Samsung 64GB SATA II SSD

http://www.samsung.com/
$549
By: Chris Angelini

Solid state storage prices are still way too high (and capacity is still far too small) to justify going SSD-only. Sure, Samsung recently announced it was mass-producing its first 256 GB models. But given the $549 price tag on the 64 GB drive and relative unavailability of the 128 GB model at retail, we’re not sure when that larger repository will actually be a realistic option. For the time being, you can enjoy the MCCOE64G5MPP, Samsung’s OEM configuration of the drive that won our recommendation in Patrick’s 14-Way SSD Roundup earlier this year.

Why the hefty price tag? Unlike a lot of the other SSDs out there, this is based on SLC (single-level cell) technology—hence the beefy transfer speeds and 2 million hour MTBF. Samsung claims 100 MB/s sequential reads and 80 MB/s sequential writes. Our numbers weren’t as high for the drive’s writes, but they were still impressive. Where the SLCs really shine is performance per watt.

It’s worth noting that Intel’s 32 GB SLC drive recently launched as well, though it’s significantly more expensive, given the online prices we’ve been seeing (MSRPs put the two fairly close, though). If screaming write speeds are your thing and you can stomach the loss of capacity, we’d also be inclined to lean in that drive’s direction, too.