Crucial M550 512GB Solid State Drive Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing

When we look at the purchasing cost of the M550, we are looking at a drive that will set you back the best part of $336.99 / £244.18 MSRP. For a 256GB drive this may look about the right price, but for a 512GB drive like I’ve looked at here, this price is remarkable and when we compare it to everything else, it is the cheapest drives per GB that we’ve had in to date. Take that and mix it with the strong performance levels but also the reduced power usage, and what you’ve got here is a cost effective solution for all areas of the market where solid state drives are present.

Overview

When I looked at the M500 last year, it was clear that price was one of the more important factors that Crucial were taking care of whilst performance was running very close in second place. The M550 that we’ve been looking at here is pretty much in the same boat, although the performance is almost as important as the price point throughout. When we look at the performance in a little more detail, we do see that there is a drop in performance across the board and as time moves on but it is not detrimental as I was expecting. Whilst some drives experience a rise in performance as time moves on, especially on the IOPs front, the M550 does see the reverse happening, although considering power and overall cost of ownership is key; the slight drop in performance that we see is acceptable in this instance. I’m sure though that Crucial will look at this area more in the future and combat performance degradation one way or another.

Like the M500, the price as highlighted above is one of the main factors that was taken into account as the drive was designed and built, with NAND now costing a lot less than it did this time last year, manufacturers are able to pack more storage space into a tighter frame – especially when we look at the new M.2 standard, and 512GB+ drives are now commonplace in the market. Whereas users have had to decide between a large SSD or a smaller SSD  & mechanical combo in the past, the price per GB of storage is now opening up the doors to the best of both worlds, with speed and size within reach for the mainstream user. The running cost is also a factor that has been built into this drive. As we are becoming more conscious of the total power draw from our systems, manufacturers are having to trim back the power whilst keeping to performance up. In the case of mobile systems, this factor couldn’t be more obvious and thus we are seeing the M550 run with a battery friendly draw of ~150mW.

Whilst we are giving the M550 some good merits for its performance and value, there is also the compatibility to look at. The SATA standard as we know it is slowly starting to lose its reach in the market as small form factor systems such as Intel’s NUC and mobile systems such as the Ultrabook become more and more widespread. This next generation of computing requires a drive that is far smaller than what we are typically seeing today and consequently the demand for mSATA and soon M.2 drives will be much greater than what we are experiencing now. Crucial is well aware of this upcoming demand and to combat this the M550 and its performance is going to be available on each platform from launch with the same performance expected throughout. The only drawback is that mSATA and M.2 drives will only be available in capacities of up to 512GB, whilst the 1TB offering is SATA only for now.

I’ve mentioned a few times now that as we are nearing the absolute limit of what the SATA III interface, manufacturers have had to look at ways to squeeze out tiny bits of extra performance to stay in line, but in Crucial’s case the price is where the merits clearly are. The Marvel and Micron combo is clearly working and I expect the we may see more vendors following in the tracks of the M550, but for this moment in time, this is by far the cheapest high-performance drive that is on offer.

Pros:

• Strong price point per GB
• Enthusiast grade performance throughout
• SATA, mSATA and M.2 options available from launch
• Lower power draw – ideal for mobile systems

Cons:

• Performance all round does degrade as the NAND becomes more worn
• mSATA and M.2 drives only available up to 512GB

“As we are watching the SATA III interface, the challenge of producing a new drive that offers more is become harder and harder for vendors and the result is a whole bunch of drives that are performing within the same boundaries of each other. With the M550, Crucial are focussing more on the cost of the drive – whilst at the same time keeping the performance figures up, the result being one of the cheapest high performance drives that we’ve seen to date.”

Thanks to Crucial for providing this review sample.