Conclusion
There is no arguing that the NVMe revolution has begun and SATA has begun showing its age. NVMe is indeed faster, offers more flexibility, and generally offers a more efficient design - so much so that even the best of what SATA offers is left in the dust. With all of that being said, the SATA AHCI controller isn’t going anywhere soon. The fact of the matter is that SATA offers one clear and decisive advantage: price. While SSDs are indeed getting less expensive they are still costly and most mainstream consumers are more than willing to trade face-bleeding performance for higher capacity and a lower price. That’s where the AData XPG SX930 gets factored into the equation and it succeeds quite well.
Much like Crucial and their MX series, AData has distilled their drive down into a winning formula. This however is where these two series diverge as they take very different paths to arrive at the same destination. While Crucial has focused in on making their smaller drives perform similarly to their larger capacity models via elegant firmware enhancements, AData has focused on durability rather than raw performance.
The end result is not as clear and decisive as you would think, but there is an argument to be made for opting for this slightly more expensive drive over the MX200 series. This argument boils down to perceived durability versus throughput. Are you someone who is willing to overlook a second of boot time loss in favor of a 5 year warranty and a potentially longer lifespan or someone who wants to squeeze every performance dollar out of your purchase? Ultimately, those two paths aren’t one and the same in the sub-$200 SSD market. Either choose one or the other.
Regardless of the way you look at things, it is obvious the JMicron controller with AData’s firmware is unable to match the advanced abilities of the MX200 series, and there were even times when the BX100 stepped ahead. Even excluding the BX100 numbers from the equation, there is simply no denying the fact that DWA gives Crucial's smaller MX200 series a clear and decisive edge in performance over the XPG SX930. Is this edge large enough to overcome the better price per GB and an extra 10GB of capacity? Again, that really depends on your priorities.
While this conclusion may not be as definitive as the ones we have posted in the past, there’s a reason for that: with such drastic contraction in the SSD market, actually finding a unique drive that offers something for everyone is becoming extremely hard. There are no “right” answers these days. However, AData’s XPG SX930 offers up what could be a great combination for first-time SSD buyers that may be worried about the longevity of budget-focused solutions but don’t want to sacrifice their money or performance for an optimal solution.
<div align="center">
<img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/akg/Storage/XPG_SX930/di.png" border="0" alt="" /> </div>
Conclusion
There is no arguing that the NVMe revolution has begun and SATA has begun showing its age. NVMe is indeed faster, offers more flexibility, and generally offers a more efficient design - so much so that even the best of what SATA offers is left in the dust. With all of that being said, the SATA AHCI controller isn’t going anywhere soon. The fact of the matter is that SATA offers one clear and decisive advantage: price. While SSDs are indeed getting less expensive they are still costly and most mainstream consumers are more than willing to trade face-bleeding performance for higher capacity and a lower price. That’s where the AData XPG SX930 gets factored into the equation and it succeeds quite well.
Much like Crucial and their MX series, AData has distilled their drive down into a winning formula. This however is where these two series diverge as they take very different paths to arrive at the same destination. While Crucial has focused in on making their smaller drives perform similarly to their larger capacity models via elegant firmware enhancements, AData has focused on durability rather than raw performance.
The end result is not as clear and decisive as you would think, but there is an argument to be made for opting for this slightly more expensive drive over the MX200 series. This argument boils down to perceived durability versus throughput. Are you someone who is willing to overlook a second of boot time loss in favor of a 5 year warranty and a potentially longer lifespan or someone who wants to squeeze every performance dollar out of your purchase? Ultimately, those two paths aren’t one and the same in the sub-$200 SSD market. Either choose one or the other.
Regardless of the way you look at things, it is obvious the JMicron controller with AData’s firmware is unable to match the advanced abilities of the MX200 series, and there were even times when the BX100 stepped ahead. Even excluding the BX100 numbers from the equation, there is simply no denying the fact that DWA gives Crucial's smaller MX200 series a clear and decisive edge in performance over the XPG SX930. Is this edge large enough to overcome the better price per GB and an extra 10GB of capacity? Again, that really depends on your priorities.
While this conclusion may not be as definitive as the ones we have posted in the past, there’s a reason for that: with such drastic contraction in the SSD market, actually finding a unique drive that offers something for everyone is becoming extremely hard. There are no “right” answers these days. However, AData’s XPG SX930 offers up what could be a great combination for first-time SSD buyers that may be worried about the longevity of budget-focused solutions but don’t want to sacrifice their money or performance for an optimal solution.
<div align="center">
<img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/akg/Storage/XPG_SX930/di.png" border="0" alt="" /> </div>
