take A LONG time to destroy it.
        I believe techreport got to almost 1PB with their 840. Thats insane for a tlc drive.

    • blank

      Just get the cheapest, reliable option.

  4. blank

    How is power consumption (with devsleep)? Maybe I missed it

  5. blank

    Sorry for jumping in here, but didn’t know how to contact you. Please check out the Z97 thread if you get a chance. Also is there a way to bother you w/o bursting in like this..? Thanks Again. JV

  6. blank

    Nice review of a nice SSD.
    But my SSD370 256GB have a bug, the Power on hours count is crazy, after 32 hours it shows 9 hours.

    No newer FW avaible, maybe it will be fixed in future.

    I have also the SSD 340 which is not a benchmark-king but it runs smoothy and fast enough in my notebook.
    But after FW-update all data was destroyed, even the partitions. I made a full backup before update so it was not a big problem but the other SSDs I updated (Plextor, Sandisk, Crucial, Mushkin, Corsair, OCZ) handled it without deleting data

    I like SSD Scope, but it could be better. F1/F2 SMART could be shown in GB. TRIM shows only enabled or disabled but you can´t send manually a TRIM-command

  7. blank

    Does somebody know how to align the partitions for this SSD properly? I would like to follow this guide
    https://pastebin.com/0Jvn3PyQ and I need to know NAND Erase Block Size and NAND Page Size. Thanks in advance.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *