Crucial BX300 SSD Review
Why you can trust Tom's Hardware
Conclusion
It's rare to see good performance in a modern SATA SSD, but two in one month's span is an aberration. Praise the SSD gods, or in this case, the real heroes; the controller designers that figured out how to turn water into wine. It looks like companies have finally learned how to squeeze real performance out of the shiny new 3D NAND.
There is more to the Crucial BX300 story just beneath the surface. The series has an abysmal endurance rating that could be due to very aggressive background activities. Companies have to trade endurance for performance because each cleanup cycle, which is critical to ensure high performance, consumes write cycles. We recently tested the Drevo Ares 256GB that has the same Micron first generation 3D MLC as the Crucial BX300 240GB. The Ares's endurance rating is 350 TBW, but the BX300 256GB is only 80 TBW even with the benefit of more overprovisioning. Crucial could be sacrificing endurance for performance, or the company could just be saving money on warranty claims down the line.
The BX300 has many odd aspects. Infusing MLC NAND into a historically entry-level series says that the company wants to bring something competitive to the market. Crucial went to great lengths to create a competitive drive, but we don't expect this series to be on the market for long because Micron's Gen 2 3D NAND is already in production.
There's a wide gap between the 512GB and 256GB SSD markets. The 512GB-class is thriving with new products coming to market every month, but the 256GB-class has died down somewhat. In the last year, we tested 25% fewer 256GB-class drives than 512GB drives. Most often the price difference between the two is much smaller than the delta between 512GB and 1TB models. Between the two, the BX300 240GB is a better product in its class than the 480GB model. Overall, the BX300 480GB is a better value with a lower cost per gigabyte.
We're disappointed to see the BX300 come to market without a 1TB option. The two drives we tested are the same price as the equivalent Samsung 850 EVO models ($89.99 for the 240GB and $149.99 for the 480GB). The BX300 is a step above the typical entry-level SSDs we've tested over the last two years. The drives deliver exceptional performance in some cases but still trail the EVOs slightly in basic applications. You wouldn't notice the difference in daily use, but that's not the real issue.
The Crucial BX300 delivers on performance but still trails the EVOs five-year warranty. We're not sure why any company would price a drive at the same level as the 850 EVO with that hole in the package. Crucial managed to get close but fell just a little short.
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Rdslw Why they won't make HALF 2.5 drive ? A lot of SSD don't use this space at all and in laptops this means a lot of wasted space.Reply -
Snipergod87 20116257 said:Why they won't make HALF 2.5 drive ? A lot of SSD don't use this space at all and in laptops this means a lot of wasted space.
There isn't an official standard as far as i know and anything with size constraints would get M.2 SSD's. That being said some OEM solutions use short length SATA SSD's but in a full length slot. -
mitch074 I'd love being able to directly compare these newer SSDs with older ones - I own a Crucial M500 480Gb, and I'd like to know how much better a replacement would be - not only in performance (enventhough mine is pretty much bottlenecked by the SATA port) but also in lifetime.Reply -
daglesj Dear Crucial, Just for Pete's sake bring back the BX100. It's really that simple. It was a great value and performing SATA SSD. Most people didn't need anything else. It just worked well.Reply -
garry.masters this report seems a bit out of alignment w other info regarding TLC MLC SLC I have read- it was my understanding that MLC offers more endurance and thus 'enterprise ssd' is usually MLC and that Samsung Pro is both faster and higher endurance due to MLC vs TLC NAND- so why is the endurance rating on this drive lower?. Also you seem to say this drive 'is taking a different path' from Samsung, but then say the Adata SU900 and XPG SX950 are essentially similar (is the 'different path' from THEM purely price?) Regardless- looks like a good product at a good price so will consider on my next purchase.Reply -
Nintendork MLC, Crucial, 3D?Reply
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/289a5318d82a512bfabf083eb76988bdd7e6b01394981a68706a27cb7a671926.jpg r? -
Nintendork GARRY.MASTERSReply
We can guess that with the example of the 850 pro, endurance ratings are just cosmetically reduced to not clash with enterprise class SSD's and affect sales.
And endurance test should not only be about filling/unfilling the SSD with 0-1's tools but tons of different archives with some of them remaining on the drive (40%) to test not only endurance but data retention for 1PB+ race. -
Rdslw 20116295 said:20116257 said:Why they won't make HALF 2.5 drive ? A lot of SSD don't use this space at all and in laptops this means a lot of wasted space.
There isn't an official standard as far as i know and anything with size constraints would get M.2 SSD's. That being said some OEM solutions use short length SATA SSD's but in a full length slot.
My laptop have m2 OR sata due to limited space. When I noticed those SSD's are smaller, I stripped the case and Guess what, there was space for both! :) sad that It took me ~6 months from buying to get to this idea. -
dark_lord69 20116120 said:Crucial rethinks the transition to 3D TLC for all consumer SSDs and releases a brilliant entry-level product that takes aim at the dominant Samsung.
Crucial BX300 SSD Review : Read more
2.5" drives are standard for laptops.
M.2 drives are smaller
There are some smaller drives that SOME laptops used to use but today they are Obsolete.
1.8" 1.3" and 0.85" were smaller drives that are no longer used.