{"id":694,"date":"2023-04-04T12:54:34","date_gmt":"2023-04-04T16:54:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unigen.wpengine.com\/?p=694"},"modified":"2023-06-12T12:55:40","modified_gmt":"2023-06-12T16:55:40","slug":"unigens-hood-boot-drive-snags-an-editors-choice-award-with-its-exceptional-endurance-and-consistent-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unigen.com\/unigens-hood-boot-drive-snags-an-editors-choice-award-with-its-exceptional-endurance-and-consistent-performance\/","title":{"rendered":"Unigen’s \u201cHood\u201d Boot Drive snags an Editor\u2019s Choice Award with its exceptional endurance and consistent performance."},"content":{"rendered":"

Translated into English – Original article\u00a0here<\/a><\/p>\n

Hood Boot Drive SSD 128 GB<\/strong>
\nUnigen sent their \u201cHood\u201d Boot Drive SSD 2242 for us to test and review. The Hood is an M.2 SATA SSD that is primarily intended for boot applications in servers and embedded devices. The test board has a capacity of 128 GB, is based on the Hyperstone X1 controller, and has TLC NAND memory converted to pSLC with high write durability.<\/p>\n

For those who don’t know, Unigen is an American company headquartered in Newark, California (Silicon Valley), which has locations in Vietnam, China, Taiwan, and Malaysia. They have been producing industrial focused memory modules and storage solutions since 1991. They are a manufacturer of integrated electronics (EMS), from design to NPI, mass production and after-sales service. Fields of service include the automotive industry, computing and storage, embedded devices, medical, robotics and IoT.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of the year, Unigen launched the Hood SSD M.2 2242 with a very high durability SATA III interface. It is best used for industrial applications where high durability, reliability, and low TCO (total cost of ownership) are required. Capacities of Hood range from 32 to 256 GB. We decided to test the 128 GB model. For this product, Unigen chose Hyperstone X1 SATA SSD 2-channel DRAM-less controller and paired it with BiCS5 NAND flash memory produced by Kioxia. As a reminder, Kioxia is the rebranded company of Toshiba, the inventor of NAND Flash.<\/p>\n

The device measures only 42 x 22 x 3.5 millimeters and weighs 3 grams. It comes in capacities of 32, 64, 128 and 256 GB. Power consumption is below 1.4 W during normal operation, and below 0.2 W in idle mode. The manufacturer claims sequential performance of 375 MB\/s for reads and 240 MB\/s for writes, which is inline with the SATA III interface. Random 4K performance is 4,245 IOPS for reads and 3,170 IOPS for writes. MTBF is over 8.8 million hours.<\/p>\n

The compelling feature of the Hyperstone X1 controller is that it supports Pseudo-SLC (pSLC) technology, which operates MLC or TLC NAND memory in a special mode to reduce the number of bits recoded in each cell once, allowing up to 30,000 PE cycles (program\/erase). This technique increases the reliability and lifetime of NAND flash memory. In the case of Hood, Unigen uses TLC NAND memory converted to pSLC, where the 256 GB model has as much as 4 PBW of durability \u2013 yes, that’s 4 petabytes of writes. For reference, conventional desktop SSDs have below 0.6 to 0.75 PBW and capacity up to 1 TB.<\/p>\n

The controller supports both performant AES-128 and AES-256 encryption with CBC and XTS modes (FIPS 197), has a SHA-256 hashing mechanism, a random number generator, and Secure-Boot features with TCG Opal support. It also has ECC support, up to 66 bits per 512-byte sector.<\/p>\n

Test System & Testing Method<\/strong><\/p>\n

Test System: Hardware<\/p>\n