 |
|||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||
Today we are checking out Crucial’s newly released M225 Solid-State Drive series and comparing them with the industry’s leading MLC based SSDs. To date Crucial has been sleeping on SSD technology, and the M225 will be their first real attempt at making their presence known. With so much competition already present, we are keen to see what they have in store for us... Almost 2 weeks ago now Lexar Media announced their next generation Crucial Solid-State Drives, which would be available in three capacities being 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB. Crucial, who call themselves the memory experts, were yet to release a 2.5” SSD worth buying, so it was going to be interesting to learn what this next generation had to offer.  Although no real technical specifications were revealed, the press release did claim transfer speeds of 250MB/s read and 190MB/s write. Furthermore, the new Crucial M225 SSDs were based on Multi-Level Cell (MLC) NAND flash memory, and given the claimed performance, the Samsung PB22-J or Indilinx Barefoot controller seemed like the most likely options. Whichever controller Crucial had used for their new M225 series one thing was clear, they already had a great deal of competition. The Samsung PB22-J and Indilinx Barefoot controllers for example, are already being used by at least five other manufacturers. Having received our review sample of the M225 128GB we quickly cracked it open to find that Crucial had in fact gone with the Indilinx Barefoot controller. It has now been roughly 8 months since we stumbled upon the first SSD that used the Indilinx Barefoot controller, so the Crucial M225 has quite a bit of catching up to do. What will help Crucial quickly make up for lost time is pricing, and this is something they are being very competitive with. Despite just being released, the 128GB version can be had for just $330 US, making it considerably cheaper than much of the competition. Right now the OCZ Vertex is the cream of the crop when it comes to MLC Indilinx Barefoot based SSDs, with the exception of the overclocked Vertex Turbo. Therefore we will be comparing the new Crucial M225 to the OCZ Vertex as well as the new Corsair P Series which features the Samsung PB22-J controller. Also thrown in for comparison purposes is the original Intel X25-M, as this really set the benchmark for all SSDs. |
|||||
|