Round-Up: 10 mSATA SSDs From Adata, Crucial, Mushkin, And OCZ

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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.

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Summary
  1. mSATA: Solid-State Responsiveness On A Tiny Card
  2. Test Setup And Benchmarks
  3. Adata XPG SX300 mSATA SSDs
  4. Crucial m4 mSATA SSDs
  5. Mushkin Enhanced Atlas mSATA SSDs
  6. OCZ Nocti mSATA SSD
  7. PCMark 7 And Power Consumption
  8. Real-World File Transfer Tests
  9. mSATA: Little Dimensions Can Still Mean Big Performance
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Andrew Ku
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  • trumpeter1994
    I just got a 256GB Crucial m4 msata SSD for the laptop I'm typing from. I love the thing its so nice to have in my y580
  • weatherdude
    Nice to see mSATA SSD's performing so well. Looks like laptops can now benefit from SSD's without having to compromise on storage space by giving up HDD's.

    Also the award is something new. I guess the "Recommended" and "Approved" awards are gone for 2013?
  • cangelini
    weatherdudeNice to see mSATA SSD's performing so well. Looks like laptops can now benefit from SSD's without having to compromise on storage space by giving up HDD's.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.
  • abbadon_34
    Seems kinda underwhelming, seeing only 4 in the market, 2 of them years old. Ironically puts Intel's SSD and OCZ's in the same boat.
  • tsnor
    Excellent article. Nice. Much better than typical.

    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.
  • jaquith
    Yep, no argument the Crucial m4 mSATA 256 GB stole the show. It's both the fastest & cheapest -- what's the catch? I hope none.

    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.
  • Onus
    I've got a 256GB Crucial M4 in the little clip on my Maximus V Gene as the boot drive. It's been performing flawlessly there for months.
    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.
  • sna
    May I ask why is the Samsung 830 msata drive not present in this review?

    as I recall it outperforms the M4 and all the drives here.
  • edlivian
    oh great, now newegg and crucial are going to jack up the prices on the m4 line.

    I love the m4 drives, but now its going to get too much attention.
  • jacobdrj
    snaMay I ask why is the Samsung 830 msata drive not present in this review?as I recall it outperforms the M4 and all the drives here.

    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...
  • bigcyco1
    Crucial m4 FTW!
  • hytecgowthaman
    Intel is slower than crucial M4 and above 2$ per gb. Interesting !!!
  • acku
    snaMay I ask why is the Samsung 830 msata drive not present in this review?as I recall it outperforms the M4 and all the drives here.


    Cause it's not available in retail.

    Cheers,
    Andrew Ku
  • zilexa
    I don't understand why a full blown Samsung 830 SSD needs HALF the energy power compared to Crucial mSATA 64GB.. The mSATA thingie is soo small but needs twice as much power (0.89watt compared to Samsung full SSD 0.4 watt) when idle!?

    Can anyone explain this please? Would be great if you could also test the Samsung 830 mSATA drive (it exists).
  • slicedtoad
    ^different controller. Size is mostly unrelated to wattage in ssds. And anything under a watt is tiny.
  • Pegger 3D
    my 2 cents:

    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
  • Pegger 3D
    Sorry,

    My bad, It is late and I did not see you were comparing mSSDs.

    Pegger 3D
  • medeiom
    I'm still a bit puzzled as to why Crucial m4 is considered faster than the Mushkin and AData mSATA ssd's. Mushkin and AData have both Read/Write well over 500 MB/s....and the Crucial is around 500 Read to 244Write. How is that considered the best?

    Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
  • msahni
    Hi there,

    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....
  • Onus
    The Crucial M4 has the advantage of not being a Sandfarce drive, so IMHO its reliability is likely to be higher. I am using one as my boot drive (yes, it's mSATA, on my Asus mobo's mSATA card), and it works quite well. Before putting it there, it was the boot drive on the underside of an ASRock Z77E-ITX, and worked well there too until that board died of unrelated causes.
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