ADATA Ultimate SU800 512GB SSD Review

By Nathan Kirsch

Final Thoughts & Conclusions

ADATA SU800 512GB SSD Retail Box

The ADATA Ultimate SU800 512GB drive was didn’t leave us impressed during out testing and it doesn’t have anything to make it stand out in a crowded SSD market. A quick look at Newegg and we found that there are over 115 different 2.5 SSDs available with capacities ranging from 480GB to 512GB and the ADATA Ultimate SU800 isn’t listed yet. To become a standout drive you need to do really well at something and the SU800 fails to excite and that is before we even start to talk about the pricing.

Our testing showed that we were able to hit 564 MB/s read and 519MB/s in the sequential benchmark (ATTO) and 83,000 IOPS read and 82,100 IOPS write (Anvil) for 4K QD32 random performance. These numbers are close to the drives rated speeds of 560/520 MB/s for sequential and 85k IOPS for random read/write performance. Our sustained write testing showed that sequential writes bottomed out at 40 MB/s and averaged 80 MB/s after the SLC buffer was full and data was being written directly to the 3D TLC NAND Flash.

ADATA Ultimate SU800 2.5″ SSD MSRP:

  • SU800 128GB – $59.99 ($0.47 per GB)
  • SU800 256GB – $79.99 ($0.31 per GB)
  • SU800 512GB – $139.99 ($0.27 per GB)
  • SU800 1TB – $269.99 ($0.27 per GB)

When it comes to pricing the ADATA Ultimate SU800 series drives you are looking at between $0.47 and $0.27 per GB and that is actually higher-end of the price spectrum for value drives. For example the Crucial MX300 525GB Solid-State Drive (review) is priced at $119.99 shipped or $0.23 per GB and has higher performance and features like AES 256-bit hardware-based encryption. The ADATA Ultimate SU800 performance doesn’t match the MSRP, so we expect to see street pricing drop sooner rather than later for this drive to sell well. The ADATA Ultimate SU800 was announced over 3-weeks ago and has yet to make it to Amazon and Newegg, so it will be interesting to see what the actual street price will be for each capacity.

The 3-year limited warranty is average for an drive in the value class, but we are left wondering what the endurance rating (TBW) is for this series. We’ll find out at some point, but even if it is really high (greater than 400TB) it won’t change our thoughts on this drive. It falls into the category of just another budget TLC NAND based SSD that has average performance with a higher than average price tag. ADATA plans on releasing Ultimate SU900 series with higher performance numbers later this month and we hope that drive does better.

UPDATE 9/20/2016: ADATA has let us know that the 512GB version of this drive features a 400TB TBW endurance rating, which is actually very good for a 512GB capacity drive!

Legit Bottom Line: The ADATA Ultimate SU800 512GB drive performs like most any TLC NAND based value SSD and needs a lower price point to be a recommended pick!