Love my job, since I've been bringing in $5600… I sit at home, music playing while I work in front of my new iMac that I got now that I'm making it online(Click on menu Home) http://goo.gl/O9CyBB
mSATA is only of interest when talking either about switching storage in your ultrabook or your thin mITX system. For everything else a standard SATA SSD is better in price/performance.
And for those ultrabooks or thin-clients performance isn't the first question, but price and silent operation.
So I'd say that this drive pretty much looses on all fronts, especially vs the Cruicial M500 240GB which is available currently for $144.99.
I disagree: outfitting a regular laptop with one mSATA baby and a 1 or 2 TB 9.5mm height 2.5" HDD could be very welcome to power users not wanting 17" laptops with 2 drive bays. But of course these mSATA drives have to be priced competitively - there's no reason for them to cost more capacity.
Perhaps you should go back and read the 2 paragraphs in the power consumption section. They used an mSATA adapter with a voltage regulator, which caused the power consumption numbers to be artificially high. Kristian speculates the true power draw of the drive is actually comparable to the Intel SSD 525.
"Hence the numbers for mSATA drives are not accurate because the voltage regulator consumes some of the power." I was assuming they are using the same adapter for all the drives (which they say plural).
The same adapter was used with Plextor M5M and MyDigitalSSD's SSDs. I'm currently trying to set it up so that the voltage/current going straight to the drive could be measured. Will update if I get it working...
As a long time Mushkin customer who has 3 of the Chronos Deluxe 240s in his desktop even I had to go with the M5Ms as well in my new laptop. I disagree on the "Performance isn't important" comment though. Silent, fast and light were my reasons for getting 2 Plextor M5Ms in my new system.
Is it possible that the performance deficit for the 480GB is due to using LGA60 for the packaging instead of LBGA100? A priori, one might expect to see bandwidth per package to correlate with pin count, ergo lower performance from lower pin count.
That's a good point. Some OEMs have changed the package type for better performance, you're probably right that the package type is at least partially reason to the lower performance. However, I think the main reason is still the increased page/block count since the 480GB Vertex 3 showed similar behaviour.
Screw mSATA... where are the retail NGFF/M.2 SSD's and their reviews?
I've got a Lenovo Y410p with a useless 32gb 4280 (I think) M.2 cache SSD... I'd love to drop in a 120/250GB SSD and use it for the OS drive, but there are few (if any) M.2's readivly available in Canada (amazon.COM had two, but no ship to Canada).
Can you tell I'm more than a little ticked at Lenovo as they assured me prior to purchase it had a mSATA SSD, but I suppose this is another case of may the buyer beware.
"I'd love to drop in a 120/250GB SSD and use it for the OS drive" -> Does your BIOS/UEFI even support that? I've often read that SSDs that are designed as caches in laptops are on artificially limited connectors.
The only scenario for me to buy an mSATA SSD is to upgrade my Samsung XE700T1C which has a 128GB Samsung mSATA (830 variety I think). Upgrading to 240GB would be too small a step to justify the effort, so I'd just go with 480GB. And there, the M500 from Crucial retails for 250€ whereas the Atlas goes for 370€. Once Samsung enters the fray for good, I think they can undercut both. So I pass the Atlas offering. The 240GB offering is more price competitive, but it is still 15€ more expansive than the M500. As for "you don't really need any peripherals with an mSATA drive.", I'd like to get a small mSATA->USB case with the drive or at least the option for a kit that is 10€ more expansive.
Outside of mobile use, the one application that msata excels at would be for a very small HTPC. Take intels latest NUC, attach a 240 Gb msata and (if you need) an internal blu ray drive, preferably in a fanless case, and you have a great HTPC system
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27 Comments
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kwrzesien - Monday, December 16, 2013 - link
Avago to buy storage chipmaker LSI for $6.6 billion:http://www.cnbc.com/id/101275289
MichalSuchyn - Monday, December 16, 2013 - link
Love my job, since I've been bringing in $5600… I sit at home, music playing while I work in front of my new iMac that I got now that I'm making it online(Click on menu Home)http://goo.gl/O9CyBB
CharonPDX - Tuesday, December 17, 2013 - link
Spammer seems to be on the increase here - is there any easy way to report spam comments? (I can't find one.)hojnikb - Monday, December 16, 2013 - link
Yey another sandforce drive -.-Although one interesting point comes from all this...
Sandforce is actually working on fixing trim, which is nice to hear.
Gunbuster - Monday, December 16, 2013 - link
I've got a 240GB Mushkin MSATA in my Precision M4700. Runs like a champ.jrs77 - Monday, December 16, 2013 - link
mSATA is only of interest when talking either about switching storage in your ultrabook or your thin mITX system. For everything else a standard SATA SSD is better in price/performance.And for those ultrabooks or thin-clients performance isn't the first question, but price and silent operation.
So I'd say that this drive pretty much looses on all fronts, especially vs the Cruicial M500 240GB which is available currently for $144.99.
lmcd - Monday, December 16, 2013 - link
Or when talking about the mSATA in a larger notebook as the boot drive.MrSpadge - Tuesday, December 17, 2013 - link
I disagree: outfitting a regular laptop with one mSATA baby and a 1 or 2 TB 9.5mm height 2.5" HDD could be very welcome to power users not wanting 17" laptops with 2 drive bays. But of course these mSATA drives have to be priced competitively - there's no reason for them to cost more capacity.Hrel - Monday, December 16, 2013 - link
Plextor still seems to be the way to go here. Good to see Mushkin offering a legitimate alternative, but Plextor gets my recommendation for now.whyso - Monday, December 16, 2013 - link
Pretty poor drive. The high power consumption kills it in the mobile space.henrybravo - Monday, December 16, 2013 - link
Perhaps you should go back and read the 2 paragraphs in the power consumption section. They used an mSATA adapter with a voltage regulator, which caused the power consumption numbers to be artificially high. Kristian speculates the true power draw of the drive is actually comparable to the Intel SSD 525.whyso - Tuesday, December 17, 2013 - link
"Hence the numbers for mSATA drives are not accurate because the voltage regulator consumes some of the power." I was assuming they are using the same adapter for all the drives (which they say plural).Kristian Vättö - Tuesday, December 17, 2013 - link
The same adapter was used with Plextor M5M and MyDigitalSSD's SSDs. I'm currently trying to set it up so that the voltage/current going straight to the drive could be measured. Will update if I get it working...phantom505 - Monday, December 30, 2013 - link
Pretty poor reading comprehension. The voltage regulator eats 40-50% of that value. Seems relatively speaking on par.kraki - Monday, December 16, 2013 - link
As a long time Mushkin customer who has 3 of the Chronos Deluxe 240s in his desktop even I had to go with the M5Ms as well in my new laptop. I disagree on the "Performance isn't important" comment though. Silent, fast and light were my reasons for getting 2 Plextor M5Ms in my new system.tomtetummetott - Tuesday, December 17, 2013 - link
just curious: is there any reason to buy this over a Crucial M500 mSATA?Kristian Vättö - Tuesday, December 17, 2013 - link
We haven't tested the M500 mSATA yet (I've asked for samples and they should be here after CES) but my wild guess would be no.asgallant - Tuesday, December 17, 2013 - link
Is it possible that the performance deficit for the 480GB is due to using LGA60 for the packaging instead of LBGA100? A priori, one might expect to see bandwidth per package to correlate with pin count, ergo lower performance from lower pin count.Kristian Vättö - Tuesday, December 17, 2013 - link
That's a good point. Some OEMs have changed the package type for better performance, you're probably right that the package type is at least partially reason to the lower performance. However, I think the main reason is still the increased page/block count since the 480GB Vertex 3 showed similar behaviour.Menetlaus - Tuesday, December 17, 2013 - link
Screw mSATA... where are the retail NGFF/M.2 SSD's and their reviews?I've got a Lenovo Y410p with a useless 32gb 4280 (I think) M.2 cache SSD... I'd love to drop in a 120/250GB SSD and use it for the OS drive, but there are few (if any) M.2's readivly available in Canada (amazon.COM had two, but no ship to Canada).
Can you tell I'm more than a little ticked at Lenovo as they assured me prior to purchase it had a mSATA SSD, but I suppose this is another case of may the buyer beware.
Death666Angel - Wednesday, December 18, 2013 - link
"I'd love to drop in a 120/250GB SSD and use it for the OS drive" -> Does your BIOS/UEFI even support that? I've often read that SSDs that are designed as caches in laptops are on artificially limited connectors.Death666Angel - Wednesday, December 18, 2013 - link
The only scenario for me to buy an mSATA SSD is to upgrade my Samsung XE700T1C which has a 128GB Samsung mSATA (830 variety I think). Upgrading to 240GB would be too small a step to justify the effort, so I'd just go with 480GB. And there, the M500 from Crucial retails for 250€ whereas the Atlas goes for 370€. Once Samsung enters the fray for good, I think they can undercut both. So I pass the Atlas offering. The 240GB offering is more price competitive, but it is still 15€ more expansive than the M500.As for "you don't really need any peripherals with an mSATA drive.", I'd like to get a small mSATA->USB case with the drive or at least the option for a kit that is 10€ more expansive.
chadwilson - Wednesday, December 18, 2013 - link
You lost me at Sandforce.cjs150 - Thursday, December 19, 2013 - link
Outside of mobile use, the one application that msata excels at would be for a very small HTPC. Take intels latest NUC, attach a 240 Gb msata and (if you need) an internal blu ray drive, preferably in a fanless case, and you have a great HTPC systemTamaraJKent - Tuesday, December 24, 2013 - link
hiTamaraJKent - Tuesday, December 24, 2013 - link
hiTamaraJKent - Tuesday, December 24, 2013 - link
hi