SK hynix Canvas SL308 500GB review

Usually, the box that an SSD ships in never gets much of a second glance as it's ripped open to get to the contents. But credit to SK hynix – the box that the SL308 comes in is a stylish little number. As befitting for a product line called Canvas, the sturdy box is covered in a canvas design artwork. It's a very nice touch.

As for extras in the box, well you don't get any.

The SL308 is built on a standard 2.5in, 7mm format and is built into a metal case with red plastic corners

The reason for the red corners becomes apparent once the clips that hold the enclosure together are released. They are part of an inner plastic cage that supports the PCB. The PCB itself is very compact and doesn't come anywhere close to filling the enclosure.

   
All the components of the SL308 are built on one side of the PCB, and all are SK hynix products. There are four 16nm 128GB TLC NAND packages (labelled H27QITDQEM6A) making up the drive's capacity, as well as an SH87820BB 8-channel controller and a single LPDDR2 cache chip.

     
 
SK hynix's SSD management software is called Drive Manager Easy Kit. With it you can monitor the life of the drive, its temperature, check the SMART details and diagnose any problems with the drive. It also allows the drive's firmware to be updated and to be securely erased or sanitized.

The one thing that is missing from the package is a cloning tool but never fear, one is available as a separate download. However, it would be nice to see it included in the Drive Manager software in the not too distant future.

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