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Conclusion
Mushkin is one of the SSD companies that just plugs along making quality products without a lot of positive recognition. The company has never had a recall or emergency firmware release to fix a destructive data bug. The Mushkin SSDs usually sell for less than many competing products with a similar hardware configuration, but if you don't know to look for the Mushkin brand, you might overlook a diamond in the rough.
Mushkin occasionally releases a high-performance SSD, but most of its success stories come in the form of entry-level products that don't garner a lot of attention regardless of how high the quality is. The Triactor serves as an excellent example. It utilizes premium SanDisk flash that the manufacturer packaged, and it has sensible cost-reduction technologies that don't have a negative impact on the user experience.
Mushkin's choice of SanDisk flash is wise; it is the same as Toshiba's planar NAND and only takes a backseat to Samsung's planar NAND. The SanDisk 15nm TLC outperforms Micron 16nm TLC and Intel 20nm. The decision to use the older SM2256 controller instead of the newer SM2258 is another move to reduce costs. In our testing, the newer SM2258 doesn't bring much to the table with the planar NAND that Mushkin used with the Triactor. SMI primarily designed the SM2258 to add support for 3D NAND.
It would be interesting to find a similar combination of SM2258 and Toshiba 15nm MLC in a 480GB SSD to investigate if the newer controller reduces the recovery time. As long as you don't write a lot of data at one time, the high service time shouldn't be an issue. Idle time is the key to keeping the drive feeling fresh, along with not filling the Triactor to the brim with data.
The Triactor is about pricing, though. The Triactor 480GB SSD retails for just $112 online. The 240GB model is $70, so we feel users should spend the additional $40 to get the larger SSD. At these low price points, there isn't a reason to keep using a platter-based drive for anything other than cold storage. These entry-level SSDs offer a surprising amount of performance per dollar. If you need more than 480GB of space for games or other application data, you should consider adding one as a secondary volume. Then you can install your software on the non-boot drive to keep performance high on both the OS and secondary volume.
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