Jesper Berg
- Decent SATA performance
- Excellent price/performance ratio
- No DRAM
- Only 3-year warranty
The Source is Mushkin’s entry in the very competitive entry-level 2.5″ SATA segment. It was released in 2018 and uses affordable triple-level cell (TLC) 3D (vertically stacked) NAND memory chips.
Memory Type, Controller and Cache
As of 2018/2019, all entry-level SSDs use either TLC (triple-level cell) or even more affordable QLC (quad-level cell) NAND Flash memory chips. The Mushkin Source is equipped with 64-layer 3D TLC Flash from Micron, much like the Crucial MX500 among others.
A somewhat less common aspect is that the Source uses a 4-channel Silicon Motion SM2258XT controller that, unlike the non-XT SM2258 used in e.g. the Adata SU900, is intended for a DRAM-less setup.
In other words, there is no DRAM cache buffer in the Mushkin Source, leading to additional cost savings. However, according to the official specs, the Source appears to offer considerably better performance than other DRAM-less SSDs like the ultra-cheap Kingston A400. It does have an SLC-type cache to speed up writes, which means that – like other TLC-based SSDs – write speeds will slow down once the SLC cache is exhausted.
Performance
The Mushkin Source seems to do a good job at saturating the SATA interface, offering similar sequential performance across all capacities. It has no trouble competing with the top SSDs in this area. As usual, however, random performance in particular increases with capacity. Available capacities are 120 GB, 250 GB, 500 GB and 1 TB.
| 3-Way | 4-Way | |
|---|---|---|
| Interface | NVIDIA SLI Technology | NVIDIA SLI Technology |
| SLI Fingers | 6 | 6 |
| Dimensions | SLI Bridge: 160(L) x 61(W) x 22(H) mm Bracket: 124(L) x 153(W) x 13(H) mm Fan: 120(L) x 120(W) x 15(H) mm Complete setup: 160(L) x 214(W) x 37(H) mm | SLI Bridge: 160(L) x 61(W) x 22(H) mm Bracket: 124(L) x 153(W) x 13(H) mm Fan: 120(L) x 120(W) x 15(H) mm Complete setup: 160(L) x 214(W) x 37(H) mm |
| SLI Finger Width | 1st row to 2nd row: 80 mm 2nd row to 3rd row: 40 mm | 40 mm |
| Weight | 236 g (Complete setup) | 236 g (Complete setup) |
| Compatibility | MSI GeForce GTX 900 series graphics cards: - GeForce GTX TITAN X - GeForce GTX 980 Ti (Except LIGHTNING) - GeForce GTX 980 (All models) - GeForce GTX 970 (Reference only) | MSI GeForce GTX 900 series graphics cards: - GeForce GTX TITAN X - GeForce GTX 980 Ti (Except LIGHTNING) - GeForce GTX 980 (All models) - GeForce GTX 970 (Reference only) |
Power Consumption (Laptop Battery Life)
A power-efficient SSD is an important component in any laptop, occasionally adding or subtracting tens of minutes depending on the workload. According to the specs, the Mushkin Source consumes 2 W when active and 80 mW when idling. But normally, higher capacities use more power than smaller ones. One test of the 500 GB Mushkin Source by TweakTown revealed that it is less efficient than the 860 EVO, MX500 and SanDisk Ultra 3D.
Endurance and Warranty
Memory cells will only last for a finite number of writes. And since wear increases with additional bits per cell, TLC NAND (three bits) will wear down considerably faster than MLC NAND (two bits). This issue can be compensated somewhat using over-provisioning and wear leveling.
Endurance numbers in TBW (terabytes written) for the Mushkin Source are comparatively low, but still on par with similar SSDs:
- 120GB: 50 TBW
- 250GB 100 TBW
- 500GB: 200 TBW
- 1TB: 400 TBW
Mushkin offers a 3-year warranty with the Source SSD, which is lower than the 5-year industry standard.
Encryption and Other Features
Encryption support is not available in this drive.
Expert Reviews
For lighter consumer workloads that don’t routinely throw around multi-GB datasets, the DRAMless design of the Mushkin Source is a minor hindrance, not a crippling flaw.
The Mushkin Source 500 GB SSD is currently one of the most affordable 500 GB drives on the market due to the company’s choice to skip the DRAM chip, which enables the cost savings required to reach such a price point.
Specification: Mushkin Source (2.5″ SATA)
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