Round-Up: 10 mSATA SSDs From Adata, Crucial, Mushkin, And OCZ
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Page 1:mSATA: Solid-State Responsiveness On A Tiny Card
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Page 2:Test Setup And Benchmarks
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Page 3:Adata XPG SX300 mSATA SSDs
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Page 4:Crucial m4 mSATA SSDs
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Page 5:Mushkin Enhanced Atlas mSATA SSDs
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Page 6:OCZ Nocti mSATA SSD
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Page 7:PCMark 7 And Power Consumption
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Page 8:Real-World File Transfer Tests
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Page 9:mSATA: Little Dimensions Can Still Mean Big Performance
PCMark 7 And Power Consumption
Crucial's m4s deserve special recognition. The 128 and 256 GB versions are almost exactly as fast as each other; that's notable because competing 120 and 128 GB models are a bit slower. And the 64 GB m4 holds its own against larger competing SSDs.
All discussion of other drives is rendered almost needless by the fact that Crucial's 256 GB m4 currently sells for $60 less than its closest competitor. It is worth pointing out, however, that OCZ's Nocti drags along at the bottom of our chart.
That 256 GB m4 gets even more attractive when you take a look at its power consumption under load. It ducks in under 1 W, lower than any other mSATA-based SSD in today's round-up and followed by the other two m4s.
At the other end of the spectrum, higher-capacity drives with SandForce controllers use notably more power under load. The Adata XPG SX300 and Mushkin Enhanced Atlas families don't fare particularly well.
They're all pretty close together at idle, with the exception of OCZ's Nocti, which uses very little power indeed.
Also the award is something new. I guess the "Recommended" and "Approved" awards are gone for 2013?
Approved is still one of the awards we're using. Recommended Buy is replaced by Smart Buy to better-convey the emphasis on value, and Best Of is replaced by Elite to better convey the emphasis on "this is the best damn product in the segment that we can recommend." Elites will continue to be something you rarely ever see, except when we want to make a point to honor a piece of hardware.
Some discussion of trim, and the effects of using drives with a few days of use would have been good. The assumption is that the 'clean drive' performance tested is a good indicator of what people will see when they've used the drive for a month needs to be tested, the perforamnce order might change sharply. A 6 hour random write workload would go a long way to showing what to expect. Especially given the broken TRIM on SF 5 firmware and the slow speed of the fixes to existing SF drives.
BTW - $179.99 or $0.70/GB (Promo Code: EMCYTZT2757) NewEgg - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148613 Just noticed the sale from a NewEgg email.
That's a bit crazy I know, but I had originally had it on the underside of an AZRock Z77E-ITX board until that board died.
as I recall it outperforms the M4 and all the drives here.
I love the m4 drives, but now its going to get too much attention.
Because they are pretty much EOL with the 840 series out.
I want to know when AMD laptops are going to start including msata slots... It is the budget laptop guys that would get the best benefit from msata with a standard HDD together...
Cause it's not available in retail.
Cheers,
Andrew Ku
Can anyone explain this please? Would be great if you could also test the Samsung 830 mSATA drive (it exists).
I think this comparison is flawed. The Mushkin SSD test is the Atlas model, which is slower and cheaper than the Mushkin DX-7 Deluxe. The DX-7 would be near or at the top of the list.
Pegger 3D
My bad, It is late and I did not see you were comparing mSSDs.
Pegger 3D
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
I am contemplating buying mSATA drives 240GB-256GB range. It is really becoming confusing to purchase a drive considering so many different specs.
My options are
1) Crucial m4 mSATA 256GB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148613
2) Plextor M5M 256GB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820249031
3) Intel SSD 525 240GB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167146
4) Mushkin Enhanced Atlas 240GB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226321
I have not been able to get a head to head comparison of the drives anywhere. Most of the tech spec shootouts are of these drives against SSDs or older models.
Could you please advise which of these drives in your opinion would be the most eligible buy in a real world consumer scenario..
Cheers....