INTRODUCTION

   Whenever i see people talk about SSDs (solid state drives) in various forums the manufacturer names that usually come up are Samsung, WD and Seagate. Still one of the things this industry has taught me time and again is to never underestimate the "smaller" players and over the years quite a few have actually emerged in this specific market, most notably Sabrent which has gathered numerous awards and praise by consumers for its SSD lines. Still, there are other storage media manufacturers out there with which I’ve never had the chance to cooperate before and thus had no access to their products in order to evaluate them. Among those is Inland, an Micro Center brand which has released numerous SSD models to date and with me i have their latest PCIe 4.0 Gen4 one, the Performance Plus 2TB.

   Micro Center is among the nation's leading information technology, communications, and electronic device suppliers, operating twenty-five large stores in major markets nationwide. Founded in 1979 in Columbus, Ohio, Micro Center has grown steadily and profitably. Our stores are designed to supply the needs of a wide variety of consumers – from small businesses to local schools - with well-trained associates who offer information technology solutions.

   The Performance Plus by Inland is yet another PCIe 4.0 Gen4 SSD line (available in 1/2/4TB capacities) based on the 8-channel (tri-core) PS5018-E18 NVMe v1.4 NAND flash controller by PHISON paired with 176-layer 3D TLC NAND flash (B47R) by Micron and 2666MHz DDR4 SDRAM by SK Hynix (2GB for the 2TB model that i have here). The PS5018-E18 NAND flash controller by PHISON features their 4th Gen LDPC engine (low-density parity check) along with end-to-end data path protection, wear levelling, thermal throttling (70 degrees Celsius limit), TRIM, bad block management, dynamic range SLC cache and SmartECC (RAID ECC) and fully supports AES-256bit hardware encryption and TCG Opal 2.0 and Pyrite. Inland covers their entire Performance Plus line of M.2 NVMe Gen4 SSDs with a 6-year limited warranty and in regards to durability they report an MTBF (meantime between failures) of 1.6 million hours and a TBW of 700 for the 1TB model, 1400 for the 2TB model and 3000 for the 4TB model.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

THE PERFORMANCE PLUS 2TB

Inland uses a blister package to ship the standalone version of their Performance Plus 2TB SSD (there’s also a version bundled with a heatsink).

The Performance Plus is yet another dual side M.2 2280 (80mm in length and 22mm in width) SSD model.

At the top of the PCB, we find the PS5018 NAND flash controller by PHISON together with 4 NAND flash modules by Micron (B47R) and a single 1GB DDR4 SDRAM module by SK Hynix.

Turning the drive over we find 4 more NAND flash modules and a second 1GB DDR4 SDRAM module.

TEST BED

TESTING METHODOLOGY

   Not long after I first started testing SSDs back in 2008, I concluded that it's almost impossible for any single benchmark suite to accurately measure their performance and that's why in certain benchmark suites we see amazing read/write performance numbers with some drives while in others things are quite different. The reason behind this is that some benchmarking suites are configured to read and write random chunks of data while others read and write constant (sequential) ones. So that's why i always use a very wide selection of benchmarking suites including AIDA64, HD Tach RW, HD Tune Pro, Crystal Disk Mark, Sisoftware Sandra Pro, AS SSD, IOmeter and ATTO. To get the most accurate results each test gets repeated a total of 6 times with the average performance numbers recorded into the charts*/****. Also, as of February 25th 2015 our results will also include the Storage Networking Industry Association’s (SNIA) IOMeter tests. These tests include a 12 Hour write test used to “simulate” performance degradation over time and a mixed workload test which basically shows what you can expect when using an SSD continuously for roughly two hours. Unfortunately, due to the time required for these tests they get repeated a total of 3 times and not 6 as the above.

   Many people have made inquiries about our charts in the past so once again please do keep in mind that the Charts have the average performance numbers of each drive recorded and not the peak (highest) ones. Also, although every single one of these programs can help potential buyers choose the right drive for their needs you should also remember that from any kind of benchmark up to real world usage the gap is not small (and usually most differences will go unnoticed by most people). All tests were performed in a fresh Windows 10 Pro x64 installation complete with every update up to the date of this review.

* Since November 2018 the SSD comparison charts have been divided to 2.5” and M.2 models to reduce their growing size.
** Unless stated otherwise the Ryzen 9 3950x based Test Rig used for M.2 Gen 4 SSD reviews is not located in the lab.
*** As of January 2021 for Gen 3x4 models I’ll be using the Core i9-7980XE test rig (after numerous tests the up to 6% difference in read & write performance compared to the i7-6700 system simply wasn’t enough to justify having an extra test rig around).
**** Since February 2022 M.2 NVMe Gen3 and Gen4 SSD drives are placed in different charts.

TEST RESULTS - AIDA64 / ATTO

TEST RESULTS - HD TACH RW / HD TUNE PRO

TEST RESULTS - SISOFTWARE SANDRA PRO / CRYSTAL DISK MARK

TEST RESULTS - AS SSD / IOMETER

TEST RESULTS - IOMETER SNIA

CONCLUSION

   Since Inland is a USA based company it’s all but unknown in the EU (relatively popular in the USA however) but their Performance Plus 2TB was a pleasant surprise for me. Yes, the combination of the PHISON E18 NVMe v1.4 NAND flash controller with Micron 176-layer (B47R) NAND flash is something we’ve all seen many times already (thus I knew what to expect more or less) but again, we’re talking about an SSD by a small player in the market. Strangely enough even though the Performance Plus 2TB goes head to head with other B47R NAND flash models like for example the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus in most of my tests when it comes to IOmeter SNIA tests it does fall a bit back. This is probably due to a difference in the firmware of the drives since obviously not all PHISON E18 based models have the same one. As mentioned earlier there’s also a version with a heatsink available (PS5 compatible too) so if your motherboard doesn’t have an SSD heatsink, I do suggest getting that instead.

   Retailing for USD259.99 inside the USA (Amazon.com) the Performance Plus model by Inland is one of the most affordable 2TB PCIe 4.0 Gen4 M.2 NVMe SSDs in the market today. Yes, the lack of availability outside the USA is something some of you will not like and it might not be at the top in terms of performance across all my tests but it does come very close and that combined with its 6 year limited warranty, good durability numbers and low price are more than enough for the Platinum Award.

PROS

- Top of The Charts Performance (7000MB/s Read & 6850MB/s Write)
- Endurance (1400TBW / 1.6 Million Hours MTBF)
- 6 Year Limited Warranty
- Price (Compared To Similar Models)

CONS

- Thermal Throttling (During SNIA Tests)
- Availability Outside The USA