Proof that mSATA isn’t done with just yet
It may feel like mSATA is a bit of a dying breed these days, what with the M.2 format taking precedence and gradually replacing it. However, there’s still life left in this relatively young format yet, as Transcend have proved with its MSA370 range of storage devices.
The MSA370 comes in several capacities of 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, 128GB, 256GB, and the one we’re currently reviewing in this instance, a decently sized 512GB. This tiny (50.8 x 29 x 4mm) MLC NAND Flash memory device weighs only 8g, but is able to support SATA III 6Gb/s, Power Shield, TRIM, NCQ and S.M.A.R.T. commands, as well as provide Wear Levelling and Intelligent Block Management. In addition to that, Transcend has made sure that the device is Intel Smart Response Technology capable, meaning it can be used as a cache memory reservoir between a traditional hard drive and the system memory.
The MSA370 uses the Transcend TS6500 controller, which in itself is a rebranded Silicon Motion SM2246EN. This is a popular and proved technology, providing a decent throughput of data while retaining a good level of reliability. We fitted the drive to a Gigabyte P37X gaming laptop, with an Intel i7-4720HQ processor at 2.6GHz, 16GB of memory and Windows 10 installed – and it clocked an impressive 563MB per second read using the 8192KB test in ATTO, while also scoring 487MB per second on the write test with the same file size. The 4KB test saw a read score of 137MB per second, and 283MB per second for the write test. All good numbers, and more than enough for to provide a significant upgrade from a more traditional hard drive.
Needless to say, booting to the OS desktop took mere seconds; Windows 10 is already pretty quick on this specification laptop, but using versions of Linux – we tested Mint 17.2 Cinnamon, Ubuntu 15.04 64-bit, and Fedora 22 – backed up the initially impressive results and proved to be extremely quick, both for booting and in use.
The price isn’t too bad either. Around £200 the MSA370 is reasonably good value for money, especially considering the speed and the amount of storage you’re getting. You could easily find a cheaper mSATA drive out there, but Transcend has a good history of reliability and longevity when it comes to its drives. In essence, you’re buying the brand name as opposed to just the drive itself, but can sometimes be its own form on insurance.
This is a good solid state drive; fast, with ample storage and perfectly pitched for laptops and smaller systems. We didn’t get to test the Intel Smart Response Technology, but since the speed of the drive is good we imagine the caching between a hard drive and system memory would reflect what we saw in our ATTO test. David Hayward
A fast, well-priced mSATA drive with good capacity.