1 00:00:00,320 --> 00:00:07,120 Everyone knows that compared to a hard drive, an SSD is a great way to speed up 2 00:00:05,040 --> 00:00:14,480 your system. But what everyone doesn't know is that unless your SSD has a DRAM 3 00:00:11,360 --> 00:00:17,199 cache built into it, like this one for 4 00:00:14,480 --> 00:00:22,560 example, it can actually end up being slower than a mechanical hard disk. So 5 00:00:20,560 --> 00:00:29,279 that's why in the past we've always avoided those $20 SSDs 6 00:00:26,800 --> 00:00:37,360 until now. Meet the Fatty Dove Racing 120 gig SSD. 7 00:00:34,559 --> 00:00:42,660 We purchased this sucker for 20 bucks. So, who's the sucker? This sucker or 8 00:00:40,000 --> 00:00:45,770 this sucker? 9 00:00:48,800 --> 00:00:56,320 I know it shouldn't matter, but whenever I see really terrible branding, like to 10 00:00:54,000 --> 00:01:01,920 the point where you'd have had to be a child or an idiot to think that it makes 11 00:00:58,879 --> 00:01:04,320 any sense, it really does decrease my 12 00:01:01,920 --> 00:01:10,720 confidence in the finished product. You know, why is there an overweight bird on 13 00:01:07,920 --> 00:01:16,720 the box for this package? What is it about this that screams racing? I don't 14 00:01:14,320 --> 00:01:20,799 know. You don't know. Nobody knows. We're all just guessing. So, let's talk 15 00:01:19,119 --> 00:01:29,040 through the specs here. This is a 2 and a half inch drive with a an apparent 16 00:01:25,200 --> 00:01:31,840 128 mgby of DRAM cache. This is from the 17 00:01:29,040 --> 00:01:35,600 Amazon listing. Um, the verbiage though is lifted straight from the Wikipedia 18 00:01:33,680 --> 00:01:43,119 entry for other solid state drives. So, it says DRAM based and cash on buffer. 19 00:01:40,159 --> 00:01:50,960 But the thing is, the only other SSDs that we've seen at this price point are 20 00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:53,840 DRAMless, used, or renewed. And as far 21 00:01:50,960 --> 00:01:58,640 as I can tell, this thing is totally brand new in box. So, 22 00:01:57,280 --> 00:02:03,439 we also have this that came in the package. Oh, service policy. Thank you for 23 00:02:01,920 --> 00:02:07,920 purchase of our items. We're so glad that you selected us in our products. We 24 00:02:05,600 --> 00:02:13,360 offer a 5-year limited warranty. Love you, Dave. We got our SATA cable. That 25 00:02:10,479 --> 00:02:18,000 is actually a pretty good bonus. Most drives don't include a SATA cable 26 00:02:14,800 --> 00:02:19,599 anymore. So, we need our data and our 27 00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:24,879 power. And is this just going to boot right up for me, Anthony? Uh, if you press the power button. Yeah. 28 00:02:22,160 --> 00:02:28,160 Well, yeah. Minor details. Uh, you don't need to hit F8. 29 00:02:26,640 --> 00:02:32,239 Wait, is this just a sticker? Sure is. So, if the sticker is on it, you get 30 00:02:30,640 --> 00:02:36,720 plus 2 years of warranty. I don't know. Sudden power off recovery. That to me 31 00:02:35,040 --> 00:02:40,400 indicates that it would have a capacitor on it like a like an enterprise SSD. 32 00:02:39,120 --> 00:02:46,080 That's what it sounds like. It can't possibly have that. Also, I 33 00:02:43,920 --> 00:02:50,560 love this sentence right here. Thank you for selecting us. Good luck. So, first 34 00:02:48,720 --> 00:02:54,879 test is what? Just initializing it. Yeah, we need to initialize it. 35 00:02:51,920 --> 00:02:58,480 New simple volume. Well, the capacity is as advertised. Now, there's some more 36 00:02:56,640 --> 00:03:03,599 problems here. This says serial ATA revision 2.6, six, but it also says it's 37 00:03:01,519 --> 00:03:05,599 SATA 6 Gbit per second. And it said that on the drive as well. 38 00:03:04,959 --> 00:03:14,400 Yeah. So, apparently it doesn't even support trim and is SATA 2 according well 39 00:03:12,640 --> 00:03:18,000 depending on which spec you believe. Well, we'll know soon enough because 40 00:03:15,840 --> 00:03:21,040 Crystal Disc Mark will tell us exactly what kind of sequential speeds we can 41 00:03:19,519 --> 00:03:25,360 expect from this thing. You know, in some ways this like rando cheap hardware 42 00:03:23,680 --> 00:03:29,040 is far more interesting than the stuff from manufacturers that are reputable 43 00:03:27,360 --> 00:03:33,360 enough that you can trust what they say. Yeah, you never know what you're going to get. 44 00:03:30,480 --> 00:03:36,879 Look at that. So, it's SATA 3 6 GB per second even though there's information 45 00:03:35,120 --> 00:03:41,280 right on the box that would indicate that it's not 46 00:03:39,280 --> 00:03:45,599 what they put a dove on their packaging. So, how how can we rely on them to know 47 00:03:44,080 --> 00:03:51,840 exactly what's in the box if they clearly had no idea what they were doing on the outside of it? Out of the gate, 48 00:03:49,280 --> 00:03:57,040 I'm actually kind of impressed. I mean, saturating the SATA 3 6 gig per second 49 00:03:54,159 --> 00:04:02,959 interface has not been a feat for years and years at this point. But the thing 50 00:03:59,040 --> 00:04:05,200 is, this is only a 120 gig SSD. So, 51 00:04:02,959 --> 00:04:10,319 what's weird about that is that you know how higher capacities of a given SSD 52 00:04:07,840 --> 00:04:14,319 tend to be rated for more performance. The reason for that is that to get those 53 00:04:12,480 --> 00:04:18,720 higher capacities, in some cases, they'll put more nan flash chips onto 54 00:04:17,040 --> 00:04:22,639 the PCB, which means that you get to take advantage of more parallelization 55 00:04:20,799 --> 00:04:27,840 as you're writing to the flash and reading from it, boosting your 56 00:04:24,000 --> 00:04:32,000 performance. Well, it's been years since 57 00:04:27,840 --> 00:04:34,160 120 gig SSDs have made any sense to make 58 00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:40,400 because the capacities of the individual nan flash chips have become so high that 59 00:04:37,520 --> 00:04:44,320 in order to even build a 120 gig SSD, you'd only need like one chip on there 60 00:04:42,560 --> 00:04:52,160 and the performance would absolutely suck unless it's fine. 61 00:04:48,960 --> 00:04:53,440 Okay, so the enigma deepens then. What 62 00:04:52,160 --> 00:05:01,199 did you have in mind for us next, Anthony? Uh, well, we could do the file copy 63 00:04:56,880 --> 00:05:03,040 test, but um I did create some tests 64 00:05:01,199 --> 00:05:06,800 specifically for this in Linux. Okay, so I should restart. Yep. 65 00:05:05,120 --> 00:05:15,039 All right. So, okay, hit me. Pop open two terminals and we'll run 66 00:05:10,560 --> 00:05:17,199 some uh scripts that I made. Sudo slash 67 00:05:15,039 --> 00:05:18,960 disc test. All right. So, uh that one then 68 00:05:18,240 --> 00:05:23,280 that is the one 111 gig SSD. Yeah, it does a security 69 00:05:21,360 --> 00:05:27,280 erase first and now it's doing continuous looping of 1 GB right and 70 00:05:25,919 --> 00:05:31,440 then 1 GB read. Okay. And then it tells us what the latency is 71 00:05:29,600 --> 00:05:34,320 after a thousand writes of average. Oh, that took a lot longer already. Oh, 72 00:05:33,280 --> 00:05:39,360 it's going up. Oh boy. We went from 2.3 seconds to 7 seconds 73 00:05:37,440 --> 00:05:42,720 already. The reads are still pretty consistent, but the rights have 74 00:05:41,520 --> 00:05:51,440 skyrocketed. This is TLC. Okay, that's fair. All right. 75 00:05:46,479 --> 00:05:55,039 So, the other one, um, do sudo file copy 76 00:05:51,440 --> 00:05:57,120 off. What? I swear to God, the way that 77 00:05:55,039 --> 00:06:05,360 WhatsApp sends you constant notifications that you're logged out 78 00:06:00,400 --> 00:06:08,080 P space mount and hit enter. That all 79 00:06:05,360 --> 00:06:12,160 looks correct. And that'll show us then over here what our sequential read and 80 00:06:10,400 --> 00:06:16,319 writes look like and as well as especially the right latency. 81 00:06:14,000 --> 00:06:20,560 Got it. So that'll tell us how effective that DRAM cache is, 82 00:06:18,240 --> 00:06:24,479 as well as how effective the NAND is at being erased. 83 00:06:21,680 --> 00:06:27,919 This is interesting. So the read test is still taking about the same amount of 84 00:06:26,160 --> 00:06:34,720 time it was at the start, but we're getting spikes in the right test where 85 00:06:30,400 --> 00:06:36,560 it's jumping up to over 15 seconds. We 86 00:06:34,720 --> 00:06:41,039 just finished our first run of the sequential file copy test and it's 87 00:06:38,479 --> 00:06:46,240 getting warm now. And this is interesting. The read test is no longer 88 00:06:44,080 --> 00:06:51,520 finishing consistently in just two seconds. It's actually drawn almost 89 00:06:49,039 --> 00:06:53,919 level with the right test which has gone down. 90 00:06:52,160 --> 00:07:00,960 The right latency though has gone up pretty significantly. Quintupal or as much as 8x. It's all 91 00:06:57,680 --> 00:07:02,800 over the place. Okay. Does it have a DRM 92 00:07:00,960 --> 00:07:06,800 cap? No, don't tell me. We'll find out after. So now what? 93 00:07:05,120 --> 00:07:11,520 Well, now we can graph those results, but we could also throw on one of our 94 00:07:08,800 --> 00:07:16,240 DRMless SSDs. Oh, let's see. See if that uh that makes a difference. 95 00:07:13,599 --> 00:07:17,440 Okay. Uh so reboot. Do you want to look at that output 96 00:07:17,120 --> 00:07:23,199 first? Yeah. You want to look at the output first? Ah ltar.com. Oh, thank you. Did you 97 00:07:21,599 --> 00:07:28,319 really build that into this benchmark? I built many things into the benchmark 98 00:07:24,720 --> 00:07:30,880 that you have not seen yet. 99 00:07:28,319 --> 00:07:35,360 That moment when your program is like 90% Easter eggs, 10% copying files back 100 00:07:34,080 --> 00:07:38,479 and forth. Dear lord. Oh my god, Anthony. 101 00:07:38,160 --> 00:07:43,759 What? How do I shut it down? Same way you just go to go to leave 102 00:07:41,680 --> 00:07:48,160 leave. Why is it called leave? I mean that's almost as stupid as Windows being 103 00:07:45,840 --> 00:07:50,560 start to turn it off. So just the same commands again. 104 00:07:49,599 --> 00:07:56,479 Same commands again. So we'll start with the A data drive. That is 105 00:07:54,240 --> 00:08:00,240 I want to say similar and then I can start this one. Yeah. 106 00:07:58,000 --> 00:08:02,160 Okay. Let's see what happens. Now this product page is just going to be lies, 107 00:08:01,840 --> 00:08:07,599 right? Do you want to look at it? I mean we've got some time. I'm pretty sure most of 108 00:08:05,759 --> 00:08:12,319 this is lifted either from Wikipedia or like reviews of other unrelated SSDs. 109 00:08:09,919 --> 00:08:16,240 Single level cell cache technology. I don't think so. 110 00:08:13,280 --> 00:08:20,800 Uh definitely not. SLC hasn't been around even in the enterprise for many 111 00:08:18,720 --> 00:08:25,199 years. There's even conflicting information here. It takes 10 seconds 112 00:08:23,039 --> 00:08:30,319 from the start to the desktop. Fatty Dub 240 gig solidstate drive starts up in 113 00:08:27,039 --> 00:08:33,440 about 15 seconds. They're this far away 114 00:08:30,319 --> 00:08:34,240 from each other. Optical storage read 115 00:08:33,440 --> 00:08:38,240 speed. What? What are you even talking about? Do we 116 00:08:36,479 --> 00:08:44,320 have a result here? No, not just yet. But I not quite yet, but I think sure this is 117 00:08:41,200 --> 00:08:47,920 a DRAMless SSD. Wait, 118 00:08:44,320 --> 00:08:51,040 it actually might not be. This a data is 119 00:08:47,920 --> 00:08:54,000 doing even worse. Wait, no. Better in 120 00:08:51,040 --> 00:08:58,720 latency for the most part, but the actual test completion times are much 121 00:08:56,080 --> 00:09:04,519 worse. That actually would make some sense if the Fatty Dove only has a 122 00:09:00,800 --> 00:09:04,519 couple of chips in it. 123 00:09:05,519 --> 00:09:11,440 Thankfully, Fatty Dove is more resistant 124 00:09:08,959 --> 00:09:15,600 to shock and vibrations. Can fly, but like not quite fly. It just sort of like 125 00:09:14,320 --> 00:09:19,839 falls slowly, you know? I think it's just like a chicken. Yeah. Yeah, chickens can do that. Have 126 00:09:18,560 --> 00:09:22,640 you ever thrown a chicken? No. Fun fact, I actually had a pet 127 00:09:21,760 --> 00:09:28,320 chicken when I was a kid. Me, too. The chicken was the one that all the other chickens picked on. Yeah. So, we 128 00:09:26,240 --> 00:09:33,600 took the chicken away and we raised it and it became nice and big. And then one 129 00:09:30,720 --> 00:09:36,480 day we had to give it back for reasons. Did your parents make you eat it though? 130 00:09:35,600 --> 00:09:45,200 No, it was cuz that's what happened with my pet goat. Oh, run three finished. Wow. 131 00:09:41,839 --> 00:09:48,080 250 seconds by the last run here. This 132 00:09:45,200 --> 00:09:50,959 one got absolutely creamed. All right, then. 133 00:09:48,480 --> 00:09:55,200 Okay, point to Fatty Dub, I guess. Control. Well, I mean, 134 00:09:52,640 --> 00:10:00,560 for throughput. Yeah, beating the worst is not exactly an achievement. So, round 135 00:09:58,240 --> 00:10:03,519 two. Uh, this one right here. Should I just start ripping this thing open? 136 00:10:02,080 --> 00:10:10,959 Do you want to avoid that warranty? Oh, yeah. Open. Wow, that sticker. Stop. 137 00:10:08,399 --> 00:10:13,680 You're done. Oh, and it's bent. 138 00:10:12,320 --> 00:10:21,600 Yep. You bent your fatty dove. Yeah. Wow. That is That is not a lot of 139 00:10:19,120 --> 00:10:24,320 PCB. Tell me something, Anthony. Are you finding this out for the first time or 140 00:10:22,959 --> 00:10:28,880 did you have one of these open already? I did not have one of these open already. I should have gotten one and 141 00:10:27,120 --> 00:10:32,800 opened one, but this is actually very fascinating to me right now. 142 00:10:30,399 --> 00:10:36,079 Now, I have seen SSDs that have taken a similar approach with a full size 2 and 143 00:10:34,720 --> 00:10:40,160 1/2 in enclosure. And I've actually seen ones that are like as small as just 144 00:10:38,160 --> 00:10:45,920 right here. Okay. So, based on looking at the back 145 00:10:43,200 --> 00:10:50,880 of the PCB, I'd say that's our controller right there. And I'm guessing 146 00:10:48,480 --> 00:10:57,120 no DRAM cache cuz it looks like there's just one chip right there. 147 00:10:53,839 --> 00:11:03,040 It does have a DRAM cache. It's right 148 00:10:57,120 --> 00:11:05,920 here. No way. So that seems to be a 149 00:11:03,040 --> 00:11:10,079 Silicon Motion controller. We're going to have to check this Samsung part 150 00:11:07,440 --> 00:11:18,160 number to find out if the 128meg cache is correct. And then as we discussed, 151 00:11:14,320 --> 00:11:21,920 there is in fact only a single nan flash 152 00:11:18,160 --> 00:11:24,480 chip on this PCB. But based on how far 153 00:11:21,920 --> 00:11:29,519 flash has come in the last few years, I guess you can get adequate enough 154 00:11:26,240 --> 00:11:30,959 performance for a SATA SSD out of just a 155 00:11:29,519 --> 00:11:36,640 single chip, which I guess kind of makes sense cuz you know a max capacity NVMe 156 00:11:34,320 --> 00:11:41,279 drive is only going to have four chips on it with a lot of the high performance 157 00:11:38,079 --> 00:11:44,560 ones having just two. So SATA is like a 158 00:11:41,279 --> 00:11:46,720 fraction of that speed. Wow, I'm 159 00:11:44,560 --> 00:11:53,440 impressed. Okay, let's find out how much cache it actually has, though. Oh, this 160 00:11:48,320 --> 00:11:55,839 benchmark is done and the Micron SSD is 161 00:11:53,440 --> 00:11:58,959 definitely better, but not necessarily because it has a DRM cache. Probably 162 00:11:57,680 --> 00:12:04,320 just cuz it's got better engineered firmware and a better controller. Okay, I want to I want to check these part 163 00:12:01,920 --> 00:12:11,120 numbers now. I think that's an E D RAM chip. DDR3 SD RAM 1 GB. Okay, so 128 164 00:12:08,639 --> 00:12:15,440 megs. Surprisingly then, as broken as the packaging and product page were, the 165 00:12:13,440 --> 00:12:20,240 main controversial element of this thing, whether or not it had a DRAM 166 00:12:17,200 --> 00:12:22,000 cache, ended up being true. Uh although 167 00:12:20,240 --> 00:12:26,880 with that said, the power loss protection uh did not end up being 168 00:12:24,079 --> 00:12:32,720 present. There's no bank of capacitors here that looks anything like that. So 169 00:12:29,279 --> 00:12:34,560 that that is clearly not accurate. Why 170 00:12:32,720 --> 00:12:38,000 why would they say that? Is it to do with the fact that compared to a hard 171 00:12:36,560 --> 00:12:44,399 drive, you don't have to worry about if you lose power, the head parking? 172 00:12:41,279 --> 00:12:47,519 Oh, or it could be that they mean that 173 00:12:44,399 --> 00:12:49,920 compared to something like just a D a 174 00:12:47,519 --> 00:12:51,920 RAM drive, the data is held persistently, 175 00:12:51,120 --> 00:12:56,240 right? Right. Maybe it's it's like volatile. 176 00:12:54,160 --> 00:13:00,639 Yeah. Non nonvolatile storage. I don't know. I don't know what they were going 177 00:12:57,200 --> 00:13:02,720 after there. But for 20 bucks, actually 178 00:13:00,639 --> 00:13:05,920 not bad. for longevity, right? But 179 00:13:03,920 --> 00:13:09,360 yeah, can't can't speak to that. But hey, 5year warranty, right? So, thanks 180 00:13:07,760 --> 00:13:14,720 for watching, guys. If you enjoyed this little adventure in exploring weird 181 00:13:12,480 --> 00:13:19,200 cheap hardware off of AliExpress, then maybe check out uh our oh our show and 182 00:13:17,760 --> 00:13:23,200 tell where everyone bought the weirdest hardware they could possibly find and 183 00:13:20,800 --> 00:13:27,839 then see who had seed saw, who had whatever. It was weird. Go check it out. 184 00:13:25,040 --> 00:13:27,839 Thanks Bluff.