Quote:We have to wonder if this broad approach is taking away from Crucial's commitment to quality, and if performance issues are falling through the cracks as a result. The MX300 750GB Special Edition already received one firmware tune-up due to problematic performance from the first batch of samples. But its benchmark numbers are still sub-par compared to other 512GB- and 1TB-class drives.

Crucial tries increasing value by leveraging high-density NAND, giving you more capacity in comparison to mainstream 512GB SSDs. However, some low-cost 1TB products already ship in this price range as well. You'll have to decide whether a performance trade-off for more capacity makes sense.

The last major SSD released with 750GB of capacity was Samsung's 840 EVO in 2013. We chose 1TB-class SSDs to compare against Crucial's MX300 because the company plans to sell this drive for $200, which is the starting price for many value-oriented 1TB models. Crucial says the MX300 is a mainstream SSD, but its performance puts it up against drives like Adata's SP550, Corsair's Force LE and OCZ's Trion 150. All three also sell for $200.

We do appreciate some of Crucial's software features, which we rarely see accompanying entry-level SSDs. The drive utilizes 256-bit AES hardware encryption for Wave and eDrive support. Crucial's Storage Executive features Momentum Cache, a DRAM cache algorithm that increases the performance and endurance of Crucial SSDs, as well as other useful features. The MX300 also has an endurance advantage over many of its low-cost competitors.

I think we can put the performance issues on the back of Marvell. We have four other Dean-based SSDs in the lab, and only one delivers true mainstream benchmark results. The others target entry-level buyers. The four-channel Dean controller is late to market, and in our opinion it's not the right processor to take on the four-channel Silicon Motion or eight-channel Phison controllers dominating the mainstream space (behind Samsung's 850 EVO).

Crucial has a long history of partnering with Marvell, but that might have been the wrong move here. Its BX100 and BX200 both utilized SMI controllers, and Crucial may have realized better performance with a SM2258.

Quote:Overall, the MX300’s performance results showed similar to the stated specs and it and even proved to be a force to be reckoned with in terms of power efficiency. However, it did lag behind most of the competition in our PCMark 8 tests and showed performance that was more in line with planar TLC SSDs than MLC ones. This is a bit disappointing taking into consideration the price point and ever heated competition in the marketplace. At $0.26 per GB, the MX300 has a great MSRP of $199.99, but at around that price range you can also go out and buy multiple planar TLC SSDs at 1TB class capacities as well, though, at a cost of a bit lower performance and less features.

Speaking of features, there are a lot of them packed into the MX300 to increase its value. It has full hardware encryption that is compatible with Microsoft eDrive and many data integrity technologies with power-loss protection to keep your data safe. The inclusion of the 7mm to 9.5mm spacer and Acronis True Image HD for those who will be cloning also helps to increase value to the prospective buyer.

We look forward to seeing what other products with Micron’s 3D NAND will bring to the table in the upcoming months. 3D NAND is the future and this is just a glimpse of what is yet to come. The Limited Edition 750GB Crucial MX300 offers up a decent value for those in the market for a new high capacity SSD. For most consumer uses we have no qualms in recommending it to our readers. We just wish they would finally up their warranty to five years rather than three.

Quote:With both Samsung and Toshiba releasing their specific implementation of 3D NAND earlier this year it was only a matter of time before Micron joined them, and in the long term these developments should prove to be a boon for consumers as they offer better value and long-term durability. The question is if Micron's debut 3D NAND product can live up to the performance expectations of the MX brand.

The picture on the performance front is decidedly mixed. Throughout we saw Random and Sequential Read scores substantially below par compared with competing 2.5" SSDs - including Crucial's own value-oriented BX200 drive - and yet Random and Sequential Writes were generally ahead of the curve. This is most clear in our AIDA64 results, but also makes an appearance in other synthetic benchmarks. Only PCMark 8 bucks the trend, indicating exemplary performance in 'real-world' situations that the tool has been built to emulate.

It's no secret that Crucial delayed the launch of the MX300 after early indications of poor performance ahead of an expected launch last month, and we wouldn't be surprised to see post-launch firmware updates for the MX300 to address this relatively inexplicable weakness.

The other part of the equation for storage is value for money, and it's here where the MX300 sees a large boost to its profile. Coming in at an MSRP of $199.99, and available for a touch less than £165 inc. V.A.T. in the UK, it's by far one of the more affordable high-capacity SSDs currently on the market. Despite the introduction of new 3D NAND technology from Micron it achieves its chief aim of making this storage more affordable, and whets the appetite ahead of an anticipated 2TB version later this year. Presupposing improved write durability in the transition to 3D NAND, something that's beyond a launch review test lineup, the MX300 is well placed in the market.

Quote:It appears that the Crucial MX300 will be priced as a mid-range SATA drive or slightly below that. On a 'Price per GB' metric alone the 3D TLC NAND isn't starting any revolutions, which means that again the association between TLC NAND and lower performance still rings true. Despite this, the performance is clearly higher and above the current glut of planar TLC drives that are competing in a race to the bottom.

One of the issues that Crucial will face is that despite being plus-one generation above the MX200, The MX300 is slightly slower and only by a small amount. It frequently straddles the dividing line between MLC performance and planar TLC performance. One issue on performance will be that it is also surpassed on several benchmarks by SanDisk's X400, one of the fastest planar TLC drives and a drive that will likely beat the MX300 on price. The 850 EVO level of performance is simply out of reach; Micron's 3D TLC drive is slower than Samsung's 3D TLC drive, and so will have to compete on price.

One thing to point out is that through our testing, we see that the MX300 has an acute weakness in its random read latency. At all but the highest queue depths it is half as fast as the top MLC drives that are only moderately faster than the MX200. Since this pattern holds at the lowest queue depths where parallelism and caching don't apply, there's a danger that this means Micron's 3D TLC is inherently quite slow to read from. This is most likely a carry on from when Micron implemented SLC write caching for the Crucial MX200:

With the MX200, the short-term performance boost of the SLC wasn't always worth the eventual cost of moving data from SLC to MLC. The SLC caching on the MX300 seems to greatly lower the power requirements of handling a small volume of writes, which may be a reason to use it even with the 3D MLC, especially if performance is sufficient to handle flushing a full write cache under load without a drastic slowdown. However, when the MX300's SLC write caching and spare area are exhausted, it slows down to the level of budget planar TLC drives. This is a drive that should not be filled to the brim and should not be subjected to enterprise workloads with heavy sustained writes.

Crucial SSDs: MX, BX and The Future

The future of Micron's Crucial SSDs is uncertain. When the MX100 launched, it was a hit by offering mainstream performance at great prices for the time. The BX100 showed up at even lower prices and with performance that was pretty close to the MX100. The MX200 added just enough performance to somewhat justify keeping two models around. Later the BX200 adopted TLC and sacrificed a lot of performance to cut costs, but failed to compete against the wave of budget drives based on Toshiba and Hynix TLC. Now that the MX line has also adopted TLC, it seems likely that the BX line will be retired along with planar NAND.

The interesting question is whether Crucial will introduce a higher end 3D MLC drive. We learned at Computex that a 3D MLC NVMe SSD will be released under Micron's Ballistix brand, a now separate sub-brand of Micron and different to Crucial. Thus the only potential for a new MLC drive from Crucial would be a high-end SATA drive. Many companies have been wondering whether it is worth trying to compete directly against the 850 Pro that has reigned for two years as the fastest SATA SSD and is very nearly the fastest possible SATA SSD (barring the use of pure SLC or 3D XPoint, neither of which will happen). Crucial might have the opportunity with Micron's 3D MLC to introduce a drive that is just as fast as the 850 Pro while being more power efficient, but it would still be tough to dethrone the 850 Pro unless Micron could also clearly undercut Samsung on price. Alternatively, we may see MLC become something that is mostly used on PCIe SSDs while the SATA SSD market is overrun by TLC.

Final Words

To put this into perspective, under ordinary consumer and end-user/home workloads, the MX300 performs at its peak near the top of the TLC charts. On most tests we found the MX300 to be remarkably power efficient. Other things being equal, TLC is typically slower and more power hungry than MLC, but the MX300 is more power efficient on most benchmarks than most MLC drives. Having this level of efficiency is extremely promising for Micron's 3D MLC and an accomplishment worth some kudos.