Super Talent MasterDrive MX 60GB SATA-II SSD Review

[Apoptosis]

Super Talent MasterDrive MX 60GB SATA-II SSD Review

With the prices of Solid State Drives (SSDs) dropping rapidly, how does this new entry level SSD stack up? These drives consume up to 85% less power than a typical spinning hard disk drive so users can enjoy an extended battery life and less heat build-up. MasterDrive MX SSDs use MLC NAND Flash to offer the best possible price/performance value to mobile enthusiasts. Read on to see how it performs!

The Super Talent MasterDrive MX is a great drive for those that want speed and do not do a lot of heavy writing. Its clear that these type of drives will not be a fad, and these will truly supersede rotational hard drives. Unfortunately these drives are still rather pricey at $419 for a 60GB Drive...

Article Title: Super Talent MasterDrive MX 60GB SATA-II SSD Review
Article URL: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/715/1/

[martini161]

nice review mat. i still think the price is a little to high, even for all the performance you gain, but if i had $500 then i would spend it on one of these

[dicecca112]

They'll continue to drop, this time next year, I bet you they'll be as cheap as the raptors (we'll those aren't cheap, but nevertheless)

[martini161]

They'll continue to drop, this time next year, I bet you they'll be as cheap as the raptors (we'll those aren't cheap, but nevertheless)

yeah thell be as cheap as the raptors but for how big a drive? its not so much the price im concered about as the price per gigabyte

[dicecca112]

my thinking is the same way people get the 74gb/32gb raptor and a large storage drive, they'll do the same for the SSDs, while the capacities go up. SSDs have been out at the most in the consumer area for almost a year, and we've gone from 32s and 64s, to 120s and more announcements of 256s. I know I'm in the niche here, I don't need a lot of storage, so I got the 60GB, and even that is too much, at the most I'll use half of it. I have a 160GB External Storage, that contains file backups and all my musics. Per GB yes SSDs are more expensive, but fact of the matter is, almost all major HDD manufacturers are going to SSDs. NAND ram will come down in price. It wasn't too long ago when I remember 200GB HDDs being the largest you could get (5 or so years ago).

[martini161]

my thinking is the same way people get the 74gb/32gb raptor and a large storage drive, they'll do the same for the SSDs, while the capacities go up. SSDs have been out at the most in the consumer area for almost a year, and we've gone from 32s and 64s, to 120s and more announcements of 256s. I know I'm in the niche here, I don't need a lot of storage, so I got the 60GB, and even that is too much, at the most I'll use half of it. I have a 160GB External Storage, that contains file backups and all my musics. Per GB yes SSDs are more expensive, but fact of the matter is, almost all major HDD manufacturers are going to SSDs. NAND ram will come down in price. It wasn't too long ago when I remember 200GB HDDs being the largest you could get (5 or so years ago).

yeah, i still have my gateway that was advertised as having a "HUGE 20GB HARD DRIVE!"

[Apoptosis]

Matt,

Just curious, but did you notice any difference in battery life? If I was to move to an SSD for a laptop battery life would be the main reason for the move. Just wondering if it was significant or not.

[dicecca112]

not really, maybe an extra 10 minutes or so. As for noise, extremely noticeable. If I'm not folding, the fan does not run, and the laptop is silent. I haven't been on battery much, mainly because I haven't been moving around a lot or, I just switch out and use my other 9 cell.

Okay powetop is giving me 3.8hrs, as opposed to my usual 3.5, so there is a little jump.

[n0nsense]

This drive is fast.
And that's what important.
You don't need fast storage (more then SATA 7200 drive) for audio, video and pictures that does require lot of space.
You want this drive for the OS and programs.
I have older 250GB sata drives that perform less in sequential read/write then new 750GB with 32MB cache.
But for random access this 750GB disk is worst. after short googling, i found that this problem is common feature of large capacities.
I ordered 32GB version of MX (should arrive soon). this will replace SAS 10K rpm (noisy) 140 GB. prior to SAS my system used to reside on single 36GB SCSI 15K rpm and before on 72GBx4 SCSI 15K in RAID5.

[dicecca112]

This drive is fast.
And that's what important.
You don't need fast storage (more then SATA 7200 drive) for audio, video and pictures that does require lot of space.
You want this drive for the OS and programs.
I have older 250GB sata drives that perform less in sequential read/write then new 750GB with 32MB cache.
But for random access this 750GB disk is worst. after short googling, i found that this problem is common feature of large capacities.
I ordered 32GB version of MX (should arrive soon). this will replace SAS 10K rpm (noisy) 140 GB. prior to SAS my system used to reside on single 36GB SCSI 15K rpm and before on 72GBx4 SCSI 15K in RAID5.

You won't be disappointed, I love how fast things load now, its incredible

[martini161]

does having something like this elimiate the need to defrag your harddrive? because i remember once looking at a flash drive in the windows defrag utility and all the data was perfect, all at the same end. no fragments or anything

[dicecca112]

From what I read there is no need to defragment, I don't have this on Windows anymore, I have it on Linux, and there is no need to defragment with ext3 file systems as well

[Wildfire788]

Can't wait till these are the price of standard harddrives. I'm sure soon SSD's will be the only choice for hardcore enthusiasts!

[Zertz]

does having something like this elimiate the need to defrag your harddrive? because i remember once looking at a flash drive in the windows defrag utility and all the data was perfect, all at the same end. no fragments or anything

It makes sense because on a conventional hard drive, if I'm not mistaken, Windows will just write wherever the head is or get to the nearest free space. Since nothing moves in a SSD, it is not faster to write at x,y than at another place so it will put the data where it should be.

[xixou]

Do not buy this drive,
I received the 15 GB version Yesterday,
altough the read speed is great,
the write speed is very very low (downto 0.3 MB/s) !!!

See picture from write test below, on different pc's :

on dell precision 390 :


on gigabyte k8nf9


on optiplex 755



on conreo865pe:




So win xp is freezing a lot during write access.

World of warcraft is working fine because it is mostly read in game.

[dicecca112]

Do not buy this drive,
I received the 15 GB version Yesterday,
altough the read speed is great,
the write speed is very very low (downto 0.3 MB/s) !!!

See picture from write test below, on different pc's :

on dell precision 390 :


on gigabyte k8nf9


on optiplex 755





on conreo865pe:




So win xp is freezing a lot during write access.

World of warcraft is working fine because it is mostly read in game.

There is something with your drives, those speeds are far to slow, with both and read and write. I would RMA that drive

[xixou]

in fact reads are good, i did not attach any picture on that ;-)

I will ship back the drive to the shop Today.
I will buy a velociraptor instead.

[martini161]

in fact reads are good, i did not attach any picture on that ;-)

I will ship back the drive to the shop Today.
I will buy a velociraptor instead.

it seems to me like hdtune isnt reading this newer hardware correctly. notice how it also says that the drive is 0*c?

[dicecca112]

in fact reads are good, i did not attach any picture on that ;-)

I will ship back the drive to the shop Today.
I will buy a velociraptor instead.

it seems to me like hdtune isnt reading this newer hardware correctly. notice how it also says that the drive is 0*c?

Mine did the same, I may just not have a sensor. The writes are correct in that its Max 40MB/s but the fact that its that low, isn't. It should be at the minimum hitting 35MB/s.

[dicecca112]

Just thought I'd let everyone know, that last week this drive did die on me, and I am currently in the process of an RMA. I have since moved on to the newer OCZ Core 2 SSDs.