I hope Anandtech can still do in-depth looks at important products, but this format is a happy medium for less important products that still deserve a review.
I agree. I like the format. They could probably tell from access logs that a lot of readers do what I do: read the first page (introduction), then read the last page (conclusion), skipping everything in between. It makes life easier, even if costs you a page of ad impressions.
I agree and hope to see some of the mobo reviews follow suit, after the nice and complete initial chipset analysis reviews you don't really need a full blown review, just the basics.
I don't think so. When you're reading something that's interesting, I think you tend to check out the ads more than when you're just scrolling down pages of benchmarks.
Thanks Anand, for presenting this new technology and testing it out. As it is so new, it would be good to hear what platforms, i.e. laptops, motherboards, extension cards do offer support for this mSATA technology.
It's not that new. It's been around a year and some notebooks uses it. There is also mSATA > SATA 2.5" adapters. Some Ultraportables uses mSATA too. Like Dell XPS 13 or HP Folio 13. Those would be kinda hard to upgrade since they are not really serviceable though. But possible and easy to varying kinds of degree.
Motherboards and other stuff has started using it too of course. But they appear to be SATA2/300 on the mSATA port only. Not sure what system they use to bench the drives here. Probably using a desktop system with a adapter.
I've been using an Intel 310 mSATA in my Lenovo W520 (i7-2960XM, 32GB of RAM, nVidia Quadro 2000M w/ 2GB) and it's served me well. I'd love a slightly faster and bigger mSATA drive so the 256GB version may be it for me. I'm a bit confused as to why Intel has not released much larger mSATA drives yet.
There are plenty of other vendors though. Micron/Crucial as article, Samsung, SanDisk, even Toshiba and players like OCZ and Plextor/Liteon too. They all have 256GB /mSATA SSD drives. Intel doesn't seem to see them as proper system drives, much of their mSATA lineup is touted against RST, Microsoft ReadyBoost. Like companies such as Kingston, ADATA etc specifically turns against those.
Normally many workstation lappys supports mSATA now days, I think the list for some of those goes like Lenovo X220/T420/T420s/W520 (plus others) and on Dell M4500/M4600/M6400/M6500/M6600. Some Toshibas and Sony is also using it.
The 310s are just using 34nm NAND and old Intel controller to begin with. It's all much higher density now. Those larger drives at the time used many more chips and channels to the controller.
Take a look at the recent Z77 Mobo roundup for the upcoming Ivy Bridge release. Lots of boards there will starts to use it. I wouldn't be surprised to see Laptops with the same connector in 2 months when Ivy Bridge goes mobile either.
I couldn't tell by the article if this drive plugs into a pcie slot and you need an adapter for sata or vise versa, or if i'm even sane in thinking this is possible...
mSATA ports are shaped like mini PCI-e ports and are needed to plug these in. They are in some netbooks already and the new wave of intel motherboards will find a few on there.
"Micron does not disclose its OEM pricing structure, but a company rep told us that the mSATA version of the C400 would cost a little bit less than the standard SATA versions that are available today."
I could do with a 256GB mSATA SSD only in the mSATA/mPCIe slot. If I didnt own a 300GB SSD 320 series already....
If this is actually less than their current lineup of standard SATA versions, that would be amazing. There are a number of good mSATA drives out there, but prices haven't dropped like the standard SATA drives. The Runcore mSATA III would be my pick as it destroys all other mSATA drives, but it's about $2.50/gb. I would really take any second gen mSATA drive though as long as it hovered in the $1/gb range. The OCZ Nocti currently has the best price/performance and is around $1.50/gb.
I suppose the real question is if they're loss-leadering it to build market share, or if the smaller package actually is meaningfully cheaper to produce.
My mobo only has SATA 2 on the mSata port, and a quick look around it seems this is pretty standard.
Is it still worth it? I already have 2x Vertex 3 128GB, one as C drive and the other as a games drive, but I would love to have a cache as well for my 1TB HD (where most of 250 games from Steam are /juntioned.
Any clue what the availability is? I've been wanting to put an mSATA as my primary OS for a while, but they seem to top out at 120GB for the OCZ Octi right now, but I really want more. Too bad my notebook only does SATA2 over mSATA :\
My Gigabyte board as a mSATA port on it but is limited to 3gb. Is there any performance penalty for going with a 3Gb port? This form facter on a Gigabyte board would be an extremely clean system and is a great way to save some cabling mess in a case but it's not worth it if it's going to be slower.
Essentially what will happen is the data transfer between your motherboard and SSD will be capped at ~300MB/s. So look though the charts, you will only notice a difference between a 3Gb/s and 6Gb/s port in the loads that allow the drive to push past that ~300MB/s. For this C400/M4 SSD the only time that port difference will be relevant is during sequential reads.
So my take is to not be concerned unless you absolutely need to maximize the performance of sequential reads, because all other aspects of the SSDs performance won't be affected at all. Most desktop loads are fairly random, so I doubt you'll notice a difference in normal use. For what it's worth, I have a Corsair Force3GT plugged into a 3Gb/s port and it still feels the tiniest amount faster than my parents Crucial M4 which is plugged into a 6Gb/s port.
I think it'd be useful if you added a "standard" hard drive to the power graphs, just so people can more easily see whether it consumes less power than an old platter drive. Also, have you put any thought to putting up a table that lists the total energy used to complete your benchmarks? I've seen that some of the faster drives draw more power, but wouldn't it sometimes work out that it still uses less energy since it completes the test faster?
I would honestly love to see desktop motherboards have a port for these on board, and have the form become common enough that you could just snap one on and eliminate the cables associated with it. SFF PCs could become single board affairs with cabling only for power and an optional optical drive.
Now imagine this attached to a modified Rasberry Pi. Ultra small computer, with storage to boot. And all powered by USB. That will be the day. And to push the envelope further, display using the Google's Project Glass. ULTIMATE!!
Power's still a little high to go from USB; USB can deliver 4.5W, while this drive takes up to 4W while writing. That only leaves 0.5W for the rest of the mini-puter.
So what exactly does a 36TBW mean, in useful terms?
As in, if the drive is used for the primary OS install, then how long will it typically take to accumulate 36 TB of writes, and what happens when that number is reached? Compared to other drives of similar capacity, is 36TBW good, middling, or poor? Is there any empirical data showing a correlation between SSD longevity and "Endurance Spec"? If so, what is it?
Wake me up when you decide to do a real world test. You know, the time it takes to do something, like boot up or load a program. That's more meaningful than any synthetic benchmark.
You clearly have not been reading this site for very long and don't understand much about SSD performance.
Anandtech used to include those exact benchmarks and they became pointless because in those types of tests the performance across SSDs is nearly the same. I suggest educating yourself before opening your mouth and looking like a luddite.
What a foolish response. You're wrong because I have been reading the site for a long time, including the first SSD articles.
Your own words validate my point! If *actual* performance is nearly the same, that's what we want to know!! It's stupid to only look at meaningless graphs that show alleged large differences.
The real performance difference is all that matters. And if that's very small, then we know to buy based on price and reliability!
lol boot time and how fast it loads a program? They **ALL** load windows in about 15 seconds from a clean install and all programs open in less than 3 seconds. Photoshop maybe 4. That would be the most retarded benchmark I have ever heard of doing to get a real grasp on how fast these things are and the actual difference between them.
If you understand anything about this stuff, you can determine real world performance from the numbers given. This isnt the old days with screwed up random reads anymore. Look at the I/O ability and get with the program.
If they **ALL** load Windows and boot programs at the same speed, what does that say about all these graphs that show alleged large differences? (it says they're bunk, misleading, and stupid) Why do you defend synthetic benchmarks that have no relevance to reality?
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Chaitanya - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
Is conclusion page missing? or it is not present intentionally.bobsmith1492 - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
Same as the last article... this one is just a refresher so all the conclusions are on the first page and the rest are just backup data.ImSpartacus - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
That's a neat way of doing it.I hope Anandtech can still do in-depth looks at important products, but this format is a happy medium for less important products that still deserve a review.
icrf - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
I agree. I like the format. They could probably tell from access logs that a lot of readers do what I do: read the first page (introduction), then read the last page (conclusion), skipping everything in between. It makes life easier, even if costs you a page of ad impressions.LancerVI - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
....and that's the truth of it. I agree!johan851 - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
I like the layout also. Though you'll get less ad revenue when I skip the rest of the pages. ;)AssBall - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
I agree and hope to see some of the mobo reviews follow suit, after the nice and complete initial chipset analysis reviews you don't really need a full blown review, just the basics.CaioRearte - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
I don't think so. When you're reading something that's interesting, I think you tend to check out the ads more than when you're just scrolling down pages of benchmarks.leexgx - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
i only use the Print page button (do not print it) as it makes all the pages onto one page (wish other sites would do it) so its only 1 page changei prefer to have one full page that's just me
jaydee - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
Price, availability?shaik umair - Friday, April 20, 2012 - link
ya an can get it.... cal me @ 09032293363..........just pay me rupees 2400 for 128gb and rupess 3300 for 500gbConficio - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
Thanks Anand,for presenting this new technology and testing it out. As it is so new, it would be good to hear what platforms, i.e. laptops, motherboards, extension cards do offer support for this mSATA technology.
Meaker10 - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
I know the new Gene from Asus will and GT60 and GT70 (with the right attachment) MSI notebooks.Penti - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
It's not that new. It's been around a year and some notebooks uses it. There is also mSATA > SATA 2.5" adapters. Some Ultraportables uses mSATA too. Like Dell XPS 13 or HP Folio 13. Those would be kinda hard to upgrade since they are not really serviceable though. But possible and easy to varying kinds of degree.Motherboards and other stuff has started using it too of course. But they appear to be SATA2/300 on the mSATA port only. Not sure what system they use to bench the drives here. Probably using a desktop system with a adapter.
critical_ - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
I've been using an Intel 310 mSATA in my Lenovo W520 (i7-2960XM, 32GB of RAM, nVidia Quadro 2000M w/ 2GB) and it's served me well. I'd love a slightly faster and bigger mSATA drive so the 256GB version may be it for me. I'm a bit confused as to why Intel has not released much larger mSATA drives yet.Penti - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
There are plenty of other vendors though. Micron/Crucial as article, Samsung, SanDisk, even Toshiba and players like OCZ and Plextor/Liteon too. They all have 256GB /mSATA SSD drives. Intel doesn't seem to see them as proper system drives, much of their mSATA lineup is touted against RST, Microsoft ReadyBoost. Like companies such as Kingston, ADATA etc specifically turns against those.Normally many workstation lappys supports mSATA now days, I think the list for some of those goes like Lenovo X220/T420/T420s/W520 (plus others) and on Dell M4500/M4600/M6400/M6500/M6600. Some Toshibas and Sony is also using it.
The 310s are just using 34nm NAND and old Intel controller to begin with. It's all much higher density now. Those larger drives at the time used many more chips and channels to the controller.
Casper42 - Saturday, April 14, 2012 - link
Take a look at the recent Z77 Mobo roundup for the upcoming Ivy Bridge release.Lots of boards there will starts to use it.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Laptops with the same connector in 2 months when Ivy Bridge goes mobile either.
Iketh - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
A refreshingly pleasing article to read :DI couldn't tell by the article if this drive plugs into a pcie slot and you need an adapter for sata or vise versa, or if i'm even sane in thinking this is possible...
Meaker10 - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
mSATA ports are shaped like mini PCI-e ports and are needed to plug these in. They are in some netbooks already and the new wave of intel motherboards will find a few on there.kensiko - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
Considering this SSD would fit well in laptops or ultrabooks, the power consumption is pretty high, too bad.GreenEnergy - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
"Micron does not disclose its OEM pricing structure, but a company rep told us that the mSATA version of the C400 would cost a little bit less than the standard SATA versions that are available today."I could do with a 256GB mSATA SSD only in the mSATA/mPCIe slot. If I didnt own a 300GB SSD 320 series already....
Its just amazing to see. Tiny and powerful.
skildner - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
If this is actually less than their current lineup of standard SATA versions, that would be amazing. There are a number of good mSATA drives out there, but prices haven't dropped like the standard SATA drives. The Runcore mSATA III would be my pick as it destroys all other mSATA drives, but it's about $2.50/gb. I would really take any second gen mSATA drive though as long as it hovered in the $1/gb range. The OCZ Nocti currently has the best price/performance and is around $1.50/gb.DanNeely - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
I suppose the real question is if they're loss-leadering it to build market share, or if the smaller package actually is meaningfully cheaper to produce.GreenEnergy - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
Its essentially the same package inside the bigger 2½" SSD. So saving a few $ on casing and such adds to it. But note they said a little bit.klmccaughey - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
My mobo only has SATA 2 on the mSata port, and a quick look around it seems this is pretty standard.Is it still worth it? I already have 2x Vertex 3 128GB, one as C drive and the other as a games drive, but I would love to have a cache as well for my 1TB HD (where most of 250 games from Steam are /juntioned.
iwod - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
Now i really hope Apple would adopt the Marvell controller, or even its next gen controller instead of using Samsung or Toshiba...Drizzt321 - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
Any clue what the availability is? I've been wanting to put an mSATA as my primary OS for a while, but they seem to top out at 120GB for the OCZ Octi right now, but I really want more. Too bad my notebook only does SATA2 over mSATA :\Hubb1e - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
My Gigabyte board as a mSATA port on it but is limited to 3gb. Is there any performance penalty for going with a 3Gb port? This form facter on a Gigabyte board would be an extremely clean system and is a great way to save some cabling mess in a case but it's not worth it if it's going to be slower.frostyfiredude - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
Essentially what will happen is the data transfer between your motherboard and SSD will be capped at ~300MB/s. So look though the charts, you will only notice a difference between a 3Gb/s and 6Gb/s port in the loads that allow the drive to push past that ~300MB/s. For this C400/M4 SSD the only time that port difference will be relevant is during sequential reads.So my take is to not be concerned unless you absolutely need to maximize the performance of sequential reads, because all other aspects of the SSDs performance won't be affected at all. Most desktop loads are fairly random, so I doubt you'll notice a difference in normal use.
For what it's worth, I have a Corsair Force3GT plugged into a 3Gb/s port and it still feels the tiniest amount faster than my parents Crucial M4 which is plugged into a 6Gb/s port.
GreenEnergy - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
Also raw sequal bandwidth doesnt make SSD fast. Random I/O does aswell as the seektime.And in 95% of all I/O operations are random I/O. And you get on a good day 50-100MB/sec there.
UltraTech79 - Sunday, April 15, 2012 - link
"And in 95% of all I/O operations are random I/O."You're either an idiot, a liar or both. I'll take Anands' word and common techy sense over yours.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4253/the-crucial-m4-...
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4253/the-crucial-m4-...
QChronoD - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
I think it'd be useful if you added a "standard" hard drive to the power graphs, just so people can more easily see whether it consumes less power than an old platter drive.Also, have you put any thought to putting up a table that lists the total energy used to complete your benchmarks? I've seen that some of the faster drives draw more power, but wouldn't it sometimes work out that it still uses less energy since it completes the test faster?
Demon-Xanth - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
I would honestly love to see desktop motherboards have a port for these on board, and have the form become common enough that you could just snap one on and eliminate the cables associated with it. SFF PCs could become single board affairs with cabling only for power and an optional optical drive.dragonfriend0013 - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
Now imagine this attached to a modified Rasberry Pi. Ultra small computer, with storage to boot. And all powered by USB. That will be the day. And to push the envelope further, display using the Google's Project Glass. ULTIMATE!!bobsmith1492 - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
Power's still a little high to go from USB; USB can deliver 4.5W, while this drive takes up to 4W while writing. That only leaves 0.5W for the rest of the mini-puter.rs2 - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
So what exactly does a 36TBW mean, in useful terms?As in, if the drive is used for the primary OS install, then how long will it typically take to accumulate 36 TB of writes, and what happens when that number is reached? Compared to other drives of similar capacity, is 36TBW good, middling, or poor? Is there any empirical data showing a correlation between SSD longevity and "Endurance Spec"? If so, what is it?
Jambe - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
What was the drive hooked up to for this test? I would appreciate more upfront methodology recaps in these reviews.I am also curious as to whether the mSATA ports on motherboards (for example the upcoming Gigabyte Z77 ones) are 3 Gbps or 6 Gbps ports...
AnnonymousCoward - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
Wake me up when you decide to do a real world test. You know, the time it takes to do something, like boot up or load a program. That's more meaningful than any synthetic benchmark.theSeb - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
You clearly have not been reading this site for very long and don't understand much about SSD performance.Anandtech used to include those exact benchmarks and they became pointless because in those types of tests the performance across SSDs is nearly the same. I suggest educating yourself before opening your mouth and looking like a luddite.
AnnonymousCoward - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
What a foolish response. You're wrong because I have been reading the site for a long time, including the first SSD articles.Your own words validate my point! If *actual* performance is nearly the same, that's what we want to know!! It's stupid to only look at meaningless graphs that show alleged large differences.
The real performance difference is all that matters. And if that's very small, then we know to buy based on price and reliability!
UltraTech79 - Sunday, April 15, 2012 - link
lol boot time and how fast it loads a program? They **ALL** load windows in about 15 seconds from a clean install and all programs open in less than 3 seconds. Photoshop maybe 4. That would be the most retarded benchmark I have ever heard of doing to get a real grasp on how fast these things are and the actual difference between them.If you understand anything about this stuff, you can determine real world performance from the numbers given. This isnt the old days with screwed up random reads anymore. Look at the I/O ability and get with the program.
AnnonymousCoward - Monday, April 16, 2012 - link
If they **ALL** load Windows and boot programs at the same speed, what does that say about all these graphs that show alleged large differences? (it says they're bunk, misleading, and stupid) Why do you defend synthetic benchmarks that have no relevance to reality?mikbe - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
"Moore's Law ensures that large SSDs can be delivered in small packages."Moore's Law is an inductive observation not an actual law of physics so it doesn't ensure anything.
AnnonymousCoward - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
That's also what I thought when I read that.UltraTech79 - Sunday, April 15, 2012 - link
Oh shut up.spooky2th - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 - link
Boy, would I like to win one these boards! It would be a nice start to a new build.asawyer13 - Tuesday, June 26, 2012 - link
I am looking at purchasing a higher end Dell XPS 15 laptop. It comes w3rd gen I7 cpu, and 1tb 5400 rpm drive + 128GB mSata drive.Would it be possible and does it make sense to replace the 1TB 5400 drive with a Crucial m4 512GB SSD???
Thanks