Inland Performance Plus 1TB M.2 SSD Review

Micro Center has partnered with Phison for its flagship NVMe SSD. Join us as we closely examine the inland Performance Plus 1TB.

Published
Manufacturer: Micro Center (MC 202044)
5 minutes & 35 seconds read time
TweakTown's Rating: 91%
TweakTown award

The Bottom Line

Currently the lowest priced 7,000 MB/s SSD on the market.

Introduction & Drive Details

Phison E18 based SSDs are all the rage these days. It seems like most SSD retailers have their own version of Phison's fire-breathing 7,000 MB/s beast. Some are high-dollar versions with customizations and value add software, and some are barebones with nothing but the drive and a sticker. The inland Performance Plus SSD we have on our bench today falls somewhere in-between bare bones and customized.

In terms of included software, the Performance Plus doesn't have any whatsoever. However, inland does include a substantial and effective custom heat sink. We don't often see this from an offering that falls squarely in the value segment category. We are basing our assessment that this drive is what we consider to be a value drive on its pricing and its warranty period, not its performance, because that is tier 1.

In terms of pricing, the Phison E18 based 1TB inland Premium Plus was the cheapest 1TB E18 based SSD we could find at $189,99. The inland drive will deliver the same performance as you will get from any 1TB Phison E18 based SSD with Micron 96L TLC flash, so that's great. However, we noticed that the inland Performance Plus SSD is warrantied for 3-years instead of the usual 5-years we've seen from all other SSDs with the same hardware configuration. To us, a 3-year warranty period is not much of an issue, but it is worth noting.

Drive Details

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Jon's Test System Specifications

Free SSD Software

Third Party Freeware

As mentioned, the inland Performance Plus does not come with any complementary software. Not a problem because you can use the free tools below to accomplish what a typical SSD toolbox will do for you.

CrystalDiskInfo free monitoring software, which you can download here.

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If you need to clone, there is freeware for that, which you can download here.

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Synthetic Benchmarks: CDM & Anvils

CrystalDiskMark

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Sequential read speeds are better than advertised, but as usual, sequential write speeds are given for an empty secondary device, and because of the way we test, we cannot hit that speed. Random performance at QD1 is as good as we've seen from any SSD with a similar hardware configuration. In fact, that 80.16 MB/s 4K Q1T1 happens to be the best we've gotten from any similarly configured SSD we've tested to date. Impressive.

Anvil's Storage Utilities

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Our Anvil testing has the 1TB inland Premium Plus performing exactly as expected for what it is, and that's stellar. 29K is a massive score in terms of the overall score, only surpassed by higher capacity SSDs with a similar hardware configuration. Good stuff.

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We can hit nearly 1.5 million random write 4K IOPS with the 1TB inland premium plus. That's impressive. Not so remarkable is the lackluster 350K max random read IOPS the drive generates. However, this is common for all 1TB SSDs with the same hardware configuration.

Synthetic Benchmarks: AS SSD & ATTO

AS SSD

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Here again, write scoring is impressive, read scoring not so much, and for the exact same reason, we saw with our Anvil testing. In terms of the overall score, the inland Premium Plus 1TB delivers above-average results regardless of capacity advantages.

ATTO

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Although not charted, we are looking for 50 MB/s read/write at 512 B transfers. The Premium Plus gives us what we are looking for. Again, not charted, we are looking for full speed at 128K transfers, and again the Premium Plus steps up to the plate. Now taking a close look at our 128K read chart, we find the Premium Plus delivering a new lab record for sequential 128K on an Intel-based system. Wow.

Real-World Testing: Transfer Rates & Gaming

Transfer Rates

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As compared with higher capacity E18 based SSDs, the smaller inland drive does really good. Overall though, it comes in a little below average. Nevertheless, we like what the drive is capable of delivering.

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Read transfer rates, on the other hand, are absolutely outstanding. In fact, this is the best we've gotten so far from any E18/96L based SSD tested on our new Intel platform. Powerful.

Game Level Loading

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Gaming performance charts lower than average. However, the inland Premium Plus still serves up performance that is well within the range where we consider it to be an excellent choice for gaming. In fact, if you look closely, it's doing better than Samsung's 980 Pro 2TB running in full power mode.

Real-World Testing: PCMark 10 Storage Tests

PCMark 10 Storage Test is the most advanced and most accurate real-world consumer storage test ever made. There are four different tests you can choose from; we run two of them.

The Full System Drive Benchmark and the Quick System Drive Benchmark. The Full System Drive Benchmark writes 204 GB of data over the duration of the test. The Quick System Drive Benchmark writes 23 GB of data over the duration of the test. These tests directly correlate with user experience. Of the two tests, we feel that the Quick System Drive Test most accurately replicates a typical user experience.

PCMark 10 Full System Drive Benchmark

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This particular test writes over 204GB data and covers a broad range of common consumer tasks, including booting Windows 10, file transfers, Adobe and Office applications, and startup times for games including Battlefield V, COD Black Ops 4, and Overwatch. Unlike synthetic numbers, this is comprehensive real-world data which is why we use it to rank SSDs in terms of user experience.

Low random read performance hurts the Premium Plus here. This seems to be exacerbated by our Intel test system, as all SSDs with this hardware configuration have taken a step backward on this testing only. We believe it to be a firmware-related issue and don't find it to be much of a concern as we typically would because we know it does far better on AMD systems.

PCMark 10 Quick System Drive Benchmark

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More of the same here for the same reasons.

Final Thoughts

A true hyper-class SSD for $189? Hey, there is a lot to like about that based on price alone. But the 1TB inland Premium is about more than value pricing, as we demonstrated with our testing. The fact that it comes outfitted with a premium heat sink for that price is a big plus as we see it. We forgot to mention it earlier, so we will note that the heat sink is easily removable if you wish to do so. We believe that to be important whenever there is a heat sink pre-fitted on an SSD.

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We rank SSDs in terms of overall user experience (performance where it matters most) as expressed by PCMark 10 storage tests. As with other E18 powered SSDs on our chart, the inland drive is coming in lower than expected on our user experience ranking. We consider this an anomaly of sorts as it relates to our Intel test system, and as such, won't read as much into it as we usually do.

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Looking back at our results, we saw several standout performances worth noting again. Our CDM testing saw the inland Premium Plus deliver our first 80 MB/s 4K QD1 random read from an E18/96L SSD. The drives overall Anvil score is the highest we've seen from a 1TB SSD. Our ATTO testing saw the inland SSD deliver a new lab record for sequential 128K on an Intel platform. Finally, the inland drive delivered the second-fastest read transfer rate we've gotten on our Intel system to date.

Hyper-class performance for the lowest cost we can find has earned the 1TB inland Premium Plus SSD a coveted TweakTown award.

Pros

  • Sequential Speeds
  • Gaming
  • Write Performance

Cons

  • Consumer Workloads
  • Random Read
Photo of product for sale

Performance

90%

Quality

95%

Features

80%

Value

100%

Overall

91%

The Bottom Line

Currently the lowest priced 7,000 MB/s SSD on the market.

TweakTown award

Jon joined the TweakTown team in 2013 and has since reviewed 100s of new storage products. Jon became a computer enthusiast when Windows XP launched. He was into water cooling and benching ATI video cards with modded drivers. Jon has been building computers for others for more than 10 years. Jon became a storage enthusiast the day he first booted an Intel X25-M G1 80GB SSD. Look for Jon to bring consumer SSD reviews into the spotlight.

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