Crucial has launched a new series of SSDs with a simpler SATA 3,0 Gbps interface and a Phison PS3105 controller that targets the growing budget market. Crucial v4 doesn’t offer any staggering specifications, but makes up for it with aggressive pricing.
Crucial v4 builds on circuits from the relatively unknown controller maker Phison, which is a pretty experienced player in the storage industry still. The company has shipped over 500 million NAND flash controllers and its PS3105 ckontroller is one of the more affordable solutions.
Phison PS3105 only supports SATA 3.0 Gbps and thus limits data transfer speeds, but with Micron’s 25 nanometer NAND chips the price should be very attractive. Crucial v4 series is already in stores, with prices at around 90 euro for the128 GB model and 165 Euro for the 256 GB version.
“Most consumers realize that SSDs help their computers start quicker and run faster, and are a more durable alternative to hard drives, but many don’t realize that most SSDs outperform the data transfer capabilities of their SATA 2 machines. With the Crucial v4 SSD, we’ve come up with a product that’s designed to bring the most value out of a SATA 2 system without paying for extra performance that can’t be used.” – Robert Wheadon, global product manager, Crucial.
| Capacity | 32 GB | 64 GB | 128 GB | 256 GB |
| NAND chip | Micron 25 nanometer syncron MLC NAND | |||
| SSD controller | Phison PS3105 | |||
| Sequential read | 200 MB/s | 230 MB/s | 230 MB/s | 230 MB/s |
| Sequential Write | 60 MB/s | 100 MB/s | 175 MB/s | 190 MB/s |
| 4K Random Read | 10K IOPS | 10K IOPS | 10K IOPS | 10K IOPS |
| 4K Random Write | 1.2K IOPS | 2.4K IOPS | 4K IOPS | 4K IOPS |
| Price (Euro) | ~45 |
~65 |
~90 |
~165 |
The big question is if the saved money is worth it with the limited transfer speeds of the SATA 3.0 Gbps interface…
Source: Crucial
