Introduction

At CES 2012 we told you to watch for Mushkin in the new year because the company was on the fast track with a cash injection and new talented engineers. For most of 2012, Mushkin did exactly what we predicted and the company's SSDs were routinely the lowest priced solid state drives at Newegg when comparing equal categories.

A good example is the Chronos Deluxe 480GB with synchronous flash. For most of 2012, the Deluxe 480GB cost between $80-$100 less than any other 480GB SSD with the same NAND flash. On many occasions the drive cost less than products with asynchronous flash, too.

Heading into 2013, Mushkin decided it was time to start showing off its engineering skills. The Mushkin Atlas mSATA product line is a good place to start. mSATA has gained a high adaption rate with the interface in most ultrabooks, many notebooks and even many desktop motherboards.

Until just a few days ago, the highest density mSATA SSD was 256GB capacity. mSATA PCBs are small and don't offer a lot of surface area to mount the controller, NAND flash and DRAM chips. Notebooks and ultrabooks usually place the connector under keyboards so any vertical increase needs to be very small. To do things small you need engineers who specialize in very efficient layouts and Mushkin just so happens to have engineers with the skill needed to pull off the world's first 480GB mSATA SSD.

We bring you the world's first review of a 480GB mSATA solid state drive - let's get started then, shall we?