Crucial 128GB RealSSD C300 2.5in with Data Transfer Kit review

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Verdict:

The C300 is an incredibly fast SSD, but it's also expensive.

Review Date: 16 Aug 2010

Price when reviewed: £254

Supplier: http://www.crucial.com/uk/

Reviewed By: Alan Lu

Our Rating 4 stars out of 5

Review
Specs

The Crucial 128GB C300 SSD is the first we've seen to use the new SATA III interface, which is increasingly found on the newest motherboards. We tested it both over SATA III as well as the older, more widespread SATA II.

When connected over SATA III, we were taken aback by how quickly the C300 blitzed through our test reading large files – it did so at a staggering 213.5MB/s. This is so much faster than any other SSD or hard disk we've seen before, we had to double check our results and reran the test just to be sure.

It wasn't as record-breakingly fast at writing large files, but at 123MB/s it's still 10MB/s faster than the fastest hard disk we've seen. It's also very fast at copying small files, writing them at 95.4MB/s and reading them at 108MB/s. Although still faster than any hard disk, the difference isn't as large as it is in reading large files test.

When connected over SATA II, large files were read at 116.2MB/s and written at 148.9MB/s. Small files were read at 63MB/s and written at 88.7MB/s. Except for reading small files, it's still faster than most hard disks. Still, it's clear that SATA III is necessary to get the most out of the C300.

Included with the C300 is a USB-to-SATA adapter cable and cloning software for transferring data from your existing disk. No mounting bracket or other accessories are included though.

The C300 is very fast, but it's also expensive at £254. At £1.98 per gigabyte, it's not bad value at all for a SSD, but unless you have money to spare we'd rather opt for a cheaper, smaller SSD accompanied by a large hard disk.

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