Crucial M550 512GB SSD Review

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SATA 2 Performance

SATA 2 Performance

In a perfect world everyone investing in a new solid state drive would have access to a SATA 6GB/s controller which could pass on the TRIM command. In reality not everyone has this and for many the decision comes down either giving up TRIM – never a good idea with most controllers – and running it off a secondary controller; or taking a performance hit and running in SATA 2.0 mode.

These tests will consist of some of our real world and synthetic benchmarks run on our standard 1155 test-bed; but the drive will be attached to an SATA 2 port.

For synthetic we have opted for the newcomer to our charts: Anvil Storage Utilities Pro. For real world we have opted for our Adobe test. These two tests should give you a very good idea of the level of performance impact you can expect from running a modern SATA 6 drive in compatibility mode.

And this makes it a clean sweep for the M550. Put simply this drive is every bit as good as the AData SP920 512GB drive and then some.

 

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Conclusion

Conclusion

Crucial’s M550 512GB is one hell of an SSD. While it may not top our performance charts or feature a particularly impressive list of accomplishments, it represents the next logical step towards affordable, high capacity SSDs which hit high levels of long0term endurance.

Inevitably parallels are going to be drawn between the AData SP920 512GB and this new Crucial drive. Both use sixteen ONFi 3 128GBit NAND ICs, Micron RAM IC for cache, have onboard capacitors for Flush In Flight, boast the exact same controller, and apparently even use - for now - similar firmware. They’re even priced identically. However, while they share many of the same strengths and weaknesses, Crucial has been able to leverage their unique relationship with Micron and IMFT to strategically bin their NAND to exceedingly high standards.

While AData does use high quality ONFi 3 NAND ICs, their drive tends to end up behind the M550 in most scenarios despite the similarities. In addition, due to Micron / Crucial’s screening process, they are able to give a conservative estimate on write lifespan that goes beyond "3,000p/e" that the AData SP920 is rated for.

While the price for performance and dollar per GB metrics certainly favor the M550, there are some things to be aware of before taking the plunge. The inclusion of Crucial’s RAIN technology may have a positive effect upon the drive’s long-term durability and allows for capacity-hogging over provisioning to be cast aside, we’d still like to see some NAND dedicated towards performance retention. In this scenario, the M550’s throughput drops like a stone as it nears 50% capacity and while most users won’t notice a difference, there are drives which sustain their performance throughout nearly all capacity levels.

Taken as a whole the M550 may not be a revolutionary advancement over what the M500 had to offer, but it is an extraordinary evolutionary improvement. It shows that manufacturers don’t have to go the ultra expensive Tri-Level Cell NAND route to get a great combination of price, performance and capacity in an SSD. This is one of the only SSDs in the last four years which deserves our rare trifecta of awards. It is worth every penny.

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