Conclusion:

Imation might not be the first name that enthusiasts think of when looking to upgrade their system to use a solid state drive, but they have a product line that is definitely worth checking out.

The upgrade kit bundled with this drive will make the process of migrating from your old drive simple, whether the system is a laptop or a desktop. With the inclusion of the convenient USB enclosure and the bootable Acronis drive management software, I was able to make the move from a hard drive to the Imation SSD in under 20 minutes on my laptop.

Performance wise, the drive is capable of providing quick read and write speeds, although the write performance and access times did seem inconsistent in some benchmarks, with values that were slower than expected. With the system running off the 64GB Imation M-Class SSD I have no complaints in terms of day-to-day performance, and it took a stop watch to tell me that it booted up slower (just 2-3 seconds) than some other SSDs on hand.



Searching the web for specifics on this new generation of 64GB M-Class drive doesn't lead to much. The previous generation offered read speeds of 150MB/s and write speeds of 90MB/s, all while carrying a price tag of about $150 (US) as a bare drive and $215 when bundled in an upgrade kit. The bare drive price is competitive, but $65 for the upgrade kit seems a bit steep, and the previous generation's upgrade kit isn't even as nice as the one shown in the review.

We have to wait for these products to find their way to the virtual shelves of some popular e-tailers before we know how attractive these drives will be. At just over $100 the bare drive would definitely be worth checking out, and while I found the upgrade kit to be well done and extremely useful, I don't know if I found it to be worth eighty-something dollars.

Pros:

» Overall respectable performance
» Impressively fast read speeds
» Enclosure included with upgrade kit makes things extremely easy
» 5-year limited warranty

Cons:

» Write speeds usually tested slower than other SSDs
» Access times always tested slower than other SSDs
» Upgrade kit will add quite a premium to the price tag
» Not much information available - Price? Availability? Official specifications?

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