Introduction

Mushkin is one of only a few smaller American hardware manufacturers with a long history. The company is an expert for DRAM memory and flash storage. Their Source SSD, which we have for review today, is one of the most affordable drives on the market, yet it still claims to deliver decent performance. With a price of only $81 for the reviewed 500 GB version, the drive conclusively smashes the 20 cents per GB barrier with only 16 cents per GB. Part of the reason why the drive can be sold at this price point is that it is a DRAM-less design, which shaves a few important dollars off its production cost.

As the flash controller, the highly popular Silicon Motion SM2258 in its XT variant is used. The flash chips are 3D TLC, but without visible branding. It's possible that Mushkin buys bare (maybe even untested) dies, qualifies them in-house, wraps them in packaging, and picks which product they end up on. This of course generates additional cost savings that matter in the highly competitive sub-$100 SSD market.

The Mushkin Source uses the SATA 6 Gbps interface and comes in capacities of 120 GB, 250 GB, 500 GB (this review), and 1 TB. An M.2 version is available too, using the SATA protocol as well.

Pricing is highly competitive all across the offered capacities: 120 GB for $36, 250 GB for $49, 500 GB for $81 and 1 TB for $158. Warranty is set to three years for all these models.