When most people are looking for SSDs, they typically don’t think of slightly older systems and the performance boost solid state storage can provide to what many would consider outdated specifications. Rather their focus is upon cutting edge, ultra expensive rigs with high performance ICH/PCH’s. This is unfortunate because there has recently been a veritable explosion of low priced drives designed for upgrade purposes rather than providing blazingly fast benchmark scores.

These upgrade solutions typically come in the form of hybrid SSD/HDD combo drives which combine speed of solid state media with the capacity of spindle-based media. Another option is the “cache” drive which uses a limited capacity SSD to store and grand quick access to your most-used files and programs. Indeed, over the past few months Hardware Canucks has looked at a few of these more exotic ways of upgrading older systems and for the most part we walked away moderately impressed with the hybrid options. However, as flash media has fallen in cost, several manufacturers have found a way to create SSDs that actually compete against these somewhat unholy unions. The Crucial V4 256GB is one of these products and its aim is to eliminate the hard drive from you system altogether by offering speed, capacity and a low price.