Integral 1TB INSSD1TM280NM2X NVMe SSD Review

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1TB INSSD1TM280NM2X Review


Introduction

Hello there dear reader, it’s certainly been a while since the last people’s review hasn’t it? Alas that is the nature of a part time independent reviewer. Rest assured I have much content to develop and publish but the problem is time and funding, fresh air doesn’t pay for things sadly. Anyhoo here today in this latest people’s review is the PCIe 3.1 1TB Integral INSSD1TM280NM2X M2 Series SSD, I wouldn’t blame you if you haven’t seen much about Integral, they don’t exactly announce their presence which is partially what drew me to write this review the other is to remind people that PCIe 3.x SSDs have their advantages over the now becoming more mainstream PCIe 4.0 SSDs such as the controllers running a fair bit cooler and later PCIe 3.x SSDs having performance equally as good, or better, than your run of the mill PCIe 4.0 based drives. Just because a numerical number is bigger, doesn’t mean they are better.

Integral don’t tell you much about themselves even on their website but suffice to say they were founded in 1989 in the UK, are a widespread name in Europe as well trading in over 50 countries and proclaim themselves as one of Europe’s leading DRAM specialists while also selling SSDs, memory cards, USB drives, etc. Anything that looks like it can enter the race with the usual horses to add more competition is always a good thing so I think it’s time we found out what Integral can bring to the table.

That’s it for this introduction, on with the people’s review!


The Gallery

Right so let’s see what this here Integral SSD looks like.

https://i.imgur.com/4OdqAv6.jpg

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Well this is... basic. I’m all for keeping packaging to a minimum but this is another level, no warranty card with essential information let alone an installation screw and screwdriver. Even for the current price of £48 from mymemory.co.uk (no I’m not even getting paid to drop a purchase link) this is minimalistic. On visiting the Integral website there is also no utility to update the firmware on the SSD, what you see is what you get. We’ve all heard the term “Barebones”, but in this case the bones aren’t just bare all the marrow has been removed as well.

In terms of looks without a heatsink, ugly white sticker but a black PCB the drive looks better than average and with no “Warranty Void” notice on the stick one can assume it is fine to remove it to add your own heatsink so bonus points for that. Integral throw quite a considerable pomp and fanfare about this drive being great for gaming so let us see if the capabilities of this drive can make up for these immediate shortcomings.

On a side note am I the last reviewer that still likes to include packaging shots? It’s all about being thorough.


Specifications


Time to dig in like a tick and expose all the details for this Integral drive starting with some close up images.

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There isn’t too much to talk about here, the flash memory is 3D TLC and the Maxio controller on paper looks solid enough but I will point out it is not the controller Integral tout this drive is meant to have when looking at their PDF, the drive is meant to use an InnoGrit 5216. Now, component’s switching in and out on mid and low tier drives isn’t uncommon so I don’t have an issue with that what I do take issue with is that Integral don’t even give this drive a different part number to differentiate between the different controllers, updating the PDF adding this replacement or alternative controller so people know what they are buying should be done. Ok, time for a look at the spec sheet for the Integral drive.

https://i.imgur.com/kgDdZaj.jpg

Controller aside there are some things to take note of here, particularly the claimed read and write performance, NVMe compliancy of 1.4 rather than 1.3, and interface compliancy of 3.1 rather than 3.0. On paper things look promising for the class of drive this INSSD1TM280NM2X is aimed to be, the endurance rating is also pretty solid at 512 TBW – that blows the Crucial P3 out of the water with its lowly endurance rating of 220 TBW.

Now we have taken a look at the physical drive let’s have a close look at the spec sheet for the Maxio MAP1202A-F1C controller available on the Chinese Maxio website.

Max. Write performance: 3600MB/s
Max. Read performance: 3200MB/s
Random Read IOPS: 600K
Random Write IOPS: 500K
NAND Interface: ONFi4.2/Toggle 4.0 NV-DDR3 up to 1600MT/s
Maximum Supported Capacity: 4TB
PCIe 3.1, NVMe 1.4

Once again on paper the Maxio controller looks to be promising much like the drive as a whole has the potential to be a superb PCIe 3.1 class SSD, but how will it all come together?


Test Setup


CPU: AMD 3700X @ 4.4GHz 1.3v
Mainboard: MSI X570 Tomahawk w\ firmware 7C84v1C
RAM: 2x16GB Klevv BoltX 3600MHz @ 18-20-18-18-35
GPU: Powercolor Radeon 6800XT Red Devil
Storage: Asgard 250GB M.2 SSD (OS drive), 2TB Seagate Barracuda, 1TB Integral M.2 Series NVMe SSD
Opticals: 24x Lite-On iHAS324 DVD-RW, 16x HP BH40N Blu-Ray
Sound: Xonar DX 7.1, Realtek ALC1200
PSU: EVGA 1000w Supernova G2
OS: Windows 10 Pro x64 and all updates
Case: NZXT Phantom 530


Benchmarks

Now we get to the good stuff, measuring performance of the 1TB Integral INSSD1TM280NM2X. I like to use tests that everyone can use as a reference point for themselves for comparison which means I hold little value in such tests as boot times and file copy tests as these things can and do vary based on the type of data, platform and chipset, whether the drive is limited by the interface it is connected to (chipset or directly fed by the CPU, PCIe bus interface, etc) so we will focus on tests that can be used for direct comparison much more easily.

Up first is CrystalDiskMark v8.0.

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Well right off the bat everyone’s storage yardstick CrystalDiskMark shows the Integral drive reaching the promised advertised speeds with Reads and Writes, you’ll notice the drive in these tests is 63% full, this is because nobody marvels at the speed of a drive when it is empty we want to see how the drive responds with some data on.

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Next we have AS SSD, up first is the 1GB preset, this utility is less forgiving than CrystalDiskMark and is thus a better test to gauge a drives performance. Results for this basic test are pretty good the overall score is a bit on the low side given the paper specification of the Integral SSD, but not terrible. I’m sure some more optimisation in the SSD firmware could correct this... oh wait, Integral don’t offer an SSD firmware update utility let alone updated firmware.

https://i.imgur.com/gltKVyj.jpg

To emulate a more realistic dataset we move to the 10GB preset. As is clear to see performance for the drive rapidly begins to fall even with a still relatively small amount of data by modern standards, this drive certainly doesn’t look like one that is well suited to sustained writes.

If you like AS SSD throw a little something the developers way as the utility is developed completely free of charge with no paywall.

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Now we look at both the standard ATTO test and the 32GB test to see how the INSSD1TM280NM2X holds up with likely the best storage benchmark available. For context I threw in the 250GB Asgard AN Series SSD used as the OS drive sporting an SM2263XT controller specified for 2000MB/s Read and 1200MB/s Write.

With smaller file sizes the Integral drive performs rather poorly but quickly shows off the raw speed on offer at 64KB upward. Bear in mind here that both the Integral and Asgard drives make use of 3D TLC flash so there is no good reason for the Integral to fall behind to the Asgard to the degree it does outside of the Integral drive simply having immature firmware that needs refinement for a drive specified so much higher there must be more to get from the hardware, something made all the more evident in the next test.

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PCMark10 tells a similar story to ATTO with extremely mid bandwidth and latency results of 387MB/s and 68 microseconds. Given the specification of the Integral INSSD1TM280NM2X it is a bit bemusing it cannot muster a bandwidth around the 450MB/s mark or a latency somewhere in the upper 50s to lower 60s microseconds range, those more modern PCIe and NVMe standards the drive is built to are not taken advantage of in the slightest.

The final data orientated test is HD Tune v5.60 to see how the drive handles reading and writing 100GB of data, a relatively common amount for modern triple A gaming titles when moving them to and fro drives.

https://i.imgur.com/pSZPCd6.jpg

This must be the most disappointing result of all for the Integral drive. While reads are pretty steady write performance is all over the place and falls off a cliff once about 34GB of data has been written and further nose dives after about 43GB bottoming out at around 350MB/s. Sustained writes are far from being something this Integral drive will handle even competently and write performance tanking before even the 50GB mark is extremely poor by modern standards.

I think we have seen enough of data benchmarks let’s see how the SSD does for some game loading times. For this test the Final Fantasy Endwalker, Shadowbringers, and Stormblood tests are run. Load times are the cumulative total for all scenes at maximum settings.

https://i.imgur.com/F5AtT7v.jpg

I don’t think anyone will be surprised here, a HDD taking substantially longer to load in everything while any difference in load time is negligible at best between the Asgard and Integral SSDs. This might change as engines are developed to take advantage of the substantially better performance an SSD provides but those days, if they come at all, are still 2-3 years or more away.


Conclusion

There we have it, the Integral INSSD1TM280NM2X, an interesting piece of kit on paper but a disappointing reality. The drive could, and should, have been earning itself a silver award and still so easily could if Integral release a firmware update utility for the end user and an updated firmware for the SSD at bare minimum tripling the size of the pSLC cache. I even contacted Integral before finishing this review to re-run the tests with any updated firmware Integral had for the SSD but they just dodged the question and after a couple emails of me showing them performance of the drive stopped replying entirely which is concerning to say the least. The Integral drive isn’t the worst SSD on the market but it also spectacularly misses the mark of what it could be making it, in the current state, white noise at best in a sea of competing similarly priced SSDs such as the Crucial P3, ADATA Legend 800, or Exceria G2. I have forwarded this review to Integral with links to the places this review can be found at, perhaps that will spur them into action and if that is the case I will update this review with any information.

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Performance: 12 / 20
Read performance is what you would expect from a modern PCIe 3.x NVMe device but write performance is simply horrid not even being able to complete 50GB of data before performance nose dives off a cliff. The only minor redeeming feature is performance bottoming out at 350MB/s which is actually pretty solid next to a lot of other PCIe 3.x SSDs. The absolutely microscopic pSLC cache hurts this drive considerably too as well as very unstable write performance. The final insult is the microscopic pSLC cache making the drive not particularly suited to the very task Integral tout the drive for – gaming. I certainly wouldn’t want to regularly move or copy modern Triple A game titles close to or in excess of 100GB to and from this drive, no sir.

Build Quality: 17 / 20
For a drive without a heatsink build quality is about as good as you can hope for from an SSD in this class and the apparent removal of the white sticker to add your own heatsink seemingly being permitted as there is no “Warranty void if removed” notice does earn a couple extra points.

Price: 17/20
Pricing for the INSSD1TM280NM2X is competitive at £46 but what Integral give you out of the... err, box, if you can even call it that, is decidedly more threadbare than some other competitors and even looks bad next to more minimalistic budget offerings.

Aesthetics: 6/ 10
A black PCB you’re likely going to throw under a heatsink is the order of the day here with the only real offence being a horrible white sticker. It’s fine, nothing more, nothing less.

Software & Support: 8/30
What software and support? You get nothing to do any cloning, there is no end user software to update firmware on the SSD, and support while responding promptly initially soon resulted to ghosting upon the second time of my asking if Integral has an updated firmware revision they could send (they failed to answer this request the first time), Integral are lucky to get what they have in this category... actually, no, it’s not good enough I’m knocking a few more points off.

Final Score: 60%