Every time I kept reading that, I kept thinking about how no name suppliers would be bad... hard to remember it's from Toshiba, haha. Good luck to them. Nice review :) Power consumption seems obnoxiously low at load.
Your use of the word "poo-poo" is ironically funny to people who speak Afrikaans (and probably Dutch and Flemish) since "stront" means "poo". They have zero chance of succeeding in those markets.
OK. Laptops outsell desktops and you were unable to test with HIPM and DIPM enabled and no mention was made of DEVSLP support which is a big deal for any Haswell mobile device. By impairing the relevance of the review to typical use cases, someone properly earns a demerit.
You need a Haswell mobile device to test with if you want to maintain relevance to the mainstream market. I would complain to my bosses that you need better hardware support to perform at the level they and readers expect of you.
I'll be brutally honest here. Just because we are AnandTech doesn't mean that we have piles of laptops laying around, especially ones that are based on a chip that was released less than a month ago. All reviewers want Haswell-based devices at the moment, the supply is extremely tight. Usually laptops only have a review time of two weeks or so because the same system may be sent to others once it's been returned. Obviously reviewers who are actually going to review the system are the first priority, so it'd be really hard for me to get one because 1) I would only be using it for one test 2) I couldn't send it back anytime soon. In other words, the manufacturer wouldn't get much bang for their marketing $ because they wouldn't get much visibility, which is the reason review samples exist in the first place.
I know there's the option of buying one but again, I'll be honest here: It would be around $1000 for just one test. I would definitely take one if Anand paid for it but as far as I've understood, Anand isn't into spending thousands on test equipment (keep in mind that the financial situation isn't all that good for us since it's usually the marketing budgets that get cut when bad times hit, so it's harder for us to get advertisers). There's a ton of stuff I'd love to have as they would really take our SSD tests (especially power related) to a next level but I'm not the one making decisions.
We have talked with Intel and ASUS and asked if there's anyway HIPM/DIPM could be enabled on a desktop system (even via custom firmware) but as far as I know, they are not up for that.
Trust me, I would take a Haswell laptop on a heartbeat if someone gave me one, but I hope you also understand that we don't get whatever we want from manufacturers.
Well handled and responsive to my concern. So, BK is telling his team we have a winning hand but we need to release products faster. Anandtech is arguably the premier web site consumers turn to for help understanding how new technology benefits them. Intel, however, makes no effort to ensure you have access to the hardware necessary to explain why consumers should value the new stuff. If Intel is trying to increase the cadence, they should step up their game. If Intel does not understand that, it lessens BK's credibility.
Wait, what?! HIPM and DIPM have been standard features that are always enabled on every intel desktop system since the intel 5 series at least (and AM2+ on the AMD side, which had other reasons). The only reason not to have HIPM and DIPM is your choice of OS. It's a driver-enabled feature, it doesn't work without explicitly enabling it.
That's not true. You can do the registry hack and get the option to enable HIPM+DIPM but that will have zero impact on power consumption on a desktop system. We've tried four different motherboards including Intel-branded ones and also both Windows 7 and 8 without success. That's why it took us so long to start doing HIPM+DIPM tests as Anand had to take an Ultrabook apart just for power testing and obviously I don't have access to that system due to geographical issues.
Toshiba has quite poor retail presence, so Strontium may be targeting the markets where the availability of Toshiba SSDs is either very poor or non-existent.
My concern would be what happens when they change products and firmwares are... nonexistent. SSD's are still far too temperamental to trust just some nobody who likes to throw caution to the wind.
I wouldn't have a problem if it was Intel or some other major SSD OEM doing this as they could change the way GB is defined in the storage industry
Kristian no they couldn't, seriously what the hell? We *still* have people arguing wrongly in freaking 2013? "Giga" is an SI prefix, it's base-10. That's what it is, anything else is wrong. This is particularly surprisingly from a technology enthusiast, as tech depends on precision, not random overloaded definitions. Maybe you'd like to suggest that they come up with their own definitions of "kilogram" and "pound" too with whatever mass they feel like? That sounds like a recipe for success!
If they want to show base-2, then they can use KiB/MiB/GiB/TiB/PiB. I don't think those sound the greatest but whatever, they're precise, correct, and the international standard (IEC 60027, published in *1999*). Storage makers were never wrong to use the SI prefixes and have base-10 numbers of sectors.
If anything the problem is Microsoft, who should long since have switched to displaying GB instead of GiB. Even Apple finally updated ages ago.
The problem is that Giga is not only an SI prefix, it's also a JEDEC prefix where Giga is defined as 1024^3. I do agree that Giga should only be used as an SI prefix (i.e. meaning 1000^3) but I guess someone at JEDEC thought that since 1000^3 and 1024^3 are "close enough", lets just call them the same.
I also agree that it's Microsoft who should just change to the SI standard and define GB as 1000^3 bytes like Apple did. My point about Intel was that it's useless for a small OEM like Strontium to differ from the norm and I don't see Intel or anyone else switching away from the SI standard because the advertised capacities would end up being smaller than they are now.
"Storage makers were never wrong to use the SI prefixes"
This is, I believe, inconsistent with your preceding paragraph. When disk drive manufacturers came up with their own definition of megabyte to make their disk drives seem larger, that created the same problems you envision if someone came up with their own definitions for "kilogram" and "pound".
As you note, that the IEC has decided to endorse the disk drive manufacture's definition of "megabyte" and has invented the term "mebibyte" to refer to a megabyte. That's a response to the linguistic mess created by the disk drive manufacturers; it doesn't justify creating the mess in the first place.
Meanwhile, as Kristian notes, JEDEC is sticking with the original meaning of the word. Words can acquire new meanings fairly quickly, but it takes a long time (on the order of 100 years) for a word to lose a well-established meaning.
That's different. Apple doesn't hide the fact that they've updated the iPad, the least they do is release a press release. I agree that calling third-gen iPad the "iPad 3" and then going back to just "iPad" wasn't the best move from Apple, but it was understandable as the naming would quickly get stupid (imagine e.g. iPad 11). Apple has always been doing that with the MacBook Pros for instance.
Strontium did nothing to let the public know that they've changed suppliers, hence the suspicion. No press release, no mention in the product page, nothing. Like I said in the article, we are the first to report about this - I even thought I'm reviewing a SandForce drive until I took the drive apart.
Great review. Not a bad drive at all. Unfortunately it is overshadowed by the GB vs GiB and Hawk vs Python issues. I don't mind owning one if reliability is their focus. Now the other deciding factors are warranty and customer service. If they can build up a good reputation, they will have a good following.
for all you thinking samsung 840 pro the best drive, getting brain washed only to see the destroyer benchmark owns it =(
yeahhh look at the inconsistent write for sandisk extreme II under hd tach yet it destroys samsung 840 pro due to ncache LOL gj sandisk, samsung stop brain wash people thanks, people stop being retards thanks yeah
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
26 Comments
Back to Article
karasaj - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
Every time I kept reading that, I kept thinking about how no name suppliers would be bad... hard to remember it's from Toshiba, haha. Good luck to them. Nice review :) Power consumption seems obnoxiously low at load.mcveigh - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
Strontium Hawk is the name of my spirit animal!jmke - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
not the best product name I must admit... might not do well in Benelux ;)http://translate.google.com/?hl=en#nl/en/stront
Pessimism - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
Why poo-poo the manufacturer for taking a stand to end the 1000^3 garbage? Everyone should follow suit and label with formatted capacity.hedleyroos - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
Your use of the word "poo-poo" is ironically funny to people who speak Afrikaans (and probably Dutch and Flemish) since "stront" means "poo". They have zero chance of succeeding in those markets.Kristian Vättö - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
Like I said, it's pretty much useless for a small OEM like Strontium to try and change the industry.piroroadkill - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
It should then say 240GiB...dealcorn - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
OK. Laptops outsell desktops and you were unable to test with HIPM and DIPM enabled and no mention was made of DEVSLP support which is a big deal for any Haswell mobile device. By impairing the relevance of the review to typical use cases, someone properly earns a demerit.You need a Haswell mobile device to test with if you want to maintain relevance to the mainstream market. I would complain to my bosses that you need better hardware support to perform at the level they and readers expect of you.
Kristian Vättö - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
I'll be brutally honest here. Just because we are AnandTech doesn't mean that we have piles of laptops laying around, especially ones that are based on a chip that was released less than a month ago. All reviewers want Haswell-based devices at the moment, the supply is extremely tight. Usually laptops only have a review time of two weeks or so because the same system may be sent to others once it's been returned. Obviously reviewers who are actually going to review the system are the first priority, so it'd be really hard for me to get one because 1) I would only be using it for one test 2) I couldn't send it back anytime soon. In other words, the manufacturer wouldn't get much bang for their marketing $ because they wouldn't get much visibility, which is the reason review samples exist in the first place.I know there's the option of buying one but again, I'll be honest here: It would be around $1000 for just one test. I would definitely take one if Anand paid for it but as far as I've understood, Anand isn't into spending thousands on test equipment (keep in mind that the financial situation isn't all that good for us since it's usually the marketing budgets that get cut when bad times hit, so it's harder for us to get advertisers). There's a ton of stuff I'd love to have as they would really take our SSD tests (especially power related) to a next level but I'm not the one making decisions.
We have talked with Intel and ASUS and asked if there's anyway HIPM/DIPM could be enabled on a desktop system (even via custom firmware) but as far as I know, they are not up for that.
Trust me, I would take a Haswell laptop on a heartbeat if someone gave me one, but I hope you also understand that we don't get whatever we want from manufacturers.
dealcorn - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
Well handled and responsive to my concern. So, BK is telling his team we have a winning hand but we need to release products faster. Anandtech is arguably the premier web site consumers turn to for help understanding how new technology benefits them. Intel, however, makes no effort to ensure you have access to the hardware necessary to explain why consumers should value the new stuff. If Intel is trying to increase the cadence, they should step up their game. If Intel does not understand that, it lessens BK's credibility.ssj3gohan - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link
Wait, what?! HIPM and DIPM have been standard features that are always enabled on every intel desktop system since the intel 5 series at least (and AM2+ on the AMD side, which had other reasons). The only reason not to have HIPM and DIPM is your choice of OS. It's a driver-enabled feature, it doesn't work without explicitly enabling it.Kristian Vättö - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link
That's not true. You can do the registry hack and get the option to enable HIPM+DIPM but that will have zero impact on power consumption on a desktop system. We've tried four different motherboards including Intel-branded ones and also both Windows 7 and 8 without success. That's why it took us so long to start doing HIPM+DIPM tests as Anand had to take an Ultrabook apart just for power testing and obviously I don't have access to that system due to geographical issues.JDG1980 - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
If you want a Toshiba drive, why not just buy a Toshiba drive instead of one rebranded by a no-name company? I don't see the point of this.JarredWalton - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
It's cheaper and uses the same hardware and firmware?Kristian Vättö - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
Toshiba has quite poor retail presence, so Strontium may be targeting the markets where the availability of Toshiba SSDs is either very poor or non-existent.HisDivineOrder - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
My concern would be what happens when they change products and firmwares are... nonexistent. SSD's are still far too temperamental to trust just some nobody who likes to throw caution to the wind.OCZ can't even be trusted in this regard.
Samsung, Intel, Micron/Crucial, maaaaybe Sandisk.
bji - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
Can OCZ be trusted in *any* regard?zanon - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
Kristian no they couldn't, seriously what the hell? We *still* have people arguing wrongly in freaking 2013? "Giga" is an SI prefix, it's base-10. That's what it is, anything else is wrong. This is particularly surprisingly from a technology enthusiast, as tech depends on precision, not random overloaded definitions. Maybe you'd like to suggest that they come up with their own definitions of "kilogram" and "pound" too with whatever mass they feel like? That sounds like a recipe for success!
If they want to show base-2, then they can use KiB/MiB/GiB/TiB/PiB. I don't think those sound the greatest but whatever, they're precise, correct, and the international standard (IEC 60027, published in *1999*). Storage makers were never wrong to use the SI prefixes and have base-10 numbers of sectors.
If anything the problem is Microsoft, who should long since have switched to displaying GB instead of GiB. Even Apple finally updated ages ago.
Kristian Vättö - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
The problem is that Giga is not only an SI prefix, it's also a JEDEC prefix where Giga is defined as 1024^3. I do agree that Giga should only be used as an SI prefix (i.e. meaning 1000^3) but I guess someone at JEDEC thought that since 1000^3 and 1024^3 are "close enough", lets just call them the same.I also agree that it's Microsoft who should just change to the SI standard and define GB as 1000^3 bytes like Apple did. My point about Intel was that it's useless for a small OEM like Strontium to differ from the norm and I don't see Intel or anyone else switching away from the SI standard because the advertised capacities would end up being smaller than they are now.
KAlmquist - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link
"Storage makers were never wrong to use the SI prefixes"This is, I believe, inconsistent with your preceding paragraph. When disk drive manufacturers came up with their own definition of megabyte to make their disk drives seem larger, that created the same problems you envision if someone came up with their own definitions for "kilogram" and "pound".
As you note, that the IEC has decided to endorse the disk drive manufacture's definition of "megabyte" and has invented the term "mebibyte" to refer to a megabyte. That's a response to the linguistic mess created by the disk drive manufacturers; it doesn't justify creating the mess in the first place.
Meanwhile, as Kristian notes, JEDEC is sticking with the original meaning of the word. Words can acquire new meanings fairly quickly, but it takes a long time (on the order of 100 years) for a word to lose a well-established meaning.
Kristian Vättö - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
That's different. Apple doesn't hide the fact that they've updated the iPad, the least they do is release a press release. I agree that calling third-gen iPad the "iPad 3" and then going back to just "iPad" wasn't the best move from Apple, but it was understandable as the naming would quickly get stupid (imagine e.g. iPad 11). Apple has always been doing that with the MacBook Pros for instance.Strontium did nothing to let the public know that they've changed suppliers, hence the suspicion. No press release, no mention in the product page, nothing. Like I said in the article, we are the first to report about this - I even thought I'm reviewing a SandForce drive until I took the drive apart.
gamoniac - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
Great review. Not a bad drive at all. Unfortunately it is overshadowed by the GB vs GiB and Hawk vs Python issues. I don't mind owning one if reliability is their focus. Now the other deciding factors are warranty and customer service. If they can build up a good reputation, they will have a good following.toytanks - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link
I just purchased a the Samsung 840 Pro 256GB. Does anyone know how much of a difference it would make to use this instead, in terms of battery life?LB-ID - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link
Absolutely not, and you're a fool soon parted from your money if you do.zjozjom - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link
for all you thinking samsung 840 pro the best drive, getting brain washed only to see the destroyer benchmark owns it =(yeahhh look at the inconsistent write for sandisk extreme II under hd tach yet it destroys samsung 840 pro due to ncache LOL gj sandisk, samsung stop brain wash people thanks, people stop being retards thanks yeah
hemlock44 - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Should they ever plan to sell in Italy, I strongly suggest a name change, because "Strontium" recalls a scatological term here :-)