ADATA Swordfish 1TB, M.2 2280 / M-Key / PCIe 3.0 x4, Kühlkörper

Today we will be taking a look at two M.2 NVMe solid state drives from ADATA. The first is the Falcon, which offers sequential read and write speeds of 3100 MB/s and 1500 MB/s respectively. Then we have the Swordfish, which is a bit slower with sequential speeds of 1800 MB/s read and 1200 MB/s write. While these speeds are on the low-end of what M/2 NVMe drives, they are still faster then SATA-based storage, lets take a look!

The ADATA Swordfish is an entry-level NVMe SSD series aimed at everyday users that are looking for a low-priced drive to possibly replace an aging traditional hard drive.

ADATA set out to deliver rock-solid performance and reliability at budget prices. With the Swordfish and Falcon drives, they’ve struck a balance between performance and rock-bottom pricing. The Swordfish drive, in particular, is one of the most affordable 1 TB NVMe drives on the market currently, and it packs a punch in the performance department too. ADATA was able to cut costs and maintain respectable performance by implementing the Realtek RTS57xx series controllers. Furthermore, they shaved the cost by opting to not include a DRAM cache IC. Both of the drives suffer in terms of IOPS performance, though, because there is no DRAM chip to handle communication.

The ADATA Swordfish is an entry-level NVMe SSD that supports the PCIe Gen3x4 interface via the M.2 2280 form factor. It is outfitted with 3D NAND Flash and is available in capacities up to 2TB. The ADATA Swordfish also features Low-Density Parity-Check error correcting and the usual AES 256-bit encryption technology. As demonstrated in our performance charts (specifically referring to its write performance), the Swordfish is only meant as an upgrade for those looking for an affordable NVMe drive to install their OS from a SATA-based HDD or SSD, or as an inexpensive supplemental storage solution for PC games.

The ADATA Swordfish is basically the most affordable M.2 NVMe SSD on the market; there are some competitors within a few dollars, but that really makes no difference. We reviewed the ADATA Falcon last week, which is "very affordable" at $130, but the Swordfish is on a completely different level, offering 1 TB of capacity for $115—that's a difference of over 10%.