KitGuru loves SSD's – and with small affordable units hitting the market such as the excellent Intel X25-V 40GB and the upcoming Corsair 40GB Force there has never been a better time to take the plunge.
Many of the new performance units feature the SandForce controller however the model are looking at today from Crucial features a Marvell 88SS9174 BJP2 controller – thanks to an exclusive partnership between the companies.
The Sandforce controller has been a huge success due to the smart compression algorithms it uses to create stunning high performance levels … however Crucial and Marvell have opted to take a more traditional approach. The Marvell controller is designed around a central drive controller chip which is linked to Micron DRAM which resides on the rear of the PCB. This means there is no performance penalty when switching between compressed or uncompressed data.
The Crucial REALSSD is available in 128GB and 256GB configurations and we are reviewing the larger model today.
Crucial Real SSD C300 | 128GB | 256GB |
Read Speed (max) | 355MB/s | 355MB/s |
Write Speed (max) | 140MB/s | 215MB/s |
Controller | Marvell | Marvell |
Buffer Chip | Micron | Micron |
Buffer size | 256MB | 256MB |
Trim Support | Yes | Yes |
Retail Price | £335 | £550 |