RealSSD C300 Overview
The Crucial RealSSD C300 looks much like many other solid state drives we have reviewed. It has the same 2.5-inch form factor that we are used to seeing, which makes it perfect for a notebook. This is a 256GB drive so you might also want to put it in your desktop. Crucial does not provide any mounting accessories for this drive, but many new cases have 2.5-inch hard drive mounting options.
On the top of the drive there is a sticker and on the back there is a sticker that gives you some information on the drive. Also on the back and sides of the drive are drilled mounting holes. The components of the drive are housed in a metal enclosure. Solid state drives have no moving parts so no special enclosures are used to house them.
You have your typical SATA power and data connections on the drive. These are normal connections just like on typical SATA hard drives.
Getting the drive open is very simple just remove the 4 screws on the top of the drive and slide the top off. Be careful when you slide the top off because those 4 that we removed also loosen the entire PCB of the drive. When you first open the drive you will actually be looking at the back part of the drive. It has 8 16GB Micron flash NAND modules and a small DRAM chip.
As we take the PCB out and take a look at the other side we can see the Marvell 88SS9174-BJP2 solid state drive controller. This is a new controller to us as we are used to seeing either the Indilinx “Barefoot” or “Barefoot ECO” and the SandForce SF-1200/1500 controllers in most of the solid state drives we have reviewed. Also this side of the PCB you have 8 more flash NAND modules. As I said in the intro this NAND modules use the ONFI 2.1 specification which brings up performance to a whole new level.
