APACER Thunderbird PT910 256GB
APACER Thunderbird PT910 256GB Review – This might be a PCIe-based SSD, but it’s a great example of how all PCIe drives aren’t created equal. The giveaway this isn’t quite the performer it claims to be is in the type of PCIe interface it uses; while other drives now take full advantage of PCIe 2.0 x4 lanes, the Thunderbird is limited to a PCIe 2.0 x2 lane. It’s also apparently a RAID product, with twin SSD drives on the card set up in RAID 0 mode. This meant that testing this drive threw up some very strange results.
Due to the all-in-one RAID 0 configuration, there’s no need to mess around with fussy drivers, and it can even be used as a bootable OS drive. At $2.14 per Gigabyte, it’s easily the most expensive drive in the roundup.
Our Anvil Storage Utilities test spat out very disappointing results for this drive, posting some of the slowest numbers in the test. To double check these results, we fired up CrystalDiskMark, which showed a huge improvement in the sequential read and write tests, with the former measuring 798MB/sec, the latter 252MB/ sec. Sadly the other test results weren’t as impressive..
Pros
- Excellent sequential performance
- Driver-free RAID 0 setup
Cons
- Very expensive ($549)
- Overall disappointing performance
APACER Thunderbird PT910 256GB Specifications
Model | Thunderbird PT910 PCI-e SSD |
Interface | PCI Express 2.0 x 2 |
NAND Flash Type | MLC |
Capacity | 256 GB, 512 GB |
Sustained Read Performance(MB/sec) | up to 830 MB/s |
Sustained Write Performance(MB/sec) | up to 790 MB/s |
IOPs (4K Random Read) | up to 100,000 |
IOPs (4K Random Write) | up to 100,000 |
Standard Operating Temperature | Operating 0°C to 70°C Non-operating: -55°C to 150℃ |
ECC Support | ECC (up to 55 bytes correctable per 512-byte sector), TRIM, wear leveling, SMART, NCQ |
Dimension (mm) | 152.4 x 18.96 x 68.9 mm |