Micron M510DC 480GB SSD Review

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INTRODUCTION

Consumer reports over the last couple of years have shown that consumers of all types check mostly two things when out to get a new SSD, price (more specifically price/capacity) and performance. The same fortunately doesn't apply for enterprise users since performance and endurance are the two primary concerns but i doubt there's a single company out there that wouldn't like to save some cash when getting new storage media. This has left room for strong competition even in the enterprise market so this is perhaps the only time since the introduction of SSDs (as we know them at least) that we've seen pretty much every major player in the market invest in such models. Micron of course couldn't stay this one out and since their M500DC SSD line (introduced just over a year ago) although it proved to be a worthy opponent to other similar models did cost quite a bit they went ahead and introduced the new M510DC line.



Micron Technology, Inc., is a global leader in advanced semiconductor systems. Micron’s broad portfolio of high-performance memory technologies—including DRAM, NAND and NOR Flash—is the basis for solid state drives, modules, multichip packages and other system solutions. Backed by more than 35 years of technology leadership, Micron’s memory solutions enable the world’s most innovative computing, consumer, enterprise storage, networking, mobile, embedded and automotive applications. Micron's common stock is traded on the NASDAQ under the MU symbol.



The M510DC line of SSDs seems a lot like a double edged sword since on one hand it doesn't share the same writes per day endurance as the M500DC (2 vs 3 DWPD) but on the other using the latest 16nm 128Gbit synchronous MLC NAND flash by Micron it can offer the same capacities but at a lower cost. Although both use the same 88SS9187 NAND flash controller by Marvell (supports ECC, RAID, SMART, TRIM, AES hardware encryption) another important difference between the M510DC and the M500DC lines is that the first is read centric optimized and thus designed for sequential workloads while the second is built for mixed read/write and random workloads. As we speak the M510DC line is available in 120GB, 240GB, 480GB, 800GB and 960GB and they have a MTTF rating of 2 million hours with an operating temperature from 0°C and up to 70°C. The M510DC line also packs the same eXtended Performance and Enhanced Reliability Technology used in the M500DC (XPERT) which includes features like RAIN data parity protection (redundant array of independent NAND), ARM/OR adaptive DSP technology (Advanced Read Management/Optimized Read), DataSAFE (data path protection) and full power loss protection. Micron is also the very first manufacture in the market to offer TCG enterprise hardware encryption (TCG-E) with their M510DC line which effectively renders the drive useless without its unique encryption key (however due to certain region restrictions the M510DC is also available without TCG-E).