omracer Reviews: Blue

Showing posts with label Blue. Show all posts

Saturday, 14 November 2020

Western Digital WD Blue SN550 1TB M.2 NVme SSD

Well, this one is actually a just typing review, since sometimes SSD reviews and hard drive reviews have not been as well-received in the past, but this was an overdue one due to the use of the Xiaomai 6 Pro E5100. But as much as it was a decent laptop, it was still not being used much due to the issue of me having to get files transferred and a 1TB HDD is not the best, way so after searching and realising, I went for the SN550. Around the £100.73 mark in cost. So here we go and see if it is worth the upgrade.

UPDATE 2023/2024: This drive has been running ins a Clevel N141_ZU with Opencore running MACOS Ventura and works fine for this.

The Packaging

Like any of the WD, the packaging is simple and easy to understand, with the colour scheme matching either the speed or the energy saving of what you wish to go for. This case the blue and white is WD's True design here and has been for most of the years, the simplicity of the front and the nice amount of small detail on the back are enough to really get them to advertise if this is worth the hassle or not But the S/N is shown from the back of the box (directly to the drive) which does make it easier in some ways for this t know its not a knockoff.

The Front of the box

The right sie of the box

The left side of the box

The back of the box

as I opened it up with the iseasmo tool, the packaging is secure and easy to protect the drive from damage like water and even kicking about, well even though its light than it already is. The chip is blue and the controller is a SanDisk one of all things, but not surprising since WD own Sandisk.

The back of the inside

The front has the manual on it above

A look underneath the chip

The front of the chip

A closer look at the SanDisk controller

Then it was time to fit it in and see if it will work.

The fitting:

Now for this, it was actually near the imperative mark to make sure it was in the correct way, plus I had to clone over the files from my 1TB Firecuda I bought 3 years ago due to the requirements of the laptop used for editing back then, the Dell Latitude E6230. And well it was low and behold, easy to fit inside the 6 Pro since the M.2 Slot is hidden but also secure as well.

The WD drive and the Firecuda

The laptop before fitting

The SN550 in the heatsink

The Old WD Green and the SN550 in the heatsink

Both the new drives fitted.

Time to test:

Test #1: Does it boot up:

Yes is the answer since after turning the laptop on, the bios saw it straight away, and t was on AHCI as well, which means that is one major relief and Maibenben do mention that the 6 pro does support NVME.

The bios show the drive

Which then it was time to boot up a portable version of windows for the cloning and drive tests. Thus was, of course, Hirens Boot CD PE and that actually did see both drives as well, in this case, it meant that I could clone and also do some benchmarks.

Test #2: CrystalDiskMark.

This is always the one that people use, and well no exception here, so below are the results.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 7.0.0 x64 (C) 2007-2019 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World: https://crystalmark.info/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 bytes/s [SATA/600 = 600,000,000 bytes/s]
* KB = 1000 bytes, KiB = 1024 bytes

[Read]
Sequential 1MiB (Q= 8, T= 1): 1764.129 MB/s [ 1682.4 IOPS] < 4750.27 us>
Sequential 1MiB (Q= 1, T= 1): 895.404 MB/s [ 853.9 IOPS] < 1166.17 us>
Random 4KiB (Q= 32, T=16): 1044.895 MB/s [ 255101.3 IOPS] < 1703.41 us>
Random 4KiB (Q= 1, T= 1): 36.321 MB/s [ 8867.4 IOPS] < 112.17 us>

[Write]
Sequential 1MiB (Q= 8, T= 1): 1592.534 MB/s [ 1518.8 IOPS] < 5243.20 us>
Sequential 1MiB (Q= 1, T= 1): 937.481 MB/s [ 894.1 IOPS] < 1113.14 us>
Random 4KiB (Q= 32, T=16): 878.871 MB/s [ 214568.1 IOPS] < 2370.48 us>
Random 4KiB (Q= 1, T= 1): 153.703 MB/s [ 37525.1 IOPS] < 26.42 us>

Profile: Default
Test: 2 GiB (x4) [Interval: 5 sec] <DefaultAffinity=DISABLED>
Date: 2020/11/11 21:54:21
OS: Windows 10 Enterprise [10.0 Build 14393] (x64)

So that shows it can handle speeds quite nicely and well means it can improve the day to day times of things by a fair bit and that it also shows its a massive improvement compared to what a SATA SSD can be, Now wit that out of the way it was time to clone and then see how long it takes for the 800GB or less of Data from one SSHD to go on this SSD.

Test #3: Cloning Drives

This is where the main thing to plan out was, so it is tem to do a clone from the HDD to the SSD. Well it went really well and worked fine, Okay, it did take about 4 hours to copy over about 750GB of files (the total used on the drive, and the 2 partitions on there). Now lazesoft did it and the drive (not the SSD the SSHD) that got very warm. With the boot partitions and no errors unlike another clone which is to get the issue of if it feels slow or not., But when it booted up, no issues and the speed was impressive. Not like instant but still faster than the 240GB SATA 3 SSD of WD Green.

The SSD being cloned

This then was leading to some interesting observations on the usage.

Test #3: Daily Usage

Now this is where the good things happen, the bootup times felt snappier and also apps did load up quicker and also even using blogger was much less delayed than other devices i used for typing up, which i would not expect an ssd to affect that much performance when typing. But that and files from a usb drive did copy around 80mb/s which was the installation files for Fornite actually..

Test #4: Userbenchmark

Now lets be intrigued on how the benchmark for the laptop is not complete for some reason, but it actually performed worse than other laptops using this drive. Since of the 839mbs read and lower write speeds, so userbenchmark was reporting it to be inaccurate.

Conclusion:

All in all this drive has some serious potential, maybe it is a bit of a waste on the Xiaomai 6 Pro but i've now got the fasted PC i've ever owned in my life so far, Sure its not a PCIE Gen 4 but that laptop does not support it anyway so it would be null and wasted to get that drive.

omracer's Rating: 8/10

The Good Points:

1TB or storage
Actually a improvement on speeds
Fits the maibenben and is compatible
Pretty good value
Easy to install and use aka no drivers
Same model to the one used in the Xbox Series S

The Bad Points:

Not all laptops support NVME
Benchmark results are very low for the drive compared to other laptops and PCs using it

And there more reviews are, we will see each other soon enough with maybe one more review this year.

omracer

Wednesday, 20 May 2015

DragonWar DragonShock Black PS3 Controller

This was a rare item to find, well i noticed this when looking for a backlit keyboard by Dragonwar in work many times, I noticed a PS3 controller, which looked really nice and had a different appeal compared to other controllers i had seen. Bascially searching various marketplaces for this was frustrating but after looking at some EU suppliers, i found one that WILL deliver to the UK, that company was called GAMEGEAR. This site is in the English language and i was able to order the controller for €40.55 EUR including P&P, Taxes and a Paypal Fee. €24.99 ex TAX and P&P for the controller itself. All in all this came to just under £30 for me to buy (using conversion rates etc). After ordering on Sunday night while missing emma, I was just waiting only 2 days (Dispatched on Monday 18/05/15). Then while a day off i was having to dog sit, a yodel van arrived and it was signed for and yay, it was all mine,

Well if want this, you can buy it HERE. The video of it is below and lets begin:

Looking from the Outside.

The box has a nice dragonware feel to it, with the same colour scheme as the controller itself, with clear info on the features, a nice shape and all in all the same style as the controller. But there was nothing that you couldn't understand about the product on it. Enjoy the pics below:

The front of the Box

One of the sides of the box with focus on the controller buttons

The back of the box with more detailed features

Another side of the box with more features to boast about

The top of the box with the URL and hook on

When you open the cover of the front of the box up, this appeared

Some clearer pics of the inside cover

A calendar from the supplier i bought it from FOR FREE

Once the box was open

Well inside the box was just a plastic mould for the controller and a mini usb cabled wrapped, thats it, so it was time to connect it to a PS3 and play. i mean its that simple, since the battery was flat, the wireless would not sync so i left it to charge for a while. Then it worked fine.

The controller in the plastic container

Behind the plastic lies a mini usb cable

Yay, the controller

The buttons on the back are blue too

The dragon logo looks good

The bottom of it

Well after testing, it worked nicely with PACMAN CE DX and although i made one or 2 mistakes, the grip on the controller was pretty good, the dpad moved slightly but no controller is perfect. But i felt comfortable with it which is the main thing.

Then i had the option of using it on Steam (due to me installing SCP to make PS3 Controllers work) and it was responsive very shortly after installing, which means it was the similar device id as a PS3 but with a different name called "PS (R) Gamepad".

But all in all i'm happy with this so lets get the conclusion sorted.

omracer's Rating: 7/10

The good points:

Very similar to a standard Dualshock 3, except with cooler looking buttons and a dragon watermark
Better grip with rubber coating
Nicely packaged

The bad points:

Not (yet) available in the UK without import
battery does take a while before allowing wireless sync
the dpad moves slightly

Well i hope this helps you if you are into looking for a nice looking non modded PS3 controller. More reviews to come soon at various points.

omracer

Sunday, 20 July 2014

Nemesis Kane Pro Edition Gaming Combo Pack

I've been slacking in reviews for a few months now and i do apologise for this. Now the story behind this review is that i was looking for a new keyboard and mouse set for my PC, one of my suppliers in work mentioned this one too me and it looked good and was a reasonable price. So i bought it for £20 and decided to see how i get on.

Nemesis Kane Pro Edition - Gaming Combo Pack

Click the above if you want to buy this

The packaging...

So the brand is a recent one by Sumvision, which makes alot of technology from Tablets to even the PSYC (yes they own that too) earphones i reviewed earlier on. But the packaging looks modern and neat and clearly shows the features of the product very nicely:

The top of the box (this is also the back view from the looks of it)

This is the bottom view (Also the front view of it)

The Side view which features some more detail of the keyboard and what OS it can support

So, that was the outside, nice packaging and if there is one thing to say about the box, is that it is quite hard to keep open, which you might of noticed in the video. Also the specs of the Keyboard and Mosue are below:

Keyboard:

Wired USB Keyboard - 2m cable
3 in one LED with adjustable colour and brightness using 2 keys towards the right ctrl key
105 keys on the thing - it does include a numpad
its Qwerty style

Mouse

Wired USB optical mouse - 2m cable
Adjustable dpi button near scrollwheel - from 800dpi to 2400 dpi
Back and forward buttons on left hand side of mouse
Bad ass design with auto lighting (you can't change the colours)

Now its time to have a look inside the box, which actually only has the keyboard and mouse and some cardboard, no manual included, which is fine since there is nothing that needs to be explained for most common users of gaming keyboards and mice. If you really wanted a manual to read, this product will not be for you.

Inside the box, with the mouse in a nice slot and both sealed in wrapping.

Outside the wrapping - The Mouse

So, once you've managed to rip the tight sealing, you see in detail the mouse and the design. Which looks like a organic tree design, it does slightly look light lightning strikes from afar, but you can notice the short stems. The design is below:

The Mouse and the cable still tied up, the cable quality is much better than traditional cables from normal mice

The right side of the mouse, which has the cheverons which are lit up when plugged in

The left hand side, now there are 2 smaller chevrons this time but the one nearer the rear bulges out. for added grip for long hour usage i guess....

The bottom of the Mouse, which you can see the shape is slightly unique compared a normal design

Now the design is slightly wider which does give it a better effect and it actually does suit my hand which is better for gamers with chubby hands :). Now its time for the Keyboard.

Outside the wrapping - The Keyboard

Now this keyboard has a more standard design but slightly military to it, well since most games do play FPS, it makes sense to have it shaped like that. The cable is also a better material than traditional keyboards, which is better reliability and looks nicer.

The Keyboard from the top

A better focus on the numpad and the logo in the top right corner

The left side of the keyboard, which looks good and a better focus on the cable, a much better material

Underneath the keyboard. The shape is symmetrica, the 2 clips are shown too.

Its a simple and lightweight design, maybe my only gripe is that it could look risky with the way the cable bends but this doesn't matter once its set up. That and the keys do look slightly painted, but if it rubs off is another question. Time to see this all lit up.

The Setup and illumination

Now, it doesn't take long to plug it in, its a 2m cable which gives a reasonable amount of distance from the desktop (you should have no problem with the laptop whatsoever) which can be a good bonus. Also the shape of the USB is unique so you can recognise it straight away if you doo need to unplug it at any point. Heres what it looks like plugged into my PC.

The Keyboard and Mouse plugged into to my G31M-ES2L

Now when it was first plugged in, it was setup ion red, which is nice, its a slightly laser type red. But to show you the best, enjoy each colour at each brightness...

Red at max brightness

Red at meh or medium brightness

Red at dim brightness

Purple at max brightness

Purple at meh or medium brightness

Purple at dim brightness

Blue at max brightness

Blue at meh or medium brightness

Blue at dim brightness

Its a nice colour, although from afar, the blue and puirple sort of see the same, which is a bit of a downfall, but its makes sense since purple is inbetween red and blue in the colour spectrum. Sure if it was green it would of been more amazing but thats more Razer's trademark which would be risky for sumvision.

Now its time to see how the mouse looks:

The top view of the mouse, with the design looking the best

The left side of the mouse when lit, it does give the impression of lighting strikes until you look closer

The right side of the mosue, this does look nice with the cheverons

Showing underneath the mouse and the red optical laser

So, the design looks so much better when lit and makes late night gaming look amazing for the most part. And using it is pretty cool, i mean its quite responsive and the keys are slightly clunky when typing, maybe not as loud as my old keyboard but it will make a sound if your in complete silence.

The mouse feels really sensitive too, which scrolling seems smoother than the mouse i had before ( a cheap pink glitter on if you really want to know). But there was one thing i notices when actually editing the video review using this on Mavericks. Before the cmd key was the alt hey, now its the windows key, which is as it should be, so if your used to the before, then you might need to just be aware.

The Verdict

Like i said, this pack is a nice buy for most uses and will help with getting into PC gaming as well as a nice little luxury when working or gaming in the dark :). for this i give it a rating of...