Best SSD 2015

If you are looking for performance, reliability, compatibility and quality then the Crucial C300 is for you, especially if you need massive storage space. The Crucial brand, coupled with a three year warranty means you are in safe hands. Part of the Lexar Media group, Crucial is seen as a brand leader and are experts in memory technology, having been providing reliable high performance products for over ten years.

Computer technology has come on in leaps and bounds, over the last few years, as well as becoming more and more affordable. However, one of the biggest drawbacks has been the speed that certain modern components run at, as they often slow the whole system down. Recently we have seen huge advances in processor and memory speed and great improvements in connectivity. Unfortunately, hard drives have taken a long time to catch up but finally, with solid state technology, we are getting the speeds that we need.

Solid State Drives (SSD) has utterly transformed our boring grey boxes in to high performance computers which stand up to even the most stringent tests. With no moving parts, solid state drives do not drain computer resources like traditional hard drives.It uses the same technology employed in Apple's IPods. The Crucial C300 utilises the new 6.0 Gbs SATA III technology which means there are no issues with speed, which have plagued earlier solid state drives. Having signed an exclusive agreement with Marvell, the C300 is the first SATA 6G solid state drive on the market and has the added benefit of being the first drive to use 2.1 synchronous NAND flash technology meaning this is a market leader.

Using Micron Technology's award winning 34 nanometer NAND technology, coupled with a speedy 2.1 NAND interface, the C300 features include 256Gb capacity, 4.3W(active) /94mW(standby) average power, up to 355 MB/s sequential read speed, 215 MB/s sequential write speed which go towards an improved battery life, heat dissipation and operating system boot and application start up times.

Avoiding the industry standard SandForce drive controller, Crucial has instead installed the Marvell controller which works alongside a dedicated 128MB DRAM cache sited on the PCB. Unlike the SandForce controller, and to avoid differences in performance, data received by the drive is written in precisely the same way regardless of whether is it compressed or uncompressed. Additional controller performance is gained by utilising two parallel ARM9 processors, though this does increase its size.

The size and performance of the Marvell is unparalleled, however a SATA 6Gbps connection is needed to ensure the drive's full potential can be reached, though independent tests have shown that the C300 can load applications up to 20% faster than SandForce models. 20% may not seem a great deal on paper, though in reality this is a vast improvement which will show a marked increase in performance both immediately and over a long period of usage.

Notwithstanding the C300's gigantic capacity for a solid state drive, it is also the first SATA 6gps drive that actually uses the technology to its full affect, with excellent performance in all tests. Although the cost of solid state drives is still relatively high, the C300's costs per megabit is somewhat cheaper than its SandForce counterparts.

As well as being aimed at the home computer market, Crucial are also marketing this product at the mission critical backup consumers who are looking for cost effectiveness and reliability, whilst highlight its potential use as a portable backup storage device. Unfortunately, the C300 does lack a USB Mini-B connection which would make this a genuine fully portable backup solution.

If you need lots of capacity and even more speed, the C300 is perfect and will allow you to really increase your performance. As well as seeing a big difference in boot and load up times, applications such as viewing and editing photos, music and video will be noticeably faster. If you are a serious gamer or use your computer for high level applications, the C300 will make things easier and even more responsive.

The C300 is a top rated SSD, but it is pricy. If you are willing to look at lower storage sizes like with the Intel X25-M with 160 GB or the Kingston V100 with 64 GB you can get it for quite a bit less.

I hope you found best SSD 2015 useful. If you liked this article you might also enjoy reading best photo printer 2015 and wireless n router review 2015.