Apacer Thunderbird PT910 An all-in-one PCIe RAID solution

Even as drive manufacturers are releasing PCIe SSDs in both M.2 and slot form factors, some are sticking to well-worn tech. The Thunderbird PT910 couples SATA SSDs into a half-height PCIe card — no native PCIe or M.2 capabilities are included. Instead, the Thunderbird uses a Marvell 88SS9220 controller to couple two 128GB chunks of Intel MLC NAND (running SandForce SF-2241 controllers) to a PCIe interface. The result is a PCIe SSD that runs RAID 0 internally — no user setup required. Unlike almost all the other SSDs on the market, the PT910 actually becomes more expensive per gigabyte if you opt for the $1,149 512GB model. Because the PT910 only uses a x3 PCIe 2.0 connection, throughput is limited to a maximum of 1,000MB/s. The result is speeds that easily best standard SATA SSDs, but fall short of the faster PCIe offerings. With sequential read/write speeds of 701/ 522MB/s, respectively, the PT910 has similar performance to the Plextor SSDs, which also use a PCIe 2.0 x2 interface. When it comes to 4K random data, the Apacer SSD’s RAID setup is a little better, especially with a higher queue depth. The Thunderbird is rated at 100,000 read/write IOPS, and managed a 24/91MB/s read write speed with 4K random data. The result is an SSD that isn’t quite fast enough or cheap enough to effectively compete with the rest of the competition. Keep your eyes peeled, though — Apacer has promised some new M.2 PCIe later this year.