Conclusions

Before we weigh in with our final verdict, we'll indulge a couple of our famous value scatter plots. These plots use an overall performance score derived by comparing how each drive stacks up against a common baseline. This score is based on a subset of the performance data from our full suite, but with CrystalDiskMark's sequential transfer rates substituted for older HD Tune scores. (More details about how we calculate overall performance are available here.)

We've mashed up the overall scores with per-gigabyte prices from Newegg. (The M550 isn't selling online as I write this, so Crucial's suggested retail prices were used for those drives.) The best solutions will gravitate toward the upper left corner of the plot, which signifies high performance and low prices.

Solid-state and mechanical storage have vastly different performance and prices, and those disparities make the main plot a little busy. Click the buttons below the plot to switch between all the drives and a cropped look at just the SSDs—and keep in mind that we've trimmed the axes for the SSD-only plot.





Most of the SSDs are grouped within a similar overall performance band. The prices per gig vary quite a bit more than the performance scores.

At the top of the M550 lineup, the 1TB drive nearly overlaps with the Samsung 840 EVO 1TB. These two drives have virtually identical overall performance scores and price tags. Also, the M550 delivers a nice boost in performance over the M500 960GB for only a modest increase in cost per gigabyte.

Things don't look so rosy for the M550 256GB, whose sluggish performance in a handful of tests hurts its overall score. This drive is slower overall than most of its peers, including the Samsung 840 EVO 250GB, which is also cheaper per gig. The M550 256GB is much faster overall than the M500 240GB, at least, but its higher price tag somewhat negates that advantage. Several SSDs offer higher overall performance than the M550 256GB at lower prices.

The scatter plots don't tell the whole story, of course. The M550 256GB does a lot more to address the M500 240GB's most glaring weaknesses than the increase in the overall score suggests. And even if the newer drive doesn't match the all-around performance of the top-tier SSDs, it's still way better than mechanical storage. I'd just be hesitant to pick it over the equivalent EVO and some of the other SSDs that hang around the $170 mark

The M550 1TB is much easier to endorse. This drive doesn't suffer from the same performance pitfalls as the 256GB variant, and it costs a fair bit less per gig. The 840 EVO 1TB may have faster performance in some tests, but the M550 wins in others, it has better built-in data protection, and its MLC NAND should have superior endurance than the EVO's three-bit TLC flash. Those perks make the M550 better suited for write-heavy workloads and folks who are paranoid about data integrity.

Crucial M550 1TB

March 2014

What about the M500 960GB, which is nearly as fast as the M550 1TB but $91 cheaper? That's tempting, and I wouldn't blame anyone who bought this older drive. However, spending more on the M550 buys extra capacity, better all-around performance, and a big reduction in the number of extremely long service times logged by our long-term test of real-world I/O. That's worth the premium for me. It's also worth our coveted Editor's Choice award.

In a sense, the M550 is only a minor update to the M500. Little has changed in the controller, and apart from some new die configurations, the NAND is essentially the same. You get a little more speed and a little more storage for a higher price. Part of me finds that formula a little boring, perhaps because I spend far too much time looking at new SSDs. But I also remember that the M500 launched with much higher prices about a year ago; the 240GB version was priced at $210, and the 960GB cost $600. The M550 beats those marks handily, and with better performance to boot. That might not be the most exciting progress in the tech industry, but it's pretty awesome for consumers looking to upgrade from mechanical drives or to make more substantial investments in solid-state storage.