Mushkin Chronos Deluxe 120GB & Chronos 240GB SSD Review

1. Introduction2. Mushkin Chronos Deluxe 120GB3. Mushkin Chronos Deluxe 120GB (Super High Res Gallery)4. Mushkin Chronos 240GB SSD5. Mushkin Chronos 240GB SSD (Super High Res Gallery)6. Testing Methodology7. CrystalDiskMark8. ATTO Disk Benchmark9. AS SSD10. PCMark 711. IOMeter12. Real World Testing13. Closing Thoughts14. View All Pages

The market today is flooded with Sandforce 2281 powered Solid State drives, so much of the buying decision has to be clearly based on the pricing.

The Mushkin Chronos Deluxe 120GB is definitely the faster of the two drives, being equipped with expensive 3Xnm Toshiba Toggle Mode Flash. It performs exceptionally well with both incompressible and compressible data and if you need a drive that will cope with all kinds of data files then it proves to be a wise buying decision. It is priced around the £145 mark in the United Kingdom.

The Mushkin Chronos 240GB is certainly no slouch either, however due to the lower cost NAND memory it can struggle with incompressible data, dropping to around 220MB/s-260MB/s during sequential read and write testing. The Deluxe 120GB by comparison scores around 465 MB/s in a sequential read test.

The Sandforce 2281 controller has been the market leader for a very long time, but it has been superseded by OCZ's Vertex 4, which we reviewed in April. This new design has revolutionised the performance sector delivering class leading results with both incompressible and compressible data. The 128GB drive has dropped in pricing to £106.79, which is unbelievable. If you want a lightning fast drive at this size there is no better deal right now.

Both of the Mushkin Chronos drives are competitively priced, although the 120GB Deluxe model is significantly more expensive. ARIA are stocking it for £139.99 inc vat. We would like to see this drop to around £125 inc vat before we would give it a higher score.

The Chronos 240GB drive seems a slightly better deal to us, there is no doubt it can't compete head to head with the ‘Deluxe' model in regards to performance, however it is only £10 extra with twice the capacity. ARIA are stocking it for £149.99 inc vat.

Pros:

• Sandforce 2281 controller is still very fast.
• Good IOPS performance from both drives.
• Deluxe version is strong with incompressible data.

Cons:

• A lot of competition in this sector.
• 120GB ‘deluxe' model could be priced a little better.

Kitguru says: Both are great drives, and the price is right for the 240GB model. The OCZ Vertex 4 however is in a different league. Sandforce need to update their controller to truly compete now.

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