Crucial M550 2.5" 256GB SATA 6Gb/s MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) CT256M550SSD1

Pros: Reliable technology. Faster than other Crucial SSDs.

Cons: none

Overall Review: We actually have the earlier M500 and it's been absolutely consistent and reliable. This newer M550 is faster than our older one. Was able to try out the M550 in a friend's PC and can confirm that Write speeds are superior, especially considering that this is only 120GB capacity which usually have only moderate Write speed.

Pros: Very fast, RAIN

Cons: Its a bit on the small side for an OS drive, but I have 2 of them in a RAID0. Pointless to buy one of these if you don't want/need the RAIN technology (just get a M500 if that's the case).

Overall Review: I was looking to make a RAID10, but upon reading up about these i found out that the RAIN technology basically puts a self recovering RAID1 in each drive, so I only needed 2. MOBO chipset: Intel X79 Remember, these are the results for 2 of these in a 64KB stripe: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CrystalDiskMark 3.0.3 x64 (C) 2007-2013 hiyohiyo Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- * MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s] Sequential Read : 855.003 MB/s Sequential Write : 662.398 MB/s Random Read 512KB : 746.243 MB/s Random Write 512KB : 479.638 MB/s Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 25.077 MB/s [ 6122.2 IOPS] Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 56.746 MB/s [ 13854.1 IOPS] Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 359.477 MB/s [ 87762.9 IOPS] Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 212.042 MB/s [ 51768.2 IOPS] Test : 1000 MB [C: 57.5% (129.7/225.6 GB)] (x5) Date : 2014/04/23 17:54:01 OS : Windows 8.1 [6.3 Build 9600] (x64)

Pros: - Boot time is very fast and opening applications is almost instantaneous. - 1 Tb capacity is amazing, no worries about installing all my apps and games on this drive. - Power required and heat generated are lower than with my previous traditional drive ... this results in a quieter system because the fans don't have to work as hard as before.

Cons: - None that I have noted yet.

Overall Review: I installed Windows 7 on this drive and boot time is very fast. Make sure to optimize your system settings for SSD's (ie: TRIM, Defrag, Indexing, ect). SSD Optimization Guides are widely available on the web ... Google is your friend. Delivery was timely and package arrived in perfect condition.

Pros: It was fast, really really fast. Till it died almost 4 months exactly after I bought it. Boot time was down to 15 to 20 seconds but I never really shutdown my PC. Programs ran smoother to. I miss it already.

Cons: Its dead and luckily I only used this drive for the OS in my system. The RMA processes are a pain because you don't deal with Crucial. Instead you end up deal with a company that does refurbish work. I have tried 3 time to get an RMA number and still have never received one. And on to of all this the warranty disclaimer on Crucials website stats that you will not receive a new product a refurbished drive to replace the broken one. I loved crucial for years and have always used their ram but sadly after being a loyal customer I think Ill be looking to a different company for my next ssd purchase and I truly feel bad about that.

Pros: Fast Big enough for my needs

Cons: This drive seems to have an issue with my ASUS UEFI motherboard where it loses connection every once in a while. It doesn't happen incredibly often, but when it does the motherboard will not recognize it until I do a full power down and a cold boot. It's very annoying. Meanwhile my crucial M4 never had a problem and still runs just fine.

Pros: SPEED Reliability Plug & Play Good Reputation

Cons: None Really. I would like to have some SSD software like Samsung offers

Overall Review: After lots of research I decided to go with the M550 and I am very happy with my decision. So far everything has met or exceeded my expectations. The M550 might not be the "fastest" SSD out, but I would call it one of the fastest with a good reputation for being reliable. The price has gone down some and I feel that it is in the "best bang for the buck" category.

Pros: RAIN technology fast of course quiet runs cool

Cons: none as of yet

Overall Review: I haven't owned it for too long. I have a Samsung 120GB drive that holds my WIN 8 operating system. I set this drive to G:\. I use it as you can guess...for 'G'aming. My C:\ drive was over flowing from only 2 games + OS, so I needed a secondary SSD drive for fast retrieval of data.

Pros: Purchased with Acronis software. Trouble free installation in a Lenovo W530. Laptop is used professionally. Boot time, though considerably faster, is not a concern. Use with VMware, 32 GB Linux images is where it absolutely shines. I keep seven of these images on my laptop. I develop and support customer specific Linux systems. VMware allows me to switch between customer specific images. Boot times are 5-10 times faster. Saving the image is 10-15 seconds versus 2 - 3 minutes on a hard drive. I use a MSATA for an in-system backup for frequent backups and use a NAS for periodic backups.

Cons: None.