The Crucial BX300 (480GB) SSD Review: Back To MLC
by Billy Tallis on August 29, 2017 9:00 AM ESTSequential Read Performance
Our first test of sequential read performance uses short bursts of 128MB, issued as 128kB operations with no queuing. The test averages performance across eight bursts for a total of 1GB of data transferred from a drive containing 16GB of data. Between each burst the drive is given enough idle time to keep the overall duty cycle at 20%.
The sequential read burst speed of the Crucial BX300 is faster than any previous Crucial drive, but only just barely catches up to the rest of the market.
Our test of sustained sequential reads uses queue depths from 1 to 32, with the performance and power scores computed as the average of QD1, QD2 and QD4. Each queue depth is tested for up to one minute or 32GB transferred, from a drive containing 64GB of data.
The sustained sequential read performance of the BX300 actually shows a regression from the BX200, though both drives fall in the middle of the pack and above Crucial's MX drives. The fastest SATA SSD (Samsung 850 PRO) is 45% faster than the BX300, and even the Intel 545s is 22% faster.
The power efficiency of the Crucial BX300 on the sequential read test is poor, and the other two drives that use Micron's 3D NAND (as TLC) join the BX300 at the bottom of the chart. The Intel 545s does well on this efficiency score, so Micron will probably be able to shore up this weakness in future products when they adopt their 64L 3D NAND.
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Samsung's SSDs are the best-behaved on this test, with performance saturating at QD2 and consistently staying there through the rest of the test. The MX300 is also quite consistent through this test, but with much lower performance overall.
Sequential Write Performance
Our test of sequential write burst performance is structured identically to the sequential read burst performance test save for the direction of the data transfer. Each burst writes 128MB as 128kB operations issued at QD1, for a total of 1GB of data written to a drive containing 16GB of data.
The burst sequential write speed of the BX300 is good, but not enough for it to stand out from the crowd or to beat the MX200. The MX300 stands out for being substantially slower than most SATA SSDs.
Our test of sustained sequential writes is structured identically to our sustained sequential read test, save for the direction of the data transfers. Queue depths range from 1 to 32 and each queue depth is tested for up to one minute or 32GB, followed by up to one minute of idle time for the drive to cool off and perform garbage collection. The test is confined to a 64GB span of the drive.
On the longer sequential write test, the BX300 stays in the top half of the chart and performs close to the top tier of drives, but is a bit slow given that it uses 3D MLC.
The power efficiency of the Crucial BX300 is a bit better than Samsung's SSDs, but the drives using Micron's 3D TLC are more efficient and Toshiba's OCZ VX500 is in the lead by a substantial margin.
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The Crucial BX300's sequential write speed saturates at QD4 and it performs steadily thereafter, but at QD2 it is much slower than its maximum and is outperformed by many SSDs.
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lilmoe - Tuesday, August 29, 2017 - link
Question. This is provably unlikely, but is binning layers possible?lilmoe - Tuesday, August 29, 2017 - link
Probably*Billy Tallis - Wednesday, September 6, 2017 - link
3D NAND is not really built one layer at a time. The first stage of building the memory array is to make a tall stack of alternating materials, and then vertical strings of memory cells are formed through that stack by etching deep but narrow holes and filling them with the remaining components. That high aspect ratio etching step is one of the main limiting factors in scaling layer count. If you push the layer count too far, you end up with memory cells in layers near the top of the stack having significantly different properties from the ones near the bottom of the stack.It's relatively unlikely to have an individual layer somewhere in the middle of the stack be dead/defective across that entire layer. It's more common to see an entire vertical column fail, which involves a much smaller number of memory cells.
Radio-Zone - Wednesday, August 30, 2017 - link
Thanks for the information!!!Ej24 - Wednesday, August 30, 2017 - link
Congratulations Micron you're almost back to where you were 2 years ago in performance with the m550, Mx100 and mx200. I've always been a huge fan of crucial SSD's. Great bang for the buck for MLC drives. But the last year or so it's been hard to keep praising crucial.m16 - Sunday, September 3, 2017 - link
It's an interesting move, but all in all, due to the shortage, any SATA drive will do for anyone that is looking for a switch to SSD on the desktop, while power might be the top issue for laptops.There's the RAM caching on some of their drives which is very good all in all, especially for computers that have AMD CPUs, that can't use Intel's caching technology to speed things up.
keta - Wednesday, September 6, 2017 - link
Over two-and-a-half years ago (January 2015), I bought a 256GB MX100 for $95. That worked out to $0.371/GB, or a little less than what the BX300 is going for today ($0.375).I would be willing to pay the same rate if it meant better performance, but using the ATSB Heavy stats in Bench, it seems that my old MX100 outperforms the BX300 in both data rate and latency. Are the 2015 ATSB Heavy stats comparable to the 2017 stats? Is it really the case that SATA SSD price/performance is worse than it was 2.5 years ago?
Billy Tallis - Wednesday, September 6, 2017 - link
The average data rate and latency stats for the ATSB tests should be comparable between the 2015 and 2017 test suites. The workload didn't change, but the OS version and motherboard did. Next month or maybe late this month, I'll pull the MX100 from my gaming machine and put it through the 2017 test suite.keta - Wednesday, September 6, 2017 - link
Thanks! I'd be super interested in a 'long-view' piece that puts some of the older flagship SSDs (X-25M, Vertex 2, MX100) through the present-day latency/consistency analysis that AT has developed. And maybe throw in that old WD Scorpio as well, not just to see how far we've come from spinning drives, but also to put the differences between SSDs in perspective!Lolimaster - Thursday, August 9, 2018 - link
And now in Peru you can find the BX300 120GB for $35 xD.