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Our report today will examine the Memoright MS-701 mSATA SSD. The MS-701 is the first of it’s kind as it is the only SATA 3 SandForce Driven mSATA SSD in existence at the 240GB capacity point.
Even better news is the fact that Memoright, a company that has remained loyal to enterprise and business sales traditionally, has set up shop in the ‘good ole’ USA and the MS-701 will be available through the consumer channel soon enough. Stay tuned for our update on this!
INTRODUCTION
It is no secret that I have a particular fondness for the presence and advance of mSATA SSDs. I have to admit that, other than the fact that such high performance can be thrown into an SSD 1/3rd the size of a business card, even I haven’t the ability to use these drives at their full potential just yet.
I can’t even pinpoint the one thing that I like most about mSATA SSDs but their potential always comes to mind. It’s true that my favorite past time is seeking the lightest, highest performing and highest capacity ultrabook in existence. I also enjoy watching the advance of caching solutions, such as NVELO Dataplex, and the possibilities that exist with mSATA SSDs. The thought of mSATA SSDs allows my mid to wander a bit as well. For instance, why can’t something this small be built right into the systems motherboard from the start? Wouldn’t it be cheaper?
Or, if I can fit four of these into a typical 2.5″ form factor, can I not technically RAID 4 x SF-2281 processors and also have 960GB capacity in a single SSD. Ok….yes I am wandering a bit and understand that the SATA interface presently restricts my dream but these are the ideas that the mSATA form factor creates. It’s potential is limitless and it is still in its infancy.
SPECIFICATIONS
Memoright is marketing both the MS-700 and MS-701 family of mSATA SSDs, both of which are ‘SandForce Driven’ with the MS-700 being SATA 2 and available in capacities of 30 and 60GB, which would be ideal for caching. The MS-701 is SATA 3, available in capacities of 30, 60, 120 and 240GB (our test sample) and specifications list performance at 550MB/s read and 500MB/s write with 25,000 IOPS at 4k random aligned write disk access.
MS-701 COMPONENTS
The MS-701 is the second mSATA SSD to contain the LSI SandForce SF-2281 SATA 3 processor, the first being the Runcore T50 mSATA which we reviewed previously. It also contains four modules of Micron 25nm mlc asynchronous NAND flash memory with each module being 64GB in capacity.
Total RAW capacity of the MS-701 is 256GB, however, 16GB remains proprietary to the SSDs over provisioning and firmware needs which reduces it to the advertised capacity of 240GB. After formatting, the end user capacity is brought down a bit further to 224GB.
I absolutely love your reviews. The format is fantastic. Your web pages load fast. The reading is eazy to digest. Your direct in your praise and criticisms. You make it easy for someone to narrow down their choices when making a buying decision.
Thank you.
I agree with jsfitz54. I’m new to msata SSDs; I just learned about them a week ago, when I had to replace my 4-year-old ThinkPad R61 with a a 4-year-old ThinkPad W500. Most if what I’ve learned about SSDs has come from your site. Earlier I had resolved to buy no more spinning drives, and when I ordered my W500 on eBay, within hours I ordered a 180GB 2.5-inch SSD to hold my data. Now, based largely on your site, I’ve ordered a 128GB SSD to hold my Windows 64 OS and cache. SSDs become addictive; My W500 and its dock offer five more bays (two 2.5-inch disk-drive bays, one ExpressCard/54 slot, one SDHC slot, and 1 CompactFlash slot), and I find myself spending hours dreaming about ways to fill them with solid state storage.
Thank you Paul and jsfitz54. It is absolutely great to hear this type of thing. The compliments are appreciated and don’t be afraid to jump in or hop on the Forums if you ever need assistance at all.
Nice review! Any idea of how much this will retail for?
I’m checking this site almost daily in hopes of a retail availability update. It would be great if the advertisement on this page took you to a place that was stocking up. 🙂
We havent word on releasse yet but were told it would be Amazon first and foremost…
Not as of yet and I have word in with Memoright on an update with this information..
Am I missing something or are you not including the power consumptions of the ssds?
Power consumption can be found in specifications and, yes, we do not monitor power consumption for consumers SSDs. We feel the difference between consumer SSDs is negligible and the main point that should be made lies in the comparison between an SSD and hard drive. The SSD uses less power which provides better battery life.
I am thinking of buying an alienware and was hoping to go for a 512 GB SSD , however it seems out of budget. i am thinking of going for a 64GB mSATA MiniCard and 500GB 7200RPM Hard Drive.
I want to use the SSD for quickboot up time and other ivy bridge features like instant on. would M- sata be compatible with those features of intel ivy bridge?
thanks for your help by the way :).. really love your post !