Mushkin Triactor SSD Review

[USAFRet]

I can't imagine why anyone would buy SATA 3 SSD under 1TB & find it harder to believe
anyone wouldn't go w/ the best SATA3 SSD Samsung 850 Pro &/or at least 2nd best
850 Evo SSD?

1. Budget
2. Need

- My wife's PC has no need of a 1TB SSD. It runs just fine on a 250GB. It has been thus for a couple of years.
- My HTPC/house server has no need of a 1TB SSD. The 120GB does just fine for the boot drive. And I'm not about to sport out the $$$ to replace the existing 20TB spinning drives with SSD, just to hold static data like movies, music, backups.
The movie does not play any faster if it lives on an SSD.
- I have no need of multiple 1TB SSD's in my main machine. 500GB for the boot drive, 250GB for the photo/video/3D drives, 1TB for other stuff.

 

[rhysiam]

I can't imagine why anyone would buy SATA 3 SSD under 1TB & find it harder to believe
anyone wouldn't go w/ the best SATA3 SSD Samsung 850 Pro &/or at least 2nd best
850 Evo SSD?

It's actually very simple.
A small SSD (~250GB) + HDD is cheaper, provides more storage and doesn't sacrifice a lot performance wise (assuming the HDD has games, music, videos, photos, etc).
Plus, The 850 EVO and Pro are much more expensive.

$62 - 240GB Adata SP 550
$70 - 250GB for this Mushkin Triactor
$95 - 250GB 850 EVO
$120 - 250GB 850 Pro

The gap between the Mushkin & an 850 Pro is almost enough to get you from an i3 to an i5.
The gap between the Muskkin & the 850 EVO, though just $25, is still enough to get from a 1050ti to a 3GB 1060.

Obviously if you have a flexible budget the 850 EVO is a fantastic option (I own one myself). Very often the advice would be to avoid eating out a couple of times (or whatever) and put the $25 towards the EVO. But if you're trying to put together a build on a strictly fixed budget and you find yourself having to make compromises somewhere, a cheaper SSD is likely to be better option than a cheaper CPU or graphics card.

 

[logainofhades]

I can't imagine why anyone would buy SATA 3 SSD under 1TB & find it harder to believe
anyone wouldn't go w/ the best SATA3 SSD Samsung 850 Pro &/or at least 2nd best
850 Evo SSD?

SATA drives have reached a point, where the real world, everyday, use, there isn't really any noticeable difference, in performance. A few seconds faster service time, isn't worth the added cost, for 99%+ of all users. I also own an 850 evo, but never recommend it, anymore, due to price. Crucial MX300 has been my go to, for SSD recommendations, lately.

 

[cat1092]

T
NVMe is the present, and in datacenters, has been for 5+ years, as far back as 2012, Linux Mint 13/Ubuntu 12.04 both had NVMe support, long before Windows 7 did. There's already technology being developed to supercede NVMe, U2 is the word I hear, may be off the money a bit, whatever takes the place of NVMe will be real RAM chips, or more of it, along with the Flash components.

By the way:
U.2 is NVMe. U.2 is just a connector type that allows you to connect a standard form factor drive to the PCIe bus. Though XPoint is around the corner, and that'll be interesting once that really picks up speed.

That's where I was 'off the money' a bit, because I read that from an article that was written by an independent that may not have had the facts straight. Which leads the average Joe or Jane just diving into the world of NVMe to somewhat go along with these rumors.

Great to hear from someone who knows the real deal coming ahead!

Cat

 

[cat1092]

I can't imagine why anyone would buy SATA 3 SSD under 1TB & find it harder to believe
anyone wouldn't go w/ the best SATA3 SSD Samsung 850 Pro &/or at least 2nd best
850 Evo SSD?

SATA drives have reached a point, where the real world, everyday, use, there isn't really any noticeable difference, in performance. A few seconds faster service time, isn't worth the added cost, for 99%+ of all users. I also own an 850 evo, but never recommend it, anymore, due to price. Crucial MX300 has been my go to, for SSD recommendations, lately.

I agree, long before Samsung was popular in the SSD market, 128-256GB Crucial m4 SSD's dominated, recall that many had these, even though SATA-3, writes were about half of reads. The 128GB version was the first SSD I purchased in 2012, followed by a 180GB Intel 330 that many termed 'budget, both are well and kicking as strong as ever. Later on I would go to purchase two 256GB Crucial M550's, one a mSATA & a bit more pricey, a huge mistake because had to remove from that port, place in a SYBA 2.5" open enclosure & then in a Rosewill 3.5" to 2.5" adapter with a fan blowing direct on it to keep it cool (am on it now), at times would jump to 70C prior. Benchmarks varies. The other was the traditional 2.5" model, which runs & benches well & consistent. So in trying to use a mSATA port that I felt to be a feature to save a SATA port, shot myself in the foot, by the time all was said & done, could had purchased a pair of the 2.5" Crucial M550's, plus a 120GB Samsung 840 EVO at that time.

One place where Crucial has improved is including their Storage Executive, even for Linux users (none of the rest provides Linux tools). that covers many new & not too dated models, including the ones I have, as well as the M500 series.

http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/support-storage-executive

Hopefully this is great for Crucial, did try their version of overprovisioning, which works quite different from that of Samsung, actually taking the last empty Data partition, whereas Samsung uses the unallocated space. Haven't tried the Momentum Cache yet, since both drives are on computers with only 12GB RAM, don't want to let go of 25% for the purpose. On my 32GB equipped systems, wouldn't have an issue with this.

All in all (except for Linux users), the Crucial Storage Executive is still lagging behind Intel's SSD Toolbox & Samsung Magician, though will improve over time.

Hopefully Mushkin & other entry level models will develop similar tools, these are valuable in not only managing a SSD, also to monitor & report the health. One advantage that Mushkin appears to have is inbuilt overprovisioning, when that say 240GB, there's a hidden 10-16GB that's inaccessible, though that's not cast into stone, just going by the unusual sizes. We usually don't see 240GB SSD's, so that could be the giveaway of extra NAND cells that can't be written to.

Really, one can really awaken a slow computer with a 5400 rpm HDD that has at best, a 16MB cache, for $69.99 plus shipping & taxes, if applicable. There are millions of low cost Windows 7 computers out there that'll benefit, a few of which are SATA-2 & may have DDR2 RAM. This is the best 'bang' for that price as it comes.

Cat

 

[cat1092]

I still need sata. When they can make 4tb+ SSD affordable, maybe then I will care to make the switch.

With the way SSD prices are plunging & NVMe is in demand, I see affordable multi-terabyte SSD's becoming not only affordable, rather mainstream. So you may get to do just that in the not too distant years.

Cat