Crucial SSDs

[jjsbasmt]

Note in my sig that I'm using a Crucial M500 SSD, but I was wondering if anyone could tell me (cost not with standing) the significant differences between the M550/500/100 drives. Lately I've been seeing several of the M550 and M500 drives for sale on Tiger, Newegg and a couple of other places. I thought the M100 was their latest offerings, but aren't they all pretty similar other than minor upgrades and prices?

 

[Cerb]

The MX100 is a consumer-marketed follow-on to the M500. I don't understand the point, myself, given how little difference there seems to be.

The M600 is the business-marketed follow-on to the M500.

The M550 uses less dense flash than the M500, so where the M500 120GB and 240GB are slower than the 480GB+ models, the M550 isn't, by way of having more dies, and more of the channels populated, for greater read and write parallelism.

The M500 used a 1:16 ratio for parity data, while the new ones use 1:128 (IIRC), with the maturity of the 20nm flash. That allows a bit more space for your data (x120GB v. x128GB).

The M600 uses a similar pseudo-SLC trick to various Toshiba, Sandisk, and Samsung SSDs (well, 840 Evo), to speed up small bursty loads, and reduce write amplification.

 

[Topweasel]

Basically the rule of thumb is

Get a M550 for ~128GB-~256GB drives.
Get an MX100 for ~512GB drives.
Get an M500 for 1TB drives.

The M550 does have a slightly newer controller than the M500. But it was mainly released to replace the M500 120GB and 240GB drives with less dense memory chips to keep performance across the brand consistent. The MX100 was released with the same controller as the M550 and all using the higher density chips to keep the costs as cheap as possible as a consumer drive. What you basically run into is three drives with very very similar performance and almost no differing features.

The small 550's are the fastest current gen drives in their size without software assistance. The MX100 512GB is just as fast as the 550, but cheaper, and the M500 1TB is the most cost effective 1TB SSD and only very very very slightly slower than the M550 counterpart.

 

[ramj70]

I have the MX100 512GB in my laptop and the M550 1TB in my desktop and there is no difference that I notice when it comes to performance.

 

[Virgorising]

The MX100 is a consumer-marketed follow-on to the M500. I don't understand the point, myself, given how little difference there seems to be.

The M600 is the business-marketed follow-on to the M500.

The M550 uses less dense flash than the M500, so where the M500 120GB and 240GB are slower than the 480GB+ models, the M550 isn't, by way of having more dies, and more of the channels populated, for greater read and write parallelism.

The M500 used a 1:16 ratio for parity data, while the new ones use 1:128 (IIRC), with the maturity of the 20nm flash. That allows a bit more space for your data (x120GB v. x128GB).

The M600 uses a similar pseudo-SLC trick to various Toshiba, Sandisk, and Samsung SSDs (well, 840 Evo), to speed up small bursty loads, and reduce write amplification.

Wow! Jus sayin. How you know all this stuff simply boggles. Just learned I have dense flash re my M500. But I like it anyhow. Am sure it is less dense than I am at times.:sneaky:

 

[Hellhammer]

The MX100 is a consumer-marketed follow-on to the M500. I don't understand the point, myself, given how little difference there seems to be.

The MX100 uses 16nm NAND, which differentiates it from the M500 and M550 that use 20nm. Not much difference to the end-user but the smaller lithography allows for cheaper prices.

 

[hojnikb]

The MX100 uses 16nm NAND, which differentiates it from the M500 and M550 that use 20nm. Not much difference to the end-user but the smaller lithography allows for cheaper prices.

Any ideas if crucial will ever bring dynamic write accelaration to their consumer line ?

 

[jjsbasmt]

Thanks everyone for the enlightening information. What I am gathering is that the drives are very similar in performance the differences being NAND type and possible firmware tweaks and a few dollars in price. I really appreciate all of your replies.

 

[Topweasel]

The MX100 uses 16nm NAND, which differentiates it from the M500 and M550 that use 20nm. Not much difference to the end-user but the smaller lithography allows for cheaper prices.

True but the MX100 still uses 128Gb dies and the M550 uses 64Gb dies for the 128 and 256 models.