The PNY CS1311 and CS2211 SSD Review: MLC vs TLC at 15nm
by Billy Tallis on April 15, 2016 8:00 AM ESTAnandTech Storage Bench - Heavy
Our Heavy storage benchmark is proportionally more write-heavy than The Destroyer, but much shorter overall. The total writes in the Heavy test aren't enough to fill the drive, so performance never drops down to steady state. This test is far more representative of a power user's day to day usage, and is heavily influenced by the drive's peak performance. The Heavy workload test details can be found here.
The CS2211 drives both perform well overall and are bracketing a tight cluster of drives that perform similarly, though some of the competitors don't handle a full drive as well as the CS2211 does. The 240GB CS1311 is roughly tied with its competition while the other two capacities are clearly behind, though not by an embarrassing margin. On such a write-heavy test, it's no big surprise to see the MLC drives running 70% faster than the equivalent planar TLC drive.
Average service time isn't a strength of either PNY model. The CS2211 is the slowest MLC drive in this bunch, and the CS1311 is the slowest of the lot when full. At 480GB the OCZ Trion 150 retains a clear lead over the other planar TLC drives.
The latency outliers above 10ms put the CS2211 in a favorable light while the CS1311 mostly performs better than the ADATA SP550 but worse than the Trion 150. The huge gap between PNY's MLC and TLC models shows how a write-heavy workload can burn through a drive's pseudo-SLC cache and make TLC's weaknesses felt.
The CS1311's power efficiency is worse than almost everything else, but not horrendously so. The CS2211 is about average. The gap beterrn the 15/16nm TLC drives and the rest of the field is small but clear.
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alexdi - Friday, April 15, 2016 - link
I read this with only one question in mind: does it beat the 850 Evo? Save for a few ticks in power usage, apparently not. The Evo is perpetually on sale. I've yet to see a compelling reason to opt for anything else on a desktop.ingwe - Friday, April 15, 2016 - link
Completely agree. I am not tied to it, but I don't see any reason to recommend pretty much anything else.fierywater - Friday, April 15, 2016 - link
The CS1311 gets marked down from time to time; I picked up my 480GB one for $100 while the Evo 850 500GB usually doesn't get marked down below $130 (and it was $150 everywhere when I picked up the CS1311). It's plenty fast for real world use, especially as a drop-in replacement for an HDD. I think there's a place for drives like it, although that applies less to the CS2211.lilmoe - Friday, April 15, 2016 - link
For the performance and value you're getting with the EVO, $30 is well worth the extra, and hardly an amount worth saving going for the CS1311, or any other TLC drives at that. In the matter of fact, lots of the current consumer MLC drives don't compare to the value, performance, or in some cases, the endurance and features you're getting with the EVO.ATC9001 - Monday, April 18, 2016 - link
I agree from most "prosumers" which are frequent to read this article, but for the mainstream user, I don't think its worth it (spending the $30+). Any SSD is better than a HDD, but some garbage bargain bin SSDs aren't worth the cheap price (this being the first exception). I know most people (including myself) think the same thing alexdi posted when reading this....is this going to beat the evo? It doesn't, but at the same time it's not far off from it, and $30 bucks can cause it to break a price plane for some mid range users.Each person has there own utility curve or price performance idea, and for me, this is the first drive since the 840 EVO was released in which I would say it's not worth the x dollars to just get the evo!
Stuka87 - Friday, April 15, 2016 - link
Having a quality, reliable drive is not reason enough for you? If you want to buy a drive that has a much shorter life span, go for it. But Anybody that cares about data, is not going to by a TLC drive over a MLC drive.lilmoe - Friday, April 15, 2016 - link
FYI, TLC VNAND has better endurance than most 15nm MLC drives...Impulses - Friday, April 15, 2016 - link
Define much shorter...You're talking in broad strokes about a bunch of different things in the same breath. Life span and reliability aren't necessarily the same thing, unless you need drives to be reliable for 15yrs...
15yrs ago I was wondering if I'd ever fill my 75GB Deathstar, I'm not sure I'd even keep a drive 5+ years. My 2x 850 EVO have been nothing but reliable since I bought them last year.
DanoSpumoni - Friday, April 15, 2016 - link
Same here. the M.2 850 EVO 500GB is my go to SSD right now. They are in all my computers either in M.2 slots or M.2-> SATA sleds. The performance and reliability is hard to beat. I only buy M.2 SSDs now for future compatibility because they last so long I know they'll outlive the computers they inhabit right now. When the 1TB version drops to ~$150 I'll grab some more...Impulses - Friday, April 15, 2016 - link
I'm sitting on 2x 1TB, bought at like $310 & $330 IIRC, seen them for $260 lately... Waiting for the 2TB to drop lower and I might add one of those. :D