Mushkin has announced their new Source Series of solid state drives (SSD) that are launching between now and next month in April, depending on form factor. Competing with the likes of brands like Samsung and SanDisk, the new drives are being offered at a price point that is cost-effective, which perfectly reflects the current state of SATA SSD solutions (which, for an example, currently range between $110-$130 for 500-512GB options).
The new drives will be offered in both the 2.5-inch and M.2 (2280) SATA III configurations, allowing them to become an option for desktops and laptops alike. Thanks to the option of M.2 (2280) form factor, this also opens them to literally any size of laptop or netbook solution that supports it.
Just about everything is moving toward SSD finally. You will find that this year will be a big one for replacing hard drives up to 1TB or more with the popular format, as we begin to evolve past mechanically spinning drives (the bulkier grandfather of data storage), and into the realm of being able to access the information at extraordinary speeds. As this happens, you should also see the price of these drives come down as well hopefully.
“The market has never been more ready for SSDs,” says Brian Flood, Director of Product Development for Mushkin Enhanced MFG. “With the ultimate balance of value, capacity, and performance, the Source Series leverages all of the great benefits expected from an SSD without breaking the bank.”
The new drives will mostly target the consumer market while leaning toward other channels, and will come in capacity options of 120GB, 250GB, 500GB, or 1TB. Comparable to today’s more popular options, they are supposed to reach speeds as high as 560MB/s (read) and 520MB/s (write).
As mentioned, they will be launching both now (2.5-inch SATA) and into next month (SATA M.2). Currently, the 120GB 2.5-inch option is showing for between $38.99-$39.99, 250GB option between $62.99-$64.99, and the 500GB between $109.99-$114.99 (Amazon seems to have the best price for all of the above, by a few dollars). Although Mushkin hasn’t announced any delays for the 1TB option, we don’t have any pricing information just yet since we can’t seem to find it anywhere. If we had to guess though based on the pattern of things, it will more than likely fall around $199.
Specs:
- Capacity Options: 120GB, 250GB, 500GB, 1TB
- Max Sequential: 560MB/s read / 520MB/s write
- Max Random 4K: 75,000 read IOPS / 81,000 write IOPS
- Available Form Factors: 2.5” and M.2 2280
- Interface: SATA 6Gb/s
- MTBF: 1.5 million hours MTBF
- Controller: Silicon Motion SM2258XT
- Flash: Equipped with 3D NAND flash
- Warranty: 3-year warranty with free technical support
Again, hopefully this will lead to a drop in price as SSD becomes more of the default option for consumers, and manufacturers push harder toward increased storage capacities that range into the multiple TB’s instead of GB’s. This way we can sooner than later kiss HDD options goodbye.
Until then, we hope to get our hands on one of these so that we can test is against our favorite Seagate, Samsung and SanDisk solutions.
