The SK Hynix Gold S31 SATA SSD Review: Hynix 3D NAND Finally Shows Up
by Billy Tallis on November 13, 2019 12:00 PM ESTConclusion
The SK Hynix Gold S31 SSDs are capable mainstream SATA drives. They are consistently a bit slower than most of the recent competition in this market segment, but the differences are seldom big enough to matter (and performance sensitive users should be shopping for NVMe drives instead). On the bright side, the Gold S31 tends to have significantly better than average power efficiency. The use of LPDDR3 DRAM instead of DDR3L or DDR4 seems to be a factor.
The 250GB model is clearly quite a bit slower on the harder tests, showing why the competition is reluctant to sample drives at that capacity. The trend toward higher per-die capacities with newer NAND flash and thus fewer dies in a drive of a given total capacity brings performance penalties that aren't being fully offset by increases in per-die performance. This hits the S31 harder than most since it is using exclusively 512Gb NAND parts while most of the competition is still using 256Gb parts, especially for lower-capacity models.
Overall, our first experience with SK Hynix's 3D NAND is positive. There's a bit of room for improvement on performance, but it works well enough for this particular product.
| SATA SSD Price Comparison (November 13, 2019) |
|||||||
| 240-256GB | 480-512GB | 1 TB | 2 TB | 4 TB | |||
| SK Hynix Gold S31 | $39.99 (16¢/GB) |
$59.99 (12¢/GB) |
$118.99 (12¢/GB) |
||||
| Samsung 860 EVO | $49.49 (20¢/GB) |
$79.99 (16¢/GB) |
$139.99 (14¢/GB) |
$299.99 (15¢/GB) |
$579.99 (14¢/GB) |
||
| WD Blue 3D NAND | $49.97 (20¢/GB) |
$64.99 (13¢/GB) |
$109.99 (11¢/GB) |
$224.99 (11¢/GB) |
$527.97 (13¢/GB) |
||
| SanDisk Ultra 3D | $49.97 (20¢/GB) |
$64.99 (13¢/GB) |
$107.99 (11¢/GB) |
$199.99 (10¢/GB) |
$499.99 (12¢/GB) |
||
| Crucial MX500 | $47.99 (19¢/GB) |
$64.50 (13¢/GB) |
$106.99 (11¢/GB) |
$219.99 (11¢/GB) |
|||
| ADATA SU800 | $34.99 (14¢/GB) |
$57.99 (11¢/GB) |
$91.99 (9¢/GB) |
$209.99 (10¢/GB) |
|||
Current retail pricing for the SK Hynix Gold S31 drives is pretty fair. They're generally a bit cheaper than the mainstream SATA drives from the top brands. Considering that the S31 tends to be slightly slower and doesn't come with the same reputation with consumers, it does need to undercut Crucial, WD and Samsung by at least a little bit.
It's nice to see SK Hynix's presence expanding beyond OEM and enterprise drives and into the retail market. The introduction of the Gold S31 is a good start for SK Hynix, but it's a small step. They still have a long way to go before they are competing with the other vertically integrated SSD companies across all market segments. We look forward to their next move.
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MenhirMike - Wednesday, November 13, 2019 - link
We're not going to get under 10c/GB anytime soon, will we? SATA SSDs seem to be stagnant - performance is OK, power consumtion is OK, price is $100 for 1TB, endurance is the usual 0.3 WPD - and yet there are constantly new products with different components and basically the same performance/power/price.Is there a limitation that currently causes stagnation? (I know that SATA is inherently limited in performance, but price shouldn't be stagnant if the main need in that sector is more capacity for less money, with performance/power/endurance being the same)
FunBunny2 - Wednesday, November 13, 2019 - link
"price shouldn't be stagnant if the main need in that sector is more capacity for less money"all of these companies face the Tyranny of Fixed Cost, i.e. the BoM is almost all amortization of the plant and equipment to make the various bits and pieces. sand, some chemicals, and a watchman or two to hover over the machines amount to the variable cost. in such a situation, the only way to lower *average cost* (and shut up the bean counters) is to ship more product and thus spread the fixed cost a tad thinner. lots more product. but that, in turn, is strictly limited by user demand. they're caught between a rock and a hard place. they end up viewing the situation as zero-sum game; one can win only if the other(s) lose when there's little to no global (in every sense of the word) growth. welcome to Earthly Stagnation.
dromoxen - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
Having Dr ManHattan looking after your machines is a very expensive business , Rorschach is very unreliable too.eek2121 - Wednesday, November 13, 2019 - link
Except prices have been falling. You just don't realize it because it happens over time.These drives are as cheap as Samsung's QLC drives, without the disadvantages.
Slash3 - Wednesday, November 13, 2019 - link
SSD prices have been basically flat since October/November 2018. Check the price tracking for a 500GB/1TB MX500 or 860 Evo and there have been a few variations but nothing substantial or permanent.I'd love to pick up more large capacity solid state to replace some of my HDDs, but I bought two 2TB SSDs over a year ago and they're actually a few dollars *more* expensive now.
At this point, it may actually be cheaper to build a large NAS using MicroSD cards...
eek2121 - Wednesday, November 13, 2019 - link
I paid the same amount for my 2 TB 970 evo as I did my 1 TB 960 evo 2.5-3 years ago. Also, don't track specific drivers, look at charts. NAND is coming down. It just takes time.Slash3 - Wednesday, November 13, 2019 - link
/s implied with respect to the MicroSD card NAS, if it weren't obvious.Although that would be fun to build.
nandnandnand - Wednesday, November 13, 2019 - link
Sale prices are hitting 8c/GB. Don't pay 10c/GB if you live in America. As the average drive capacity goes up, the prices will continue to go down.Thankfully, 100 GB and larger games are a thing, so that should create some demand.
deil - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
we might PLC coming soon, so we might see some 1 TB/1.5 TB/2TB/3TB sata's soon and as they are 20% bigger after amortization wears off, almost 20% cheaper it will become.main focus will go to PCIE4.0 now though. so I would say next December expect 2 or 3 products with same nand. 120GB/240 will not go lower than its is now.
deil - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
in there on the article. We already did on 1 TB ones. and PLC will go even lower.ADATA SU800 $34.99
(14¢/GB) $57.99
(11¢/GB) $91.99
(9¢/GB) $209.99
(10¢/GB)