Have inexpensive large capacity SSD drives
arrived yet?
Crucial doesn't normally make the quickest
SSD drives. That crown wanders between Samsung, IBM and OCZ, and occasionally
others. But what it generally does do is make drives that are fast enough, but
also priced for a wider audience. That's what made the C400 very popular, and
the M500 looks on first inspection to be a worthy replacement.
Crucial
M500 480GB SSD
The review drive had an impressive-for-SSD
capacity of 480GB, though for those working to a budget Crucial also makes
120GB and 240GB models, and a big daddy 960GB version. They all use the Marvell
88SS9187 controller and flash modules (IMFT’s 20nm MLC NAND on a 128Gbit die)
with Crucial's own special sauce firmware. MLC NAND isn't the quickest type of
flash memory, but it's used in the Samsung SSD 840, and that's an excellent
performer.
Speed isn't everything, though, and Crucial
is also promoting this drive as both cost effective, a good performer and,
critically for laptop users, a battery conserver. On the price, the cost of 1GB
is just over 65p, which doesn't look so hot when you consider a typical 2TB
drive can be had for about $113.35, which equates to 4p a GB. I've reviewed SSD
drives that were 40 times or even 50 times the cost of hard drive space, so on
that basis just 15 times more expensive seems a step in the right direction.
The
review drive had an impressive-for-SSD capacity of 480GB, though for those
working to a budget Crucial also makes 120GB and 240GB models, and a big daddy
960GB version.
Knowing the vagaries of SSD performance
with size, I can only speak for the 480GB model, which is the one I've fully
tested. The quoted speed for this drive is 500MB/s reading and 400MB/s writing.
That's not too shabby, but it was the IOPS numbers that really caught my
attention. Random read (4K transfer) and write is offered at 80,000 IOPS, which
is bordering on the 100,000 IOPS that some professional SSD mechanisms deliver.
My testing supported Crucial's quoted read
speed values better than it did the writing, with two benchmarks pegging the
latter at 320GB/s. Perhaps on a different system with a following wind, 400GB/s
is possible, but not on my Intel test rig.
Random
read (4K transfer) and write is offered at 80,000 IOPS, which is bordering on
the 100,000 IOPS that some professional SSD mechanisms deliver
However, the tests did reveal some positive
aspects I hadn't anticipated. Specifically, that the M500 performed
consistently even when the whole drive was nearly full use. Some SSD drives
hate more than 80% of the capacity used, but the M500 is good all the way to
the back wall.
Having got enough right with the
exploitation of MLC, the M500 is also well specified with the sorts of features
that business users especially like. I mentioned low power consumption
previously, and the numbers for operational power use of 4W or less is fine.
Unfortunately, the drive draws more than 1W when idle; strongly hinting that
Crucial needs to revisit the custom firmware to tweak those settings at little.
By comparison the Samsung 840 series all pull about 0.3W when unoccupied.
Better news comes for those wanting to
encrypt their drive with BitLocker, which is supported on this unit. You can
also tick the boxes for both Windows 8 eDrive operation and DevSleep mode,
neither of which is commonly supported.
For
those who want a hard drive scaled capacity with performance a physical drive
just can't match, this the practical end of what's on offer.
There are faster drives than the M500
available, but the combination of capacity and a fine selection of features is
an alluring one. Those waiting for the SSD to become truly affordable might be
marginally disappointed, but for those who want a hard drive scaled capacity
with performance a physical drive just can't match, this the practical end of
what's on offer.
|
Details:
·
Price: $472.92
·
Manufacturer: Micron (Crucial)
·
Website: www.crucial.com/uk
·
Required spec: SATA port, ideally SATA-3 and
SATA power
Scores:
·
Quality: 7/10
·
Value: 7/10
·
Overall: 7/10
Key features
·
Interface: SATA 6Gbps
·
Sustained sequential read: 500MB/s
·
Sustained sequential write: 400MB/s
·
Radom read (4k transfer): 80,000 IOPS
·
Random Write (4k transfer): 80,000 IOPS
·
Form Factor: 2.5”
·
NAND: 20nm Micron MLC
·
Warranty: three-year
·
Controller: Marvell 88SS9187
|
