Pros: Cheap American company Solid metal drive case Write speeds are great for short-bursts Read speeds are excellent

Cons: SLC cache is about 2.4 GB for the 120GB drive (measured by HD Tune). After this is exhausted, speeds vary between about 53 MB/s and 75 MB/s (averaging closer to 75, with dips to 53) SATA and power connector use the actual drive PCB for the connector (No soldered on connector). I’d imagine this was done to cut costs, and seems functional, but may cause issues with frequent connect/disconnect cycles. No published flash memory endurance numbers. Faulty temperature sensor? My drive reported a temp of 11C for the duration of all tests. Ambient was around 21C. There is no dashboard or other software available from Mushkin for drive monitoring/maintenance.

Overall Review: This drive will be used in a HTPC that is used primarily for Streaming video, Steam In-Home Streaming, and some light gaming. It is replacing an over 10 year old HDD. I believe that the TLC based shortcomings won’t be an issue with this usage scenario. Although the solid metal case seems rugged, it does weigh significantly more than a plastic cased SSD. Normally replacing an HDD with an SSD in a mobile device results in a weight reduction, this SSD may weigh about the same. Using this in a desktop negates the issue. Formatted capacity is 111 GB (120,031,539,200 bytes) Firmware version is 01126A as reported by CrystalDiskInfo Tests were performed on an AMD 970 chipset (SB950 southbridge). A newer chipset could have marginally better numbers. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CrystalDiskMark 5.0.3 x64 Test : 1024 MiB [F: 0.1% (0.1/111.8 GiB)] (x1) [Interval=5 sec] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 553.452 MB/s Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 451.892 MB/s Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 277.322 MB/s [ 67705.6 IOPS] Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 241.179 MB/s [ 58881.6 IOPS] Sequential Read (T= 1) : 471.884 MB/s Sequential Write (T= 1) : 408.721 MB/s Random Read 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 24.943 MB/s [ 6089.6 IOPS] Random Write 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 51.998 MB/s [ 12694.8 IOPS] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- AS SSD 1.8.5636.37293 Test: 1GB ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Sequential Read: 466.22 MB/s Sequential Write: 415.14 MB/s 4K Read: 25.55 MB/s 4K Write: 70.85 MB/s 4K-64Thrd Read: 258.67 MB/s 4K-64Thrd Write: 105.82 MB/s Acc.time Read: 0.051 ms Acc.time Write: 0.082 ms 16MB Read: 29.14 iops 16MB Write: 25.95 iops 4K Read: 7310 iops 4K Write: 18137 iops 4k-64Thrd Read: 66219 iops 4k-64Thrd Write: 27090 iops 512B Read: 19689 iops 512B Write: 12214 iops Score Read: 334 Score Write: 218 Combined: 731 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- HD Tune Pro 5.60 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Full Disk Read Minimum: 363.8 MB/s Maximum: 421.8 MB/s Average: 370.5 MB/s Access time: 0.046 ms Burst rate: 152.2 MB/s CPU usage: 5.4% Short Stroked Write (3 GB) Minimum: 52.9 MB/s Maximum: 377.2 MB/s Average: 259.0 MB/s Access time: 0.077 ms Burst rate: 153.5 MB/s CPU usage: 6.3%

Pros: -Lifetime Warranty -Decent timings -Heat spreader

Cons: - No serial number, but I think that's normal for G.SKILL

Overall Review: Installed in my Inspiron 11 3147 without issue. Timings defaulted to 8,8,8,24,1T @ 1333, which is better then the stock stick. Here's the timings dumped from JEDEC according to CPU-Z: Chipset ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Northbridge Intel Bay Trail Host Bridge rev. 0E Southbridge Intel Bay Trail LPC Bridge rev. 0E Memory Type DDR3 Memory Size 8 GBytes Memory Frequency 666.7 MHz (1:8) CAS# latency (CL) 8.0 RAS# to CAS# delay (tRCD) 8 RAS# Precharge (tRP) 8 Cycle Time (tRAS) 24 Command Rate (CR) 1T Host Bridge 0x0F00 Memory SPD ------------------------------------------------------------------------- DIMM # 1 SMBus address 0x50 Memory type DDR3 Module format SO-DIMM Manufacturer (ID) G.Skill (7F7F7F7FCD0000000000) Size 8192 MBytes Max bandwidth PC3-12800H (800 MHz) Part number F3-1600C9-8GRSL Number of banks 8 Nominal Voltage 1.35 Volts EPP no XMP no AMP no JEDEC timings table CL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS-tRC @ frequency JEDEC #1 5.0-5-5-16-21 @ 444 MHz JEDEC #2 6.0-6-6-19-25 @ 533 MHz JEDEC #3 7.0-7-7-22-29 @ 622 MHz JEDEC #4 8.0-8-8-25-33 @ 711 MHz JEDEC #5 9.0-9-9-28-37 @ 800 MHz

Pros: Metal Black Plenty of screws Variety of mounting holes

Cons: For whatever reason, the larger screw holes don't match up 1:1 with the same screw holes on a normal 3.5" HDD. It still installed, but I could not get it to fit using the exact same holes in the drive try. The 2.5" drive installed in this without any issues though. Maybe I just didn't play with it enough.

Pros: -Device reports a max power usage 300mA. Which is much more frugal then some of the higher power devices. -Takes advantage of USB 3.0 speeds, a USB 2.0 port will definitely limit this drive for reads. -Tested read speed was greater then advertised (~68 MB/s). -Lifetime Limited Warranty

Cons: -Could be faster, but I'd prefer a potentially longer lasting, more energy efficient drive for my use-case. -Drive does not appear to exceed USB 2.0 bandwidth on writes. -Tested write speed was less then advertised (~15 MB/s).

Overall Review: Formatted drive is around 29GB in capacity. Here's my benchmarks using CrystalDiskMark 5.0.3, all done using 5 x 1Gib, units are MB/s: Seq Q32T1- 68.89(R) 14.79(W) 4K Q32T1- 6.578(R) 0.664(W) Seq- 68.58(R) 10.70(W) 4K- 6.496(R) 0.656(W) Also tested on a USB 2.0 port (you can see where the reads are limited by USB 2.0 bandwidth): Seq Q32T1- 32.72(R) 14.42(W) 4K Q32T1- 5.151(R) 0.705(W) Seq- 32.51(R) 9.228(W) 4K- 4.537(R) 0.661(W) My drive is running as the OS drive for an embedded Linux device on a USB 2.0 port. It will be run 24x7. No issues for the month it's been in place. Happy with the higher then advertised read speed, but the less then advertised write speed was the reason I took off 1 egg.

Pros: -Power Efficient -5 year warranty -Great performance in the segment -Able to Route LAN-WAN at nearly 200 Mbps -PCAP traffic capture from WAN/LAN

Cons: -Single Antenna -Only single SSID, No Guest SSID option

Overall Review: Good packaging, held securely in a recyclable cardboard tray. Received hardware version 1.0R. Shipped with firmware version 1.00b31, updated and tested with 1.01b09. The "load" used was iperf. Power measurements taken with a Kill-a-Watt Excellent power usage/efficiency: Idle (Wifi on): 1.6W Load LAN-WAN (Wifi on): 2.0W Load WLAN-WAN (Wifi on): 2.0W Load WLAN-LAN and LAN-WAN (Wifi on): 2.2W Idle (Wifi off): 1.1W Load LAN-WAN (Wifi off): 1.6W Routing: Iperf testing shows that this router is limited only by its 100 Mbps WAN port. Using two client and two server processes I was able to sustain just under symmetrical 100 Mbps speeds between LAN to WAN(~94.3 Mbps, just under 190 Mbps bi-directional). Refreshing Steam servers multiple times while playing Team Fortress 2 showed no impact and no issue with browsing on a different system. Ping times remained low throughout this as well. I measured the max simultaneous connections at 3973 - so likely this is around 4096 total connections. Overall this router offered impressive performance for its low-end price point. Wireless: Wireless coverage is decent for a low-cost, single-antenna device. Performance is acceptable - iperf testing showed real world throughput of around 38 Mbps at a distance of a few feet - Windows showed a connection speed of 130 Mbps. Separating myself by about 2 stories I had much poorer signal, but could still browse the web and stream video without issue. Due to the crowded 2.4 MHz spectrum in my location I was unable to test 40 MHz channel widths. GUI: The Web GUI is fast, simple, and intuitive. All the usual features found in modern routers are present. One very neat feature is the ability to capture packets from either the WAN and LAN interfaces. When you stop a capture, the packets can be downloaded in a standard Wireshark .pcap file. I'm not sure what the limit is as to how long you can capture for, but this is a valuable tool for debugging. No Guest wireless network option. Other: Device is light, but has rubber feet to keep it sliding around. 5 year warranty is admirable, but I hope I never have to use it. Through all the testing/loading the max temperature reached was around 92F at the top of the enclosure (~77F ambient). Normal operating temp was much lower at around 80F. Never had to reboot or power-off the router. Highly recommend for the light user or someone not needing the latest and greatest WiFi coverage. Fantastic bang-for-your-buck.

Pros: -Never need to charge -Good voice clarity -Quick to sync to phone

Cons: -I have to turn off the radio myself when I get a call

Overall Review: It's been over a year since I first charged it by cord and I have yet to charge it since. Works fantastic and is a heck of a lot cheaper then getting a Bluetooth sync feature in most new cars. I recommend this to everyone I know who doesn't have Bluetooth integrated in their car.