Crucial's New v4 SSDs Target Mainstream Users with Modest Performance and Prices
Crucial today announced its new v4 solid state drive (SSD), taking aim at mainstream computer users looking to keep things modest all around. By modest, we're talking about capacity (ranges from 32GB to 256GB), price (ranges from $50 to $190), and performance (these are SATA 3Gbps drives). Crucial's sales pitch goes like this:
"The Crucial v4 SSD boils down to two things: performance and value," said Robert Wheadon, senior worldwide product manager, Crucial. "Most consumers realize that SSDs help their computers start quicker and run faster, and are a more durable alternative to hard drives, but many don't realize that most SSDs outperform the data transfer capabilities of their SATA 2 machines. With the Crucial v4 SSD, we've come up with a product that's designed to bring the most value out of a SATA 2 system without paying for extra performance that can't be used."
With that design philosophy in mind, Crucia's v4 drives offer read speeds of up to 230MB/s and write speeds up to 190MB/s, which are both about half as fast as high-performance SATA 6Gbps SSDs on the market. Pricing per drive breaks down as follows:
"The Crucial v4 SSD boils down to two things: performance and value," said Robert Wheadon, senior worldwide product manager, Crucial. "Most consumers realize that SSDs help their computers start quicker and run faster, and are a more durable alternative to hard drives, but many don't realize that most SSDs outperform the data transfer capabilities of their SATA 2 machines. With the Crucial v4 SSD, we've come up with a product that's designed to bring the most value out of a SATA 2 system without paying for extra performance that can't be used."
With that design philosophy in mind, Crucia's v4 drives offer read speeds of up to 230MB/s and write speeds up to 190MB/s, which are both about half as fast as high-performance SATA 6Gbps SSDs on the market. Pricing per drive breaks down as follows:
- Crucial v4 SSD 32GB: $50
- Crucial v4 SSD 64GB: $70
- Crucial v4 SSD 128GB: $100
- Crucial v4 SSD 256GB: $190
That's less than a buck per gigabyte for the higher capacity drives, which would have been hugely compelling six months ago, but might be a tough sell with the recent price cuts. It doesn't take much digging to find same-capacity drives built around a SATA 6Gbps interface for the same, similar, or even lower street price points, though Crucial's street pricing could end up being lower than the above MSRPs as well.
Crucial's SSDs are backed by a three-year warranty.
