Lexar Media issues 64GB, 128GB and 256GB Crucial M225 SSDs

It's been a long, long while since we've seen a new Crucial-branded SSD, but we'd argue that Lexar Media couldn't have picked a better time to end the hiatus. The M225 solid state drive family is the fastest, most capacious Crucial SSD line to date, and while they still lag behind OCZ's new Vertex Turbo SSD drives, they don't lag by much. The 2.5-inch SATA units can hit read speeds of up to 250MBps and write speeds of up to 200MBps, and the whole lot features MLC NAND flash memory and a SATA 2.0 (3Gbps) interface. Available in 64GB, 128GB and 256GB models, the trio is also fully compatible with the Crucial SK01 external drive storage kit, and unlike so many competitors, Lexar decided to go rouge and actually announce prices for the now-available units: $169.99, $329.99 and $599.99 in order of mention. Not too shabby, wouldn't you agree?

[ichheissesuperfantastisch @ Jul 20th 2009 9:31AM]

Once the 64gb drops to $50-75, I'll get one for my Mini 9 and finally install Windows 7 on it. WinXP runs great for now, but is starting to look a bit dated.

[Pete @ Jul 20th 2009 9:56AM]

Well I hope you're not talking about these drives, because there's no way a 2.5" drive would fit into a Mini 9.

[DracoDan @ Jul 20th 2009 9:33AM]

The primary concern with SSDs is the random write (most importantly) and random reads (slightly less important). Sequential transfer rates are pretty much meaningless, and posting these numbers only promotes manufactures to concentrate on them. PLEASE go read this http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531&p=1 before posting about another SSD.

[no thanks @ Jul 20th 2009 1:36PM]

nice too see someone else who actually understands....

oh and right now, the real primary concern is what controller these SSD drives are using.
Which i find funny that they specifically fail to mention anywhere on their "tech specs".....

if you aren't using the indilix, samsung or intel controller, no one is interested. no one with a clue anyway.

[FitFan @ Jul 20th 2009 3:50PM]

Thanks for the link. That is a very informative article. It makes the current Intel and OCZ Vertex drives look like they're worth the money if you can afford the drives. It'll be interesting to see what shows up between now and the end of the year.

[msalivar @ Jul 20th 2009 6:13PM]

From the specs, I'd take a long shot guess that this is a revision of the latest Samsung controller. But part of that is, I just can't see Crucial putting their name on anything with a Jmicron controller at this point. OTOH, I thought Crucial was partnering with Intel, at least awhile back, so maybe it's a next gen Intel part? But I might just be remembering wrong.

[ProfessorKaos @ Jul 20th 2009 9:35AM]

On DracoDan's point, ill add it has typically not been Lexar to be a speed demon or a fore front of popular flash drive purchases, but we'll see how this goes.

[David @ Jul 20th 2009 9:37AM]

*rogue

[Emu76 @ Jul 20th 2009 9:48AM]

Who has the money for a 256GB SSD?

[Blackstar @ Jul 20th 2009 10:48AM]

But they come in three different price points! "Too Expensive" "Way Too Expensive" & "Give it a College Education". :P

And considering for less than $99 bucks you can get a single drive that holds more data than all of these combined, I find it hard to justify it, even with the performance gains of an SSD.

These don't come with an HDTV in them do they?

[Ypoknons @ Jul 20th 2009 12:40PM]

I do. It was a $250 upgrade on my Dell XPS Studio 16. Samsung controller. It's fine for a boot / important files drive. I still need 1-2TB on an external for video editing, bakcup and high-def media, so I'll be needing a HDD for a while yet.

[Maeztro @ Jul 20th 2009 1:19PM]

Since when has early adopting been cheap?

[Zak @ Jul 20th 2009 6:53PM]

Any adult with a job?

[TentosToys @ Jul 21st 2009 1:13AM]

People who buy iPhones. An extra $100 for 16 more GB is $6.25/GB whereas these are only $2.64/GB for the 64 GB version.

[Daniel @ Jul 20th 2009 10:17AM]

Everyone's got an opinion regarding their concerns... I'm just happy to see an AMERICAN company fudging into the market! The R&D is Boise - regardless where the actual manufacturing resides.

Go MICRON!

(db)

[ravenmaster11 @ Jul 20th 2009 9:54AM]

to be honest the best thing to if your planing on buying the 256 gig:

if you willing to pay an extra 40$ buy 4 64gig's throw them in a raid 0 and you be getting the same capacity with atleast 2 times the performance!

just throwing it out there, i mean in SSD data stripping is no longer a major concern! so RAID it UP!

[qwack @ Jul 20th 2009 10:02AM]

And if you have a laptop? (Primary market)

Running four SSD in RAID is great but you cant really carry that around with you.

[DracoDan @ Jul 20th 2009 10:30AM]

You also have to be willing to accept the fact that the risk of you losing all of your data is 4 times higher. If any one of those drives has a failure, you lose everything. It would also be a good idea to have a dedicated controller, since pretty much all of them have their own cache. This helps alleviate some of the stuttering as your systems wait for writes to complete.

Not saying this is a bad idea, I've considered it myself, you just have to be willing to accept the potential consequences. One possible option could be RAID 5, but then your cost savings are gone.

Of course this applies only to desktops and maybe a few high end laptops.

[Ypoknons @ Jul 20th 2009 12:48PM]

Plus, let's quote our dear Anand about random read speeds: "this is where SSDs shine and no hard drive, regardless of how many you RAID together, can come close" (http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531&p=25).

Imagine dragging your RAID array around college.... and then dropping it.

[msalivar @ Jul 20th 2009 6:19PM]

I don't have numbers or any real clue if it's true, but a 4-way RAID 0 with a quality SSD may be more reliable than a single hard drive.

[windblownmonkey @ Jul 20th 2009 9:57AM]

Still too expensive. There are some nice 10,000 rpm drives out there that offer great speed, and more capacity for much less. Raid them and your really cooking.

[davepermen @ Jul 20th 2009 10:10AM]

you never used an ssd, right?

it doesn't matter how many rpm the disks have, how fast the read speeds of those are. ssd's have a random access speed that is unmatched, and it's 10x to 100x faster than any hdd.

Yes, I've dropped all my hdd's and replaced them all with ssds. At no moment, I would ever go back. Hdd's are cheaper? yes, but they're still not worth any cent anymore.

[davepermen @ Jul 20th 2009 10:13AM]

except for storage-drives, of course. I have a windows home server, and there the most cheap and power efficient 1tb disks available in, right now.

but for any system disk (and that is, any disk except the storage on the home server), i won't ever use a hdd anymore. ssds are the best thing you can buy for your laptop or pc.

[Exile @ Jul 20th 2009 12:36PM]

Davepermen, you are obviously rich. Wire me some money.

[majortom @ Jul 20th 2009 10:01AM]

will any of these fit my PCjr?

[LloydChiro @ Jul 20th 2009 11:56AM]

Only IBM AT and up. Sorry.

[JohnnyRico @ Jul 20th 2009 10:02AM]

Wow, that 64gb drive sure is price competitive, actually. Cheaper then Vortex and Agility drives by at least $20. IT's bordering on tempting.

[davepermen @ Jul 20th 2009 10:12AM]

Lets just wait for Intel to officially release their Second Generation. That will shuffle the whole pricing, most likely all vendors will have to drop their prices.

Should be this week, lets hope it's true.

[Javi0084 @ Jul 20th 2009 10:52AM]

I wouldn't mind a 256GB Cowon A3. (^_^)

[Brent @ Jul 20th 2009 10:56AM]

Progress, but the 128 and 256 drives still need to come down a lot more for mass adoption. These days I don't think 64gb is big enough anymore unless it's a netbook.

[Philbury @ Jul 20th 2009 11:48AM]

I've always ignored SSD's as too expensive and not quite mature as products. I'm beginning to think a 32 GB one, just as a system disk, (loading Windows in half the time?) and if it's not prone to stuttering might be very cool.

I will go and read that Anandtech article now and and have my hopes dashed.

[Philbury @ Jul 20th 2009 12:04PM]

Blimey that was a big article. I was looking for the bit where it says 'buy this one' and couldn't find it.

He does actually say that the good ones are excellent for system disks and it's what he uses on all his gear. Think I'll wait a month and see shat i can get a good small one for.

[something clever @ Jul 20th 2009 12:13PM]

The article says "Available in 64GB, 128GB and 256GB models"

The picture shows a 32GB drive.

Great quality control, guys!

[David Hildreth @ Jul 20th 2009 12:32PM]

I

[Adam Williamson @ Jul 20th 2009 12:38PM]

"Go rouge"? They all put on lip gloss?

You mean "go rogue".

(No, this is not being a 'grammar nazi', to pre-empt the comment tools. Engadget makes so many basic errors of vocabulary, spelling and punctuation that I find it rather difficult to figure out what the hell they're trying to say, half the time.)

[something clever @ Jul 20th 2009 1:45PM]

Hey, it's engadget. The object isn't to be a good 'writer' (since they only put up about a paragraph, most of which is rehashed from a press release), it's about appearing hip and trendy while posting something remotely tech related. Work for engadget, tell your friends and parents you're really a writer (look ma, one paragraph and it's all mine!!!!), and try to throw out some references that will make some people say "hey, I get that reference! I am entertained by the mere fact that I and someone on a web site get the same references! This is cool!"

Can anybody point me to a better site that has news on laptops and things like processors, new USB / SATA rollouts, and set top boxes like roku? Engadget is approaching gizmodo for lameness.

[KIFF @ Jul 20th 2009 3:31PM]

This is Engadget. Writing is not what they know.

[MrZamn @ Jul 21st 2009 2:31PM]

Sup?? All this talk about uses for the hard drive. Just a more simple question. Will any of these work in my overloaded PS3?

[Dognip @ Jul 20th 2009 11:18PM]

@ Blackstar

You've never owned or tried an SSD have you.
It's quite obvious because the speed and other benefits like: no noise, no heat and no moving parts FAR outweigh the price difference with a regular HD.
Sure, use that affordable huge capacity HD as a USB external drive.
But for a OS drive, if you can't spend a bit more on a component that BLOWS regular HDs out there; then it's because you just are not serious about computing and don't understand how REAL value works!!!

[Suigi @ Jul 20th 2009 11:20PM]

Indilinx or Samsung controller, or GTFO.

[Picviewer @ Jul 21st 2009 2:01AM]

Meh when I can walk into a store or order a 256g + one for around 100/150 range to use as a backup device call me, otherwise these are a waste. Swap a drive in, dump files over, pull it swap another in and not have to worry about carefully handling a mechanical drive or finding a decent case to slap on into. Then I'll buy. So it loads a app or game 5 seconds faster big deal.