Micron M600 (128GB, 256GB & 1TB) SSD Review
by Kristian Vättö on September 29, 2014 8:00 AM ESTFinal Words
My thoughts about the M600 are mixed. On the one hand I am happy to see that Micron is showing its commitment to the client market by investing on features like Dynamic Write Acceleration because to be honest, Micron has not really introduced anything new to its client SSDs since the M500. Innovation in the client segment is difficult because the market is so cost driven and even though a pseudo-SLC cache is nothing new, Micron's way of implementing it is.
On the other hand, I am a bit disappointed by the performance of the M600 and especially Dynamic Write Acceleration. In theory Dynamic Write Acceleration sounds great because it should provide the maximum acceleration capacity under every circumstance and thus maximize performance, but the truth is that the speed improvements over the MX100 are minimal. Add to that the fact that the M600 is actually outperformed by the 840 EVO, which utilizes TLC NAND with smaller SLC caches. It is not like the M600 is a slow or bad drive, not at all; it is just that I expected a bit more given the combination of MLC NAND and dynamic SLC cache.
The positive side of Dynamic Write Acceleration is the increased endurance. While 72TB was without a doubt enough for average client workloads, it is never a bad thing to have more. Especially OEMs tend to appreciate higher endurance because it is associated with higher reliability, and it also opens a wider market for the M600 as it can be used in workstation setups without having to worry about drives wearing out. Of course, I would pick a faster drive like 850 Pro for workstation use, but for OEMs the cost tends to be more important.
| NewEgg Price Comparison (9/28/2014) | ||||
| 120/128GB | 240/256GB | 480/512GB | 960GB/1TB | |
| Micron M600 | $80 | $140 | $260 | $450 |
| Crucial MX100 | $75 | $112 | $213 | - |
| Crucial M550 | $90 | $150 | $272 | $480 |
| SanDisk Ultra II | $80 | $110 | $200 | $433 |
| SanDisk Extreme Pro | - | $190 | $370 | $590 |
| Samsung SSD 850 Pro | $120 | $200 | $380 | $700 |
| Samsung SSD 840 EVO | $82 | $140 | $236 | $500 |
| OCZ ARC 100 | $75 | $120 | $240 | - |
| Plextor M6S | $75 | $135 | $280 | - |
| Intel SSD 530 | $84 | $140 | $250 | - |
Since the M600 is an OEM-only product, it will not be available through the usual retail channels. Thus the pricing will depend highly on the quantity ordered, so the prices in the above table are just approximate prices for orders of one that Micron provided us. The M600 enjoys a price premium over the MX100, but I suspect that in high volumes the M600 pricing should drop close to the MX100 levels, perhaps even lower.
All in all, I would have liked to see Micron going after Samsung's 850 Pro and SanDisk's Extreme Pro with the M600, but I do see the logic behind sticking to the high volume mainstream market. In terms of performance, features, and price, the M600 is a solid product and I am certain that PC OEMs will see the appeal in MLC NAND and high endurance over competitors' TLC offerings, especially in the more professional-oriented PC segments.
It will nevertheless be interesting to see how the separation of retail and OEM product teams plays out for Micron. I am eager to see whether Micron can optimize Dynamic Write Acceleration for heavier workloads and finally provide competition in the high-end SSD market as well. For now, this is a good first step, but it might take a revision or two before Dynamic Write Acceleration can reach its full potential.
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Kristian Vättö - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Oh, that one. It's from the M600's reviewer's guide and the numbers are based on Micron's own research.maofthnun - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Thanks for the clarification on the powerloss protection feature. I am very disappointed by how it actually works because that was a major deciding factor in my purchase of the MX100. At the time, the choice was between the MX100 and the Seagate 600 Pro which was $30 more and which also offers powerloss protection. I would have gladly paid the extra $30 if I had known the actual workings of the MX100.Since we're on the topic, I wonder if other relatively recent SSDs within the consumer budget that offer powerloss protection (e.g. Intel 730, Seagate 600 Pro) work the way everyone assumes (flush volatile data)? Would love to hear your comment on this.
Kristian Vättö - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Seagate 600 Pro is basically an enterprise drive (28% over-provisioning etc), so it does have full power-loss protection. It uses tantalum capacitors like other enterprise SSDs.http://www.anandtech.com/show/6935/seagate-600-ssd...
As for the SSD 730, it too has full power-loss protection, which is because of its enterprise background (it's essentially an S3500 with an overclocked controller/NAND and a more client-optimized firmware). The power-loss protection implementation is the same as in the S3500 and S3700.
maofthnun - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Thank you. I'll be targeting those two as my future purchase.RAMdiskSeeker - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
If the 256GB drive were formatted with a 110GB partition, would it operate in Dynamic Write Acceleration 100% of the time? If so, this would be an interesting way to get an SLC drive.Romberry - Friday, January 9, 2015 - link
I'm really not sure that the AnandTech Storage Bench 2013 does an adequate job of characterzing the performance of this drive or really, any drive in a consumer class environment. And I'm not sure that filling all the LBA's and looking at the psedo-SLC step down as the drive is filled really tells us anything useful (other than where the break points are...and how much use is that?) either.Performance consistency? Same deal. Almost no one uses consumer class drives (large steady long term massive writes) this way, and those who do use drives this way likely aren't using consumer class drives.
I can really take nothing useful away from this review. And BTW, this whole "Crucial doesn't really have power protection, we didn't actually bother checking but just assumed and repeated the marketing speak before" stuff is not the kind of thing I expect from AnandTech. With that kind of care being taken in these articles, I'll be careful to read things here with the same sort of skepticism I had previously reserved for other sites. I'd sort of suspended that skepticism with AnandTech over the years. My mistake.