Mushkin Atlas 480GB mSATA SSD

The 480GB capacity size fits in the same packaging as the standard Atlas drives.

Mushkin ships these in plastic, retail friendly packages so we may see them on store shelves at some point.

Here we get our first look at the actual mSATA drive. From this angle it's difficult to tell the dual PCB design. Mushkin did a very good job of keeping the overall size down.

There are eight NAND chips spread across two PCBs.

A single LSI SandForce SF-2281 controller keeps the data flowing.

Three connectors pass data and power to the daughter board.

This is the first time we've seen anyone even attempt a dual PCB design for mSATA.

In our Lenovo W530 the Mushkin Atlas 480GB fit perfectly. The metal inner structure even kept the keyboard from coming in direct contact with the mSATA drive. I'm not going to go as far as to say this design will fit in every notebook or ultrabook, but we had room to spare in our Lenovo W530 test laptop.

Here we see the 480GB Atlas with two PCBs next to a standard LSI SandForce based mSATA drive.

A few weeks back I 'cleaned' my garage. I wanted to whip out the digital calipers to give an exact height of the stacked Atlas, but like every other time I've cleaned my garage, it'll take a year to figure out where I put the tools I rarely use.