Crucial M550 512GB Solid State Drive Review

CrystalDiskMark

CrystalDiskMark is a small HDD benchmark utility for your hard drive that enables you to rapidly measure sequential and random read/write speeds.

Here are some key features of “CrystalDiskMark”:

• Sequential reads/writes
• Random 4KB/512KB reads/writes
• Text copy
• Change dialog design
• internationalization (i18n)

Unconditioned

Conditioned

Whilst CrystalDiskMark gives a close resemblance to the details seen from ATTO, there is a notable difference on the conditioned read line. Rather than jumping up and down, the line follows a tighter trend with the performance fluctuating by no more than 4MB/s.

Drive Comparison

For the purpose of drive comparison I use the performance figures from both unconditioned and conditioned tests with 0% data fill.

Looking at the real world performance, the M550 does show to not be the strongest drive on the read front – however if we look at the write performance, the Marvel controller shows to be one of the stronger contenders.