If you're interested in figuring out where each product rates on the price/performance continuum of recommendations, this page is for you. Each drive is reflected by a trio of performance attributes: sequential write, sequential read, and Tom's Storage Bench v1.0 Average Data Rate. The numbers are all expressed as a percentage of highest-rated SSD we've benchmarked.
Of course, winners aren't always determined by speeds and feeds. There are plenty of reasons to choose one drive over another, including data protection, bundling, and other value-added features. Admittedly, price always has and always will be a big variable, too.
| Price | Average Data Rate | Sequential Read | Sequential Write | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Samsung 840 Pro 128 GB | ![]() |
114 | Amazon | 85.17 | 71.32 | 60.52 |
| Adata Premier Pro SP920 128 GB | ![]() |
90 | Amazon | 49.01 | 68.55 | 29.26 |
| Samsung 840 EVO 120 GB | ![]() |
90 | Amazon | 59.51 | 70.75 | 53.40 |
| Crucial M500 120 GB | ![]() |
75 | Amazon | 41.34 | 67.94 | 22.24 |
| SanDisk X210 256 GB | ![]() |
160 | Amazon | 76.56 | 67.46 | 76.56 |
| Plextor M6S 256 GB | ![]() |
160 | Amazon | 66.97 | 66.28 | 67.34 |
| Adata Premier Pro SP920 256 GB | ![]() |
160 | Amazon | 60.53 | 68.55 | 59.42 |
| Samsung 840 EVO 250 GB | ![]() |
150 | Amazon | 72.85 | 70.75 | 53.40 |
| Adata Premier Pro SP610 512 GB | ![]() |
239.99 | Amazon | 64.48 | 70.74 | 69.9 |
| SanDisk X210 512 GB | ![]() |
334 | Amazon | 76.91 | 67.42 | 76.44 |
| Toshiba Q Series Pro 512 GB | ![]() |
350 | Amazon | 88.73 | 70.74 | 82.20 |
| Crucial M550 512 GB | ![]() |
360 | Amazon | 70.50 | 68.55 | 80.76 |
| Crucial M500 960 GB | ![]() |
470 | Amazon | 69.43 | 68.55 | 69.73 |
| Samsung 840 EVO 1 TB | ![]() |
500 | Amazon | 85.76 | 70.75 | 76.94 |
| Mushkin Ventura Ultra USB 3.0 240 GB | ![]() |
125.28 | memorydepot.com | 22.47 | 22.24 | 54.23 |
| SanDisk Extreme 3.0 USB 64 GB | ![]() |
60 | Amazon | 5 | 25 | 28 |
| SanDisk ReadyCache 32 GB | ![]() |
50 | Amazon | 7.1 | 61.33 | 17.17 |
| Transcend ESD200 128 GB | ![]() |
125 | Amazon | 5 | 22 | 23 |
| Intel SSD 530 180 GB M.2 | ![]() |
150 | Amazon | 43.09 | 69.88 | 52 |
| Crucial M500 480 GB M.2 | ![]() |
260 | Amazon | 69.43 | 68.65 | 69.73 |
| Plextor M6M 256 GB | ![]() |
160 | Amazon | 66.97 | 66.28 | 67.34 |
| Samsung 840 EVO 250 GB mSATA | ![]() |
160.00 | Amazon | 73.41 | 70.75 | 76.94 |
| Samsung 840 EVO 1 TB mSATA | ![]() |
525 | Amazon | 85.76 | 70.75 | 76.94 |
| Mushkin Atlas Deluxe 480 GB mSATA | ![]() |
250 | Newegg | 40.82 | 70.92 | 45.27 |
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Is that why you don't mention Crucial's MX100 line? With the current pricing on the 256GB and 512GB MX100 drives, it's hard to justify buying anything else at those capacity points.
MX100 256GB is ~$115 and the 512GB is $215. Hard to beat those prices.
Going by the fact that you're still recommending that stick, I'll assume I'm not doing too badly, but an overview of the current state of USB 3.0 would be nice.
b/ the killer factor is access speed vs a HDD - who gives a rats about transfer speed? - huge is huge
given the above, despite the scoffers, i still think raid 1 w/ a ssd primary & a hdd secondary could work well in some apps. none seem to have tried it & benched it meaningfully i can see
most realtime work is done by primary (ssd) drive
fast & cheap always up redundancy
d/ i hear rumors than the sandisk cache thingo has weird firmware - flushes the cache a lot - defeats the purpose? Many say its great.
loved the idea when first heard it, now not so sure
flushes cache? is that bad?
As they say, lottsa ram wins, even if slow.
So what say a big swap file on an ssd?
My 2gb, soon to be replaced, 98xp PC has a 4gb HDD swap file (suggested by windows) & it crawls - u can hear it
swapping
at least the ssd can be re-used - ram upgrades cannot
An entire copy of your system disk on cheap/fast, but niggardly on space, storage - really?
that means being anal with what goes where for ever more - time & hassle & maybe risk?
why not make it their problem?
seagate etc. hybrid 1tb drive - 8 gb cache onboard - $~100
something like sandisk intellicache~? 32gb ~$45 - not a drive - just a cache
maybe a small ssd for known scratch files like win swap etc - $45 64gb - $85 128gb - kingston?
would make a great raid 1 rig
I am told win 8 installs on 128gb can be a struggle - absurd
In theory, only cache what needs caching, not clutter.
Dont quote me if i am wrong (tho i cant see where, if they work ok)
Very fast almost all the time
Time is money - this is KISS