Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB SSD Review

Results Analysis

As the Crucial C300 addresses compressed data in exactly the same as uncompressed data, there’s no speed difference when dealing with different types of files, as there can be with SandForce. Hooked up to a £40 Highpoint Rocket 620 1x PCI-E SATA 6Gbps card to deliver the full SATA 6Gbps speeds, we saw sequential read speeds of 345MB/sec in AS SSD, with write speeds of 215MB/sec.

Sequential speeds were just as impressive in ATTO disk benchmark, with a 1,024KB sequential read speed of 362MB/sec and a 1,024KB sequential write speed of 230MB/sec. These results are very impressive, with the C300 256GB’s huge sequential read speed necessitating a SATA 6Gbps port to get the best out of it.


Random performance was also superb, with a 4KB random read speed of 53MB/sec and 4KB random write speed of a huge 72.28MB/sec, eclipsing the Intel X25-M 160GB. The best performance marker can be seen in STALKER: Call of Pripyat though: the C300 256GB loaded the game 20 per cent faster than any SandForce, Indilinx or Intel SSD we’ve ever tested. It took just 20 seconds. This is a serious and meaningful improvement, as it'll mean that your PC is snappier and more responsive no matter what you're doing - loading games or levels, launching applications or opening a load of RAW images for editing will all be quicker on the C300.

Performance following heavy use and TRIM was also excellent, a relief following the long-term performance degradation issues highlighted when this drive first launched. While the sequential write speeds in AS SSD took a small dip, read speeds (random or sequential) were unaffected despite heavy use of the drive. We did notice a similarly small drop in random write speeds, dipping down to 47MB/sec, but this was minor and followed 1TB of data being written to the drive.

Conclusion

Put simply, the Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB is a monster of an SSD. It's the first SATA 6Gbps drive that delivered the kinds of superb speed that the new bus is capable of, with staggeringly fast performance right across the board, regardless of file compression. However, it does need a fast SATA 6Gbps to get most from this SSD.

While SandForce is a very capable controller chip, it wasn’t quite the jump in performance we’d hoped for, but the C300 is a true leap forward for SSD speeds. A sequential read speed of 350MB/sec and equally impressive random read speed makes the C300 the fastest drive we’ve ever used for loading games or applications. The 230MB/sec sequential write speed, while not as fast as the 265MB/sec of SandForce drives, is still very fast, and well in excess of the 150MB/sec write speed of the fastest hard disk.

While the price is, as with any SSD, very high, at £2.09/GB the C300 is considerably cheaper per GB than even 120GB SandForce drives, which come in at around £2.33/GB. The only caveat is the need for a fast SATA 6Gbps port, as we’ve found the on-board SATA 6Gbps controllers on many motherboards, and even SATA 6Gbps expansion cards, just aren’t up to standard. In the end Crucial supplied us with a £40 Highpoint Rocket 620 card which was finally able to unleash all the C300’s speed.

While the Rocket 620 card will add £40 to your upgrade price, that would still mean that a perfect C300 256GB upgrade would cost £2.26/GB, and so would still competitively priced. While £500 is a lot to spend on any single component, the Crucial C300 is easily the most desirable product we've seen for a while.

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Score Guide