Transcend SSD340 (256GB) Review
by Kristian Vättö on August 4, 2014 5:00 AM ESTFinal Words
From a performance perspective, the SSD340 leaves a lot to be desired. It is the slowest SSD in our 2013 Storage Bench and the IO consistency is also quite horrible compared to the competition. I have to wonder why Transcend is not utilizing the newer firmware from JMicron because the reference design SSD with Intel's 128Gbit 20nm NAND is much faster than the SSD340 is. It is certainly possible that Transcend is using lower grade NAND to cut costs, which would explain the lower performance, but I find it hard to believe that the NAND alone would result in up to 35% decrease in performance.
| Amazon Price Comparison (7/31/2014) | ||||
| 64GB | 120/128GB | 240/256GB | ||
| Transcend SSD340 | $55 | $70 | $115 | |
| ADATA Premier Pro SP920 | - | $75 | $130 | |
| ADATA Premier SP610 | - | $70 | $120 | |
| SanDisk Ultra Plus | - | $70 | $110 | |
| Crucial MX100 | - | $75 | $110 | |
| Plextor M6S | - | $80 | $132 | |
| Intel SSD 530 | - | $82 | $160 | |
| OCZ Vertex 460 | - | $90 | $140 | |
| Samsung SSD 840 EVO | - | $90 | $140 | |
Ultimately it all boils down to price and that is where the SSD340 fails to set itself apart from the competition. The SSD340 is definitely one of the cheapest SSDs around but the competition can provide a much better feature set and performance at a similar price. For the price of the SSD340, you can get ADATA Premier SP610, SanDisk Ultra Plus or Crucial MX100 – all of which are better picks than the SSD340. The only advantage that the SSD340 has is the 64GB model that most manufacturers no longer offer, but I would strongly recommend spending $15-20 more to get twice the capacity and a better SSD (e.g. the MX100).
All in all, the SSD340 is a rather unimpressive drive. At $50 for 128GB and $90 for 256GB, it might be a good option for buyers that have a very tight budget, but at the current prices the SSD340 just does not make any sense. You are much better off with the Crucial MX100 or ADATA Premier SP610 at the same price.
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ddriver - Monday, August 4, 2014 - link
I didn't say "value".Impulses - Monday, August 4, 2014 - link
Besides, $30 32GB SD cards actually hit 45-60MB/s sequential.. Think I saw a $65 64GB PNY rated at 90/60 R/W, doesn't get any more value priced than that, unless you meant bargain bin SD cards...hojnikb - Tuesday, August 5, 2014 - link
Yeah, but sd card like that would be pretty unsuitable for running OS.Impulses - Tuesday, August 5, 2014 - link
Obviously, their random access speed sucks, he and I were just drawing a parallel to other cheap devices with sequential speeds that aren't very far off... Shoot, I've paid <$50 for 32-64GB USB 3.0 flash drives that hit 200MB/s sequential read/writes. I think any enthusiast knows sequential speed isn't ultimately why you buy a SSD (most of the time), but still...willis936 - Monday, August 4, 2014 - link
I'm pretty sure SSDs from 2009 are faster than this.hojnikb - Monday, August 4, 2014 - link
they are not.ddriver - Monday, August 4, 2014 - link
2-3 years ago was 2011-2012 :) I have a Samsung 830 128 GB which IRC came out around that time, and it is actually faster, reaching like 380 MB/sec in sequential reads.ddriver - Monday, August 4, 2014 - link
*writesCome on AT, what is this - the stone age? You know, the time people wrote on stone tablets and editing was pretty much impossible? How about an "edit" feature?
jabber - Monday, August 4, 2014 - link
I have to say as long as they push 150MBps+ with 0.XX access times most cases are covered.All in the access times for day to day usage, not so much the raw MBps.
hojnikb - Monday, August 4, 2014 - link
its not all about access times.You can have a bad ssd with great access times and it will still feel slow as HDD if writes are utter garbage (you can test this by installing OS on a cheap usb drive).