Discussion A simple introduction to Chinese made SSD(updated with some test)

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FAhentai

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Hi Guys, I am an Australian-Chinese who live in Melbourne. Recently, I have noticed that China has already made SSD so I made some research and even bought a few of them myself. Here is just some simple guild about those Chinese made SSD, please notice that it does not means Chinese SSD brands but product of China, from the controlling chip to NAND chips are all made in China.
1st of all, all those SSD, no matter what brand they are, their Nand chips come from one company, named Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp (Chinese 长江存储), here is the wiki link ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yangtze_Memory_Technologies ). Needless to say, it is on US Entity List, which means that in most of the west countries you may not able to use it for goverment departments. For the controlling chip, they are either InnoGrit 5236 (Chinese 英韧5236,the company's website in English
https://www.innogritcorp.com/)or Maxio 1602 (Chinese 联芸1602,the company's website http://www.maxio-tech.com/?cur_lang=en) The difference is, InnoGrit 5236 come with DRAM and Maxio 1602 does not, they are both PCI-E 4.0. However, I have heard a lot of reports that those SSD with 5236 controller has serious disk drop (all in a sudden disk disappeared from your system, it may recover after that but you will lose all your data:eek: ) and 0e problem because its main control chip is very hot. Thus,I personally would not buy any of those ones. However, for Maxio 1602, it does not have the problem but, no DRAM!:ROFLMAO:
Here are some of those products, please notice that FOR MOST OF THEM, 512G PRICED AT 300 RMB 1T PRICED AT 400 RMB, 2T ABOUT 650 RMB AND 4T PRICED AT 1400 RMB WITH MAXIO 1602 CONTROLLER AND YANGTZE MEMORY 3DTLC NAND IN CHINA. YOU CAN FIND SOME OF THOSE ONES IN ALIEXPRESS.
1.Zhitai, it is the subsidiary of Yangtze Memory. Thus, their products are the best, however, I personally don't recommand this brand because its products are not that much cheaper than those internationally famous brands, such as Samsung, Kingston. So yeah, the prices above does not apply to this brand. Its Tipro series SSD is something that you don't want to buy because 5236 controller. Their S7000 however uses 1602 controller nevertheless, price matters.
2.Fanxiang, this brand even has its own shop on Aliexpress, the price is good but not as good as it is in China. Here is the link (https://www.aliexpress.com/store/1102321189?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.16.2cd743ed17RABx ). All their products are good to buy, except its S770, why? InnoGrit 5236 :ROFLMAO:
3.Aigo, you can find some of its P7000 M2 SSD on Aliexpress as well, however, be careful, P7000D and P7000D only uses 5236, that is something you don't want.
4.Acer, its GM7 family are all good to go.
I am sure that there are some other brands that you may not heard of from China that I did not list here. However, what I have done is list all those fairly well known brands in China. If you have some question about some Chinese SSD brands, please reply, I can check it out for you, and also, I hope this can help you guys.
 
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I'm also Australian. Thank you for your guide. There is a wealth of information on Chinese web sites, but Google is a poor translator. The biggest problem, however, is that most of the useful information and software tools are behind paywalls or require registration and login. Many westerners, including myself, find it very difficult to gain access.

BTW, Maxio is a spin-off from JMicron, and JMicron is based in Taiwan, so whether you consider that this makes Maxio SSDs a product of China is a political question.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/11339/previewing-maxiotek-mk8115-dramless-ssd-controller
 

FAhentai

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I'm also Australian. Thank you for your guide. There is a wealth of information on Chinese web sites, but Google is a poor translator. The biggest problem, however, is that most of the useful information and software tools are behind paywalls or require registration and login. Many westerners, including myself, find it very difficult to gain access.

BTW, Maxio is a spin-off from JMicron, and JMicron is based in Taiwan, so whether you consider that this makes Maxio SSDs a product of China is a political question.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/11339/previewing-maxiotek-mk8115-dramless-ssd-controller
Thanks for updates....Humm, that is funny....However, if it is a spin-off, it must be some how independent, otherwise, JMicron can not afford the political risk.
 

FAhentai

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Okay, finally I made some tests, I bought 2 Fanxing S100PRO SATA SSD from Aliexpress, here is the test result
The 1st one on top is when the SSD is empty while the one below is when it is used about 50%

In comparation,

Crucial MX300, 1T, with 70% full

WD BLUE 2T, (sn550) with 40% full
all those tests are done based on 3G data

On additional, what I have done is copied everything from my HDD drive (Seagate IRONWOLF 4T) to Fanxiang S100PRO, it stays at 220M/S, and it looks smooth and stable, total 1T data.
I also found some teardown pics, the controller is Maxio MAS 1102, Nand chips are from Yangtze Memory, 3D TLC, here is the link if you can read Chinese

In conclusion, Fanxiang S100PRO's performance is acceptable, yet no where close to outstanding, more or less close to Crucial MX series. Its price is low, I bought 2 of them for 243.12 aud from Aliexpress, works out 77.53 USD each (Fanxiang S100PRO 2T). I did check the price in China, it is the same. My personal idea is: It may be good to use, yet it is not a good choice for people in west to buy because
1)Whatever you bought from Aliexpress, the warranty is a problem, at least it is not as easy as those other brands
2) The price is not low enough. I am not really sure the price in other contries but in Australia, both Crucial MX500 2T and WD BLUE 2T are 179 aud, Samsung 870 EVO 2T is 209 Aud, 50 to 80 Aud's difference is not big enough.

Next time, when I get my MB fixed, I will go and check Aigo Z7000Z, which is an NVME PCI-E 4.0X4 SSD.
 
Sep 24, 2023
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The point of these brands and their products are bringing more competitions and lowing the price down at other major brands like Samsung, Kingston, so we don't pay overprice like Graphics Card.

For any data you think it is important, it is your responsibility to have a backup. For something cheaper and less performance, I am totally OK to use it as a 2nd SSD or portable drive.

Not sure why you want to parallel import that SATA3 model S100Pro from China via AliExpress when the brand Fanxiang is availably on Amazon having the M.2 version of S770 and cost less than what you paid on AliExpress, and they have local warehouse in Australia and other countries:
 

FAhentai

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The point of these brands and their products are bringing more competitions and lowing the price down at other major brands like Samsung, Kingston, so we don't pay overprice like Graphics Card.

For any data you think it is important, it is your responsibility to have a backup. For something cheaper and less performance, I am totally OK to use it as a 2nd SSD or portable drive.

Not sure why you want to parallel import that SATA3 model S100Pro from China via AliExpress when the brand Fanxiang is availably on Amazon having the M.2 version of S770 and cost less than what you paid on AliExpress, and they have local warehouse in Australia and other countries:
Clearly you have not read my words...S770 is InnoGrit 5236. YOU CAN NOT AFFORD THE RISK MATE :ROFLMAO:
:ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO:

Also, the price is almost the same there.
 
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FAhentai

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Okay, I hope the mod does not consider this as grave dig, any way, now I finally get my MB fixed, here is a simple test on Aigo p7000z, 2T version, Maxio 1602 of course, with 0% used. Meanwhile I have a Kingston KC3000 2t
Here is the updates, based on 3G data test, here is the resluts
Not bad, not bad at all. However, if it is worth it or not in your country, it is up to you. However, at this point, at least for Australian, my personal idea is, NO, unless you can travel to China to buy them there.
 
Sep 24, 2023
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Clearly you have not read my words...S770 is InnoGrit 5236. YOU CAN NOT AFFORD THE RISK MATE :ROFLMAO:
:ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO:
Also, the price is almost the same there.
I read exactly what you stated above. But I don't think you read what I said: IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO BACKUP THE DATA YOU CONSIDER IT IS IMPORTANT. Samsung won't compensate on your data lose if their controller chip fails.

I don't know what the price strategy is for Australia, this is what's on Amazon, Samsung is 167 and Fanxiang is 120, that's 40% more.

Like I said, for that price, good choice for a portable drive or 2nd disk. If you expect nothing fails when you pay premium price, you will be disappointed. Samsung, Crucial, Toshiba etc. all failed from my experience, the only difference is when it will fail and whether you have a backup there.
 

FAhentai

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I read exactly what you stated above. But I don't think you read what I said: IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO BACKUP THE DATA YOU CONSIDER IT IS IMPORTANT. Samsung won't compensate on your data lose if their controller chip fails.

I don't know what the price strategy is for Australia, this is what's on Amazon, Samsung is 167 and Fanxiang is 120, that's 40% more.

Like I said, for that price, good choice for a portable drive or 2nd disk. If you expect nothing fails when you pay premium price, you will be disappointed. Samsung, Crucial, Toshiba etc. all failed from my experience, the only difference is when it will fail and whether you have a backup there.
Clearly you don't know the fail rate of those SSD. It was a big problem in China before, believe or not, some blocks of those SSD with InnoGrit 5236 controller have 50% of disk drop rates in short time. This is way too much. I have heard that they have made new firmware to fix the problem, yet the chance for you to have this problem is still high, espcially when your M.2 socket is under the graphic card, which is very common nowadays. Samsung has 0E problem, yet the chance for you to have the problem is far less than this one, not mention that even if 0E happens, the chance for you to get the data back is still high and 0E happens to those InnoGrit 5236 ones as well.

Also, I am not really sure if it is true or not, anyway, it is my personal guess. In China, the most popular SSD are those ones with Maxio 1602 controller, InnoGrit 5236 ones however has already carried a bad name that not too many expirenced user would buy. Thus, Fanxiang dumped all their InnoGrit 5236 SSD to oversea market because not too many people in west know about this.

Finally, price issue, okay I did check out on Amarzon Australia. The result is a little bit strange. They only have S880 there, which uses Maxio 1602 controller. The 4T version is 359 aud while the 2T is 149.
I would say, this one is not that bad in Australia, however, there is still some better choices. For 2T verion, crucial P3 cost 159 aud in local store, WD SN570 cost 149 there as well. Meanwhile for 4T, PNY CS2241 cost 289 aud at the same shop. This creates a niche for this SSD, which is PS5 storage expension because none of those ones I mentioned there can meet the requirements of PS5 but I am very sure that Maxio 1602 solution can do because I had an Aigo P7000Z installed inside my PS5 already. Other than that, I still feel it is not worth it, especially considering the warranty issue.

 
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