ADATA XPG SX300 256GB mSATA SSD Review

REPORT ANALYSIS AND FINAL THOUGHTS

The ADATA XPG SX300 is, without a doubt, one of the top mSATA SSDs we have tested and it’s performance is as much of a positive as the ability to manufacturer a ‘LSI SandForce Driven’ mSATA SSD in typical binary capacities.  For those LSI SandForce lovers, it is like getting an extra 7% capacity for free.  Whether it be ADATA, or the exact same mSATA SSD rebranded as a MyDigitalSSD SMART mSATA SSD, ADATA is the only company that has accomplished this feat thus far.

The three year warranty is standard, however up until now, we have yet to see a mSATA SSD with the five year guarantee, although this is becoming common place with typical form factor SSDs.  I recall speaking with ADATA at Computex and this thought being on the table. As much as companies have considered and not moved forward with this as of yet, we believe that five year warranties are a huge step forward and go a long way to show the confidence a company has in its product.

Last but not least, we have the pricing model which reflects much of the same that we originally saw with the Mushkin Atlas, except we have a rebranded SX300 that also seems to muddy the waters in this case.  Average pricing for a quality mSATA SSD seems to be around $240 for a 256GB and, in the case of the Mushkin Atlas, they had priced their Atlas 240GB at over $300 which seemed to be way off the mark.  In our review, we declined to award the Atlas with the Editors Choice which it rightly deserved and, within a week, Mushkin displayed a new (and very competitive) pricing model.  But that was for a 240GB SSD…

In this case, if it weren’t for the pricing of the MyDigitalSSD SMART 256GB mSATA SSD which is $60 dollars less than the SSD we are reviewing, we might consider awarding this SSD a little more closely.  The problem we have, however, is that pricing for the 64 and 128GB versions is $20 higher than the MyDigitalSSD rebranded drive while the 256GB variation is a whopping $60 more.  Considering both drives are identical SSDs, short of their exterior branding sticker, ADATA needs to consider their pricing model.

If ADATA reconsiders their pricing model to the benefit of the consumer, just as we had done with Mushkin we will award the ADATA XPG SX300 256GB SSD with our Editors Choice as it would then be deserving of such.  This is an amazing SSD with only the pricing standing in its way.

Check Pricing on the ADATA XPG SX300 mSATA SSD at Amazon!blank

Check pricing on the MyDigitalSSD SMART mSATA SSD at Amazon!blank

UPDATE:

While sitting here at the airport in Seoul, South Korea, a bit of good news just came our way with respect to ADATA SX300 pricing. Without getting into details, we can now confirm that, although Amazon hasn’t followed suit, the pricing of the SX300 at Newegg is $269 and on par with the pricing of the MyDigitalSSD version of this mSATA SSD.  ADATA has also related that, although they have recommended similar for Amazon, the final pricing of Amazon is not within their control whatsoever.

In short, similar to another SSD prior, our review and subsequent advice to the manufacturer has resulted in lower pricing to the benefit of the consumer.  Congrats ADATA and here is your Editors Choice as promised!

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27 comments

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    the sx300 256GB costs $270 @ Newegg…

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    How do we know if it is compatible with Lenovo T420s? Manufacturer website does not provide such information. Kindly suggest.

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    Does the SandForce controller on this msata ssd is good than other controller? Which msata sdd is fast and best quality?

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      This is an excellent mSATA SSD and the fact that it offers 7% additional space just might be key here. With respect to controllers, the main competitors in the market today (SandForce, Marvel, Samsung) have all earned a reputation of quality simply because of company development and experience in the industry.

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    I recently purchased this mSATA SSD for my HP Elitebook 2740p and performed a clean install of Windows 8 RTM. The SSD is a ADATA ASX300S3-256GM-C MSA which they list on their website as the XPG SX200.

    I frequently experience a Blue Screen on Windows 8 after resuming from sleep.

    The SSD is my boot disk. It’s about half full. Running chkdsk at boot time shows no errors. Windows Disk Management reports the drive as healthy.

    The Crash Dump analysis output (all the dumps are similar to this) shows the following:

    ERROR_CODE: (NTSTATUS) 0xc00000c0 – This device does not exist.
    BUGCHECK_STR: 0x7a_c00000c0
    DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID: WIN8_DRIVER_FAULT

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      I checked again today and I can confirm I have the latest firmware for this model.

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        Thanks for that Sol. I was just about to purchase this mSATA SSD to install Windows 8 on it on my ASRock PC! Will now just replace the standard HDD with a SATA SSD with the likes of a Vertex 4 or so. Thanks again for posting this 🙂

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    Where is firmware 5.0.3/5.0.4?

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    Work on windows 8?

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    Be aware – I bought this from Amazon and returned it and tried again…. both times, this card does NOT WORK on the Drobo 5D.

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    Great reviews. My question is simple, Crucial M4 256GB vs ADATA XPG SX300, what difference,if any, is there between these 2 ssd’s The m4 is 50+ dollars cheaper. Is the Adata msata drive , although better on paper, going to give me better performance on my laptop in the real world?

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      And real-world use, you, or even an SSD expert, cannot visually tell a difference in typical day-to-day operations. Both solid-state drives would do great in your system. Both have great reputations. Unless you are looking for something specific where higher incompressible data testing is necessary, I would simply look at the price.

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        Thanks when you say “visually” I interpret that to be things like boot time, program opening, shutdown times etc. It is the write speed that stands out for me the Adata being in the 500mb+ per second and the m4 not breaking 300mb per second. Those numbers really mean nothing in term of real life use?

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        Real life user in typical use yes. Unless you are transferring large incompressible files you will never be able to visually see a difference.

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        In real world i think the m4 ssd will perform as well as the ADATA drive. ADATA drive (sandforce driven) will never reaches the announced performance. It relates only an optimal situation with compressible data.

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        Yes but compressible data is what we see in operating systems and software and can’t be overlooked. In the typical user scenario, it would be impossible to tell the difference.

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    So I bought the adata sx300 256gb drive I installed it but it appears to give me only 238.5 gb is that correct? I understood from your review that this drive gives us that 7% lost space or is that not the case?

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    Please join the forums and posts screen shots of your system and not with the CPU states altered please.

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    Which Adata sdd would you recommend today: the SX300, or SP310? Almost the same price (SP310 a tad cheaper).

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    Christiaan Hoek

    I have had two of these drives fail in my Msi GE70 within a year. I’m going back to conventional HDD’s.

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      You need to ask yourself what occurred…. Were they fresh installs? What was similar betwen both instances?

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        Here are a couple of similarities:
        1. Both were Adata SX300 mSATA 256GB SSD’s
        2. Both were installed in the same system (MSi GE70 Core-i7-3630M, 8GB DDRIII RAM, Nvidia GeForce 660M)
        3. Both crashed within less than 6 months
        4. Both crashed after waking up the laptop from sleep
        5. Both were gone from the BIOS after the crash
        After a couple of searches on Google I found out that I’m not suffering alone as these are crashing all over the place. It looks like it might be a problem with the Sandforce controller – but don’t take my word for it – I’m an accountant.

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