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Hardware Crucial's 6Gbps C300 Hits Stores February 22, Targets Intel
Jansen Ng (Blog) - February 3, 2010 12:20 PM

48 comment(s) - last by Spacecomber.. on Feb 19 at 7:11 PM

Fastest SATA SSD ever will be available to the public within a few weeks

Intel currently has the best selling solid state drive in the market, thanks to the impressive pricing and performance of the 80GB X25-M. The company uses its own proprietary controller to attain the fastest random read and write performance in any SATA-based SSD.

That was until Micron's RealSSD C300 came along. It uses the same 34nm NAND flash memory as Intel from their joint venture IM Flash Technologies, but the C300 uses a new controller from Marvell along with custom firmware developed by Micron. The result is the fastest 2.5-inch SSD ever in random and sequential performance. The drive can read data as quickly as 350MB/s, requiring the use of a 6Gbps SATA interface to unleash its full potential.

Micron is already shipping this amazing new drive to its OEM customers, but enthusiasts will have to wait until February 22 for Crucial, Micron's retail subsidiary, to launch the consumer version of the drive. The 128GB version will sell for $399, while the 256GB version will sell for $799.

The new drives also feature 256MB of DRAM cache and a five-year warranty. It will be available on Crucial's website, as well as at retail and e-tail partners.

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Whew...

By porkpie on 2/3/2010 12:38:12 PM , Rating: 3

Look at those specs. Glad I sold all my Seagate stock.

RE: Whew...

By amanojaku on 2/3/2010 12:40:15 PM , Rating: 3

Traitor. How could you abandon your brothers in porn?

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RE: Whew...

By Spuke on 2/3/2010 12:38:14 PM , Rating: 2

I wonder what the street price of these will be.

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RE: Whew...

By RaistlinZ on 2/3/2010 1:35:49 PM , Rating: 1

The street price should remain at MSRP, since that is what they will be selling for on Crucial.com. It would be silly for other E-tailers to sell them for any higher. If anything, price competition should drive the prices a little bit lower than MSRP.

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RE: Whew...

By Spuke on 2/3/2010 1:40:19 PM , Rating: 2

Street prices, depending on the product, are usually lower than MSRP, hence the term "street price". I am hoping that the "street price" of these drives is less than $400. Otherwise, I'll just wait till they are lower.

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RE: Whew...

By lelias2k on 2/3/2010 4:17:45 PM , Rating: 2

I thought street price was related to supply and demand, and not necessarily being less than MSRP.

If there's too much demand companies are likely to charge a premium.

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RE: Whew...

By The0ne on 2/3/2010 4:22:07 PM , Rating: 1

A little of both. Times aren't exactly the same for "street prices" to appropriately apply anymore. But there has always been pricewatch.com which some, like me, use to determine "street" prices :)

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RE: Whew...

By tastyratz on 2/3/2010 5:32:56 PM , Rating: 2

if this drive trends like other ssd drives have so far in the past, the likelyhood if it selling at lower street prices other than vendor direct aren't very high. There is a good chance it will in fact command a premium considering supply/demand.

SSD market is still specialty so the people who need that kind of performance are gonna pay the premium no matter what it costs. When your the best you can almost charge what you want.

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RE: Whew...

By ekv on 2/4/2010 2:58:15 AM , Rating: 2

Looking at the C300 spec's <drool>, what could cause there to be too much demand? <drool>

Intel SSD's took a while to come down. I expect a similar price curve. Which doesn't come down fast enough -- speaking from a consumer point-of-view. Might have to be an early adopter, for once in my life.

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RE: Whew...

By Lerianis on 2/5/2010 9:25:39 PM , Rating: 2

You apparently haven't seen e-tailers lately.... I've seen things for UP TO AND PAST 2 times the price on the manufacturers website, and some people are STUPID enough to buy it at those prices.

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RE: Whew...

By ZeeStorm on 2/3/2010 2:49:59 PM , Rating: 2

Maybe I'm missing something but the bandwidth of SATA 3Gbps churns out around 375MB/s.. is there a reason why it needs the 6Gbps bandwidth?

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RE: Whew...

By micksh on 2/3/2010 2:59:01 PM , Rating: 3

There is overhead. Real-world maximum bandwidth of 3Gb/s interface is ~260MB/s.

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RE: Whew...

By gstrickler on 2/3/2010 3:27:34 PM , Rating: 2

SATA uses 8b/10b encoding, which means it takes 10 bits for each byte of data. That puts the raw bandwidth at 300MB/s. Subtract overhead for commands, packetizing, ECC, etc and you're down in the 260-280MB/s range as the limit.

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RE: Whew...

By Samus on 2/3/2010 3:18:04 PM , Rating: 2

Lol, I still have Seagate stock left over from when the bought up Maxtor. God what a sweet deal that was!

But as you said, if they don't fire back with something soon it'll be time to sell. Eventually these SSD's are going to become large and cheap enough to warrant replacing winchester technology.

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RE: Whew...

By Lerianis on 2/5/2010 9:35:25 PM , Rating: 2

Seagate isn't really about SSD's right now.... they are more about 'bread and butter' moving hard drives..... which is fine, let the OTHERS get the head start and then reverse-engineer ala Microsoft!

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RE: Whew...

By Funksultan on 2/3/2010 3:25:26 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Look at those specs. Glad I sold all my Seagate stock.

http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/charts/chartd...

GJ... you.... win?

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RE: Whew...

By lelias2k on 2/3/2010 4:29:49 PM , Rating: 2

lol

sure he did...

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RE: Whew...

By porkpie on 2/4/2010 12:54:06 AM , Rating: 2

Hello in there, but you sell stock based on what you think the stock will do in the FUTURE, not what it did in the past.

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RE: Whew...

By Iketh on 2/15/2010 9:44:07 PM , Rating: 2

that graph is only the past year... and seagate already has enterprise SSDs selling on the market, they aren't going anywhere...

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Can't wait

By serkol on 2/3/2010 1:22:42 PM , Rating: 2

With this speed and price, I will finally buy a SSD :-)

RE: Can't wait

By orgy08 on 2/3/2010 1:45:07 PM , Rating: 2

Well the price might not be relatively bad, it is still on the expensive side for most. I will be waiting a bit till something comparable reaches the $200 price point.

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RE: Can't wait

By bupkus on 2/3/2010 2:29:01 PM , Rating: 2

I know what you mean.
Since this device is not necessary for my work it would be more of a luxury. I would be willing to pay about $200 but above that I just don't want it that much.

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RE: Can't wait

By Squilliam on 2/3/2010 2:56:54 PM , Rating: 2

This makes a hell of a lot more sense @ $400 compared to the same price/performance you get for a Core i7.

I would rather buy something which improves the performance in everyday use compared to spending a whole lot of money on a part which is so overpowered next to typical use that Intel spends all their effort making it efficient at doing nothing (idle power use).

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RE: Can't wait

By porkpie on 2/3/2010 3:17:28 PM , Rating: 3

Sigh, I wonder when will people ever realize that "their" average usage patterns don't cover 100% of the world population.

If you're buiyng an "email and surf" machine, then a $400cpu is certainly overkill. But there are millions of us out there who need that power ... and would buy a lot more if it was available.

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RE: Can't wait

By Squilliam on 2/3/2010 4:02:33 PM , Rating: 1

My point is that even at $400, the price/performance improvement in every day computing is more significant than a more powerful CPU. Even people who use more powerful CPUs for gaming, like myself, idle the things at least 80% of the time.

Theres a lot that can be said for a faster and more responsive Windows interface, which is partly the reason why Windows 7 has won so much general praise from consumers.

Im not talking about business markets, server markers or specialist enthusiast markets. Im talking about the people who buy a $2000 Core i7 notebook and still suffer from the same UI delay as someone who has a $600 notebook

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RE: Can't wait

By lelias2k on 2/3/2010 4:33:47 PM , Rating: 2

I think you'd be better saying that the majority of users would benefit more from this upgrade than a CPU upgrade.

Because when you go into niche markets it can go in both directions. Some can use faster disk access, some can use more CPU power.

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RE: Can't wait

By seamonkey79 on 2/3/2010 5:06:40 PM , Rating: 5

My life was not complete until that .02 seconds per click was given back to me. Now I have a full head of hair, a harem of women and three million dollar houses.

Thank you solid state drives!

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RE: Can't wait

By wvh on 2/3/2010 7:09:08 PM , Rating: 2

Woe is me...

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RE: Can't wait

By amanojaku on 2/3/2010 9:22:44 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Im talking about the people who buy a $2000 Core i7 notebook and still suffer from the same UI delay as someone who has a $600 notebook

UI delay isn't directly caused by slow disks. The UI is active in the CPU, RAM and video card. If you move the mouse the CPU registers the movement. Menus, highlights, animations, etc... are pulled from RAM if necessary. And the GPU renders it all. The GPU is normally the determining factor for UI performance; a netbook with an Atom processor would have the same delay as a Core i7 provided they had the same GPU and RAM, and all the animation was hardware accelerated (it usually is). Processing in the CPU would cause the netbook UI to be slower, not not always noticeably depending on what's being rendered.

Improving the disk performance helps with file access (random and sequential) and memory paging (which you shouldn't need to do if you have enough RAM).

Usually, the "UI" delay people experience is due to inadequate RAM. Paging to disk is slow, due to both disk mechanics and the amount of memory needed to be freed, and causes additional overhead in the OS. As a result the CPU doesn't always get the cycles needed to update the UI. For example, you move your mouse and it takes 10 seconds to register the movement on screen. The OS puts the mouse movement instructions on hold due to lower priority while it moves the memory moved around due to higher priority. Otherwise, your apps will run out of RAM and crash. If this is happening you're better off with more RAM, and possibly a 64-bit OS, than a faster disk.

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RE: Can't wait

By porkpie on 2/4/2010 1:00:05 AM , Rating: 2

"The GPU is normally the determining factor for UI performance"

Huh? Not even close. CPU and RAM speed are the primary factor. Your GPU really only enters into it in 2D acceleration scenarios, such as when you have Aero enabled...but even then the cpu is the bigger factor.

In the general 2D case, your GPU doesn't "render" anything. It just displays whats in the video buffer: an operation even the cheapest integrated chip can do just as fast as the priciest add-in card...and all of them do it much much faster than the cpu can update it.

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RE: Can't wait

By descendency on 2/6/2010 4:59:38 AM , Rating: 2

Large amounts of what is "in" RAM is actually on the disk. This is called paging. So the disk is more important than people realize.

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RE: Can't wait

By blowfish on 2/4/2010 12:11:06 AM , Rating: 2

Sigh, it's so gay to sigh!

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RE: Can't wait

By stromgald30 on 2/3/2010 8:45:19 PM , Rating: 2

What annoys me is that they develop all this new technology for the high end. We have to wait until it trickles down to the low end to have any impact.

If they made a 64GB drive with the new tech for $200-250, they would sell like crazy and there would probably be shortages. The majority of the consumer SSD market right now is between 30 and 64 GB because of cost.

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RE: Can't wait

By PrezWeezy on 2/3/2010 5:14:29 PM , Rating: 5

We have been using them in place of buying new laptops. Most of the desktops we support don't need them as much as the laptops. So when you compare buying a new $2,000 laptop, or buying a $400 drive it makes a lot of sense for the price. Most of the laptops we use them in need to be powerful, 17" desktop replacements. But a new Core 2 Duo isn't any faster than an old Core 2 Duo. These are the biggest improvement we have seen to date. Throw in an SSD and you may as well have bought a new computer. It's night and day difference.

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Prices

By Cullinaire on 2/3/2010 12:39:50 PM , Rating: 2

Prices seem competitive to me...every 256GB SSD on the Egg right now are around that price, and none of them are going to be as fast as this one.

RE: Prices

By puffpio on 2/3/2010 1:59:57 PM , Rating: 3

I hope that means it will drive the other manufacturer's drives down in price

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RE: Prices

By bug77 on 2/3/2010 4:39:25 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Prices seem competitive to me...

Yup, real competitive. I can't fit 2 256GB drives in my monthly income. And it's way above average income in my country.

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RE: Prices

By menting on 2/3/2010 4:39:27 PM , Rating: 2

competitive is all relative

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What about Write???

By aguilpa1 on 2/3/2010 2:32:03 PM , Rating: 2

Read speed has generally never been an issue with just about any SSD? The write speed more specifically random writes, is where the rubber meets the road. Why don't they give those numbers? Sounds to me like marketing BS.

RE: What about Write???

By Roffles on 2/3/2010 3:03:39 PM , Rating: 2

The specs are out there if you look for them. In fact, they are linked to in the article.

"The new drive is capable of read speeds of up to 355 MB/s and write speeds of up to 215MB/s."

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RE: What about Write???

By gstrickler on 2/3/2010 3:25:01 PM , Rating: 2

Did you miss the part that said "The write speed more specifically random writes, is where the rubber meets the road."

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RE: What about Write???

By Roffles on 2/3/2010 5:34:17 PM , Rating: 2

Well, going back to the linked article, we have; (1) new proprietary controller technology (2) 2Gb (256MB) DDR3 DRAM cache and (3) a claimed 45,000 score in the Pc Mark HDD Suite. Connecting those dots, I would guess random write performance won't be anything less than completely acceptable. I just want to see how it performs against the OCZ Vertex 2 Pro in the random write category. We'll know soon enough.

And as exciting as this is, most people are going to be adding the price of this drive AND the price of a SATA6 motherboard to their shopping cart....not very affordable when you look at it that way.

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I'll be waiting for Anand's review

By Spacecomber on 2/3/2010 2:54:10 PM , Rating: 2

He seems to know the SSD market inside out, and he knows how to tease out the strengths and weaknesses of these new drives once he gets his hands on them.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think Marvell has any previous SSD controllers to their credit; so, I'm always a bit wary of someone's first effort in this field. Basically, only Intel seems to have the engineering depth to get a solid hit on the first swing, and even they've had their misses at subsequent at bats.

RE: I'll be waiting for Anand's review

By erple2 on 2/5/2010 1:00:55 PM , Rating: 2

According to Anandtech, it seems that Indillinx had quite the hit on their first time out in the SSD world...

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RE: I'll be waiting for Anand's review

By Spacecomber on 2/19/2010 7:11:56 PM , Rating: 2

Alright, there may not be much point in updating the comments to an article a couple of weeks old, but here you can find Anand's preliminary thoughts on the Crucial SSD with its Marvel controller.

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=37...

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Who?

By semo on 2/4/2010 5:42:31 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
Micron is already shipping this amazing new drive to its OEM customers

Every time I see that sort of sentence I expect more information to follow such as OEM names/products or if the OEM clients are secret!

Good drive. If the 128GB version comes cheaper than the 160GB X25 I'd be really impressed

This would be so nice...

By georgekn3mp on 2/4/2010 3:27:14 PM , Rating: 2

With a new i7-970 hex-core Gulftown for $564! :)

SO for Gultown it's $564, SSD is $500....that's half the price I just paid for my new i7-920 desktop!

Of course it would be worth it when tax refund is big enough LOL...

i7 920 CP/OC
Asus P6x58D SATA6 USB3
Asetek LC120 Liquid
6GB DDR3 1600
1TB SATA2
Radeon 5850
Black w/ Blue LED
Windows 7 HP 64
Asus VW266H 26\" 1920x1200 @16:10
Extreme OC
TX950W Corsair