Crucial M550 Review: 128GB, 256GB, 512GB and 1TB Models Tested
by Kristian Vättö on March 18, 2014 8:00 AM ESTFinal Words
There are so many reasons why the M550 could be one of the best SSDs in the market. It has the best-in-class encryption support (along with Samsung 840 EVO) and it's also one of the only consumer-grade drives with power loss protection. Heck, it even supports DevSleep to enable low-power states in mobile platforms. Basically it has all the bells and whistles one could hope from a client drive. But there is one big "but": the performance. The M550 is supposed to be Crucial's high performance offering but compared to other high-end drives in the market, the performance is average at best. It's an upgrade over the M500, that's for sure, but that's not enough to make it to the medals podium.
The biggest Achilles' Heel of the M550 is its performance consistency. Given that it has been the focus of other manufacturers for the last year or so, it seems odd that Crucial hasn't done much to improve in this area. It's again better than the M500 consistency but compared to what SanDisk has been able to do with the same controller, the M550 doesn't impress. The potential saving grace would be pricing, so let's look there.
| NewEgg Price Comparison (3/17/2014) | ||||
| 120/128GB | 240/256GB | 480/512GB | 960GB/1TB | |
| Crucial M550 (MSRP) | $100 | $169 | $337 | $531 |
| Crucial M500 | $75 | $120 | $275 | $440 |
| Intel SSD 730 | - | $240 | $450 | - |
| Intel SSD 530 | $115 | $180 | $399 | - |
| OCZ Vector 150 | $138 | $190 | $390 | - |
| OCZ Vertex 460 | $100 | $185 | $360 | - |
| Samsung SSD 840 EVO | $95 | $160 | $265 | $554 |
| Samsung SSD 840 Pro | $119 | $208 | $420 | - |
| SanDisk Extreme II | $121 | $250 | $500 | - |
| Seagate SSD 600 | $105 | $170 | $380 | - |
The positive side is that pricing is extremely competitive. The M500 is already lowballing every other SSD in our comparison and the M550 comes in as a close second—and we expect street pricing to be lower than the MSRPs we've listed. The 840 EVO and Seagate SSD 600 are the only ones that beat the M550 in price but that's only at specific capacities (512GB) and with the current large sales that are going on. If Crucial is able to keep the pricing as competitive as our comparison suggests, other OEMs will definitely have a hard time competing with the M500 and M550.
All in all, I'm not sure how I should feel about the M550. On the one hand it feels a bit redundant to release a "high performance" drive that in reality is only average, but on the other hand, does it really matter if the price is right? I think not, but my concern is whether the M550 is fast enough to justify the added cost over the M500.
If you're a light user and price is the key purchase factor, then the M500 suffices and saves you money. However, if you're a power user and want performance, then it's better to look for the SanDisk Extreme II or Seagate SSD 600, or grab the Samsung 840 EVO 500GB on sale. The M550 kind of falls in between the two user groups and I'm not sure if there's any significant market there. For people who are not entirely sure whether the M500 is fast enough for their needs, the M550 is certainly a good and safe choice but I would have liked to see something competitive with the SanDisk Extreme II instead, even if the result was higher cost. It's not fast enough to close the gap, so the result ends up being a rehash of what we've already seen.
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anh14 - Thursday, March 20, 2014 - link
you nailed that ; all differences are just academic . Everyone always talks about 'faster' but not about how preventing it of making your computer slower i.e. taking your storage of the critical paththe only thing with the earlier SSD's are some of them become excessively slow and resetting them is a pain.
I have a stack of patriots 32Gb that are collecting dust and that OCZ Vertex 2 64 SSD, interesting you mentioned it, I do have that one still but it is my backup C-disk that is in my drawer (e.g. if things go south, I replace the intel 520 I am now using have with this guy which is still better than any slow poke HD)
nathanddrews - Tuesday, March 18, 2014 - link
Coming from a HDD, any modern SSD will be subjectively comparable. Unless you've got a really read or write heavy task, it's really just splitting hairs. I've owned eight SSDs since I bought my first 80GB Intel SSD and I still have all of them in working order (only the largest/newest ones are boot drives, the rest are in external enclosures or serve as scratch drives). Anyway, until we get an interface with considerably higher speed (1-2GBps) and a cost per GB of $0.25 (2TB SSD for $500), the SSD market is just boring IMO.hojnikb - Tuesday, March 18, 2014 - link
We are already headed to sata-express + flash is rapidly getting cheaper nowdays, so 2TB ssd for a reasonable price is not that far away. Another dieshrink (so we get 256Gbit dies) and maturing of sata-express controllers and this will become a reality.jospoortvliet - Thursday, March 20, 2014 - link
Prices haven't really been going down all that fast lately so I wouldn't count on it anytime soon.dishayu - Thursday, March 20, 2014 - link
Sadly,I have to agree with this. I bought a 128GB Plextor M5 in mid 2012 for 84$. That's still the price point where 128GB SSDs sell today.hojnikb - Thursday, March 20, 2014 - link
You do realize u got a heck of a deal for that ssd, right ?Death666Angel - Friday, March 21, 2014 - link
Prices for small capacity SSDs have been relatively stable, but the 256/512 sizes have really dropped. I remember buying a 500GB Samsung 840 for 320€ (December 2012) and the equivalent Evo 500GB now costs 210€.hojnikb - Thursday, March 20, 2014 - link
I disagree.Just check m500 prices lately..
HisDivineOrder - Tuesday, March 18, 2014 - link
Pricing is the thing they need. Performance gets ridiculous past a certain point with the given ports we have.GASOLINENL - Tuesday, March 18, 2014 - link
I read a very technical article about this. In theorie SSD's survive 75 years. Due to different things a very heavy user (lots of writing etc) will kill a SSD after 25!!!! years. So they are great.