Crucial RealSSD C300 2.5-inch SATA 6Gb/s Ultra

I bought this after I already had a 64GB version, so I knew what I was getting. It’s an SSD, so it’s smaller, lighter, cooler and faster. That’s an impressive checklist but the cost is low capacity. 128GB isn’t much space these days.

Oh, and the other cost is cost. SSDs cost ~10 times as much money as HDDs, so I’ve docked this a star for its low value for money and high price per GB. It’s fine if you have a Media PC that you are streaming content to, but if you need to store content you’ll need to buy a HDD too which will negate the advantage of its silent operation.

Comparing it to other SSDs, it’s at the head of its class and I can’t fault its operation and performance. You might spend a lot of money but you get what you pay for.

I thought long and hard before investing in a smallish hard drive costing over £250.00! After all, you can just about get a budget computer for that price. It wasn’t an easy decision I can tell you.

Would it be quiet? Would it fit securely inside my desktop tower case? Would it perform? Well, to the first question; rest assured this drive is silent, completely silent, absolutely silent. So, no problems there.

Bearing in mind that these drives were initially aimed at the laptop market, where all the identical measurements enable a quick and easy swap-out, it is little wonder that the desktop pc user is going to come across a little problem and a bit more expense. You are going to have to get an adapter to support this precious drive in safety. I used an Akasa solid state drive 2.5” Mounting Kit (AK-MX010) which will cost in the region £5-12 and enabled me to make good use of a redundant floppy bay.

Did it perform? Beyond all my expectations. My PC now boots to a usable desktop in less than 70 seconds, whereas with an ordinary 7200rpm hard drive, I could be waiting in excess of 3 minutes. Shut down times are equally as swift. In general use, the Crucial REAL SSD 128Gb delivers the goods every time. Everything runs quicker. It’s a real pleasure.

On a final point, most pc users will only be using half the capable 6Gb/s transfer rate. This is because nearly all motherboards are limited to 3Gb/s from the standard SATA II interface. However, help is at hand because many of the new PCI-ex USB 3.0 cards come with one or more handy 6Gb/s SATA II ports. I’m just about to buy one…!

In conclusion, my only reservation was the lack of an adapter that could easily have been included in the package by Crucial (they don’t even give you any mounting screws, which has to be a bit mean).

If you’re looking for a noticeable increase in speed from your pc or laptop, forget the extra ram or CPU upgrade, invest in a Crucial REAL SSD boot drive. It’s a REAL joy!