Netac NV150HK 2TB SSD Review

1. Introduction2. Netac NV150HK 2TB3. Testing Methodology4. CrystalDiskMark5. ATTO Disk Benchmark6. AS SSD7. 128KB Sequential Performance8. 4K Random Read v QD Performance9. 4K Random Write v QD Performance10. 4K 70/30 Mixed Performance11. 4K Random Performance QD1-QD812. Throughput13. PCMark 10 Full System Drive Benchmark14. 3DMark Storage Benchmark 15. Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker Official Benchmark16. Temperatures17. Real Life File Testing18. Closing Thoughts19. View All Pages

The NV150HK is Netac's first Gen 5 drive, designed for content creation, demanding desktop and gaming. The drive has official sequential read/write figures of up to 14,000MB/s and 13,000MB/s, respectively. The new drive lineup consists of three capacities at launch: 1TB, 2TB and 4TB.

The Netac NV150HK uses a Silicon Motion SM2508 eight-channel controller combined with Micron 232-Layer 3D TLC NAND. There is also, in the case of the 2TB drive, a 2GB LPDDR4-2133MHz DRAM cache IC.

Officially, the 2TB and 4TB NV150HK models are rated at up to 14,000MB/s for sequential reads and up to 13,000MB/s for writes. The 1TB drive achieves ratings of up to 13,000MB/s for reads and 8,000MB/s for writes. When it comes to 4K random performance, the 2TB and 4TB drives have the same up to 2,000,000 IOPS speed rating for random reads, while the 1TB drive is rated as up to 1,600,000 IOPS. Random writes are quoted as up to 1,800,000 IOPS for all three drives.

When tested with the ATTO v4 benchmark, the read result of 7,480MB/s came nowhere near the official 14,000MB/s, but this is more to do with the benchmark than the drive, as can be seen from the ATTO 5 results below. The write result of 12,060MB/s is close to the official maximum of 13,000MB/s. Using the latest v5 of ATTO, the drive produced a read result of 14,930MB/s, 930MB/s faster than the official maximum, while the write result of 13,490MB/s is a 490MB/s improvement over the official figure. Switching over to the CrystalDiskMark 8 default benchmark, we could confirm the official maximum figures with test results of 14,300MB/s for reads and 13,501MB/s for writes.

When it came to 4K random performance, we couldn't achieve figures anywhere close to the official 2M IOPS (reads) and 1.8M IOPS (writes) using our 4-threaded testing. The best we saw from testing was 588,566 IOPS (QD16) for reads and 549,459 IOPS (QD16) for writes. The best performance figures we saw from the drive came from using the default Peak Performance profile in CrystalDiskMark 8 with reads at 1,979,719 IOPS and writes at 1,789,690 IOPS.

Netac have used a two-piece heatsink (heatsink and cradle) to keep the NV150HK cool. This, together with intelligent thermal control algorithms, helps keep the drive under the official 70° C maximum operating temperature of the drive. The highest temperature we saw was 58° C during runs of CrystalDiskMark 8 using the default write test, along with the read / write test of the Real World profile. For the bulk of our testing, the drive averaged 45.6° C, with the 4K focused tests averaging 38° C.

We don't yet have a confirmed UK price, though Netac have told us the USD list price will be around $200.

Pros

• Overall performance.
• Heatsink design.

Cons

• Couldn't hit the official 4K figures with our testing.

KitGuru says: The NV150HK is Netac's first venture into the Gen 5 drive market. It performs well enough and seems to do better at deeper queue depths. Its heatsink is well designed, has good build quality, and it works well at keeping the drive cool.

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