SSD Summer Slam: 12 New 2.5" And 1.8" Drives Rounded-Up

Crucial M225, 1.8” (128GB) And 2.5” (256GB)

Crucial CT256M225

Crucial’s new, MLC-based M225 SSD family is available at 256GB, 128GB, and 64GB capacities ($599, $329, and $169, respectively). The 64MB cache memory and Indilinx controller sets the stage for our expectations: greater than 200 MB/s for reads and not much less for writes.

Crucial specs promise 250 MB/s read and 190 MB/s write throughput. As anticipated, we reached less than that, but throughput was still impressive at 222 MB/s read and 180 to 218 MB/s write. PCMark Vantage application performance also demonstrates solid I/O, although the drive doesn’t reach the performance level of Intel’s new 34nm X25-M.

Power draw under different workloads and at idle is only average, at 0.5W to 1.3W. While this result is good enough to confirm Crucial’s claim that this drive is “engineered for mobility,” some other SSDs require less power and offer even more power efficiency. Still, the drive did well and offers reasonable bang for today’s buck.

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Crucial CT128M225

Crucial also sent us its 128GB version to evaluate. As expected, it performed a little behind the 256GB flagship, but the CT128M255 also happened to require a little less power. In the end, the 128GB model actually delivers higher performance per watt than the 256GB version in both the workstation and streaming read efficiency tests without actually beating the 256GB model in raw performance.

Consequently, the 128GB drive might be the better choice for mobile systems.