The Crucial BX300 (480GB) SSD Review: Back To MLC
by Billy Tallis on August 29, 2017 9:00 AM ESTAnandTech Storage Bench - The Destroyer
The Destroyer is an extremely long test replicating the access patterns of very IO-intensive desktop usage. A detailed breakdown can be found in this article. Like real-world usage, the drives do get the occasional break that allows for some background garbage collection and flushing caches, but those idle times are limited to 25ms so that it doesn't take all week to run the test. These AnandTech Storage Bench (ATSB) tests do not involve running the actual applications that generated the workloads, so the scores are relatively insensitive to changes in CPU performance and RAM from our new testbed, but the jump to a newer version of Windows and the newer storage drivers can have an impact.
We quantify performance on this test by reporting the drive's average data throughput, the average latency of the I/O operations, and the total energy used by the drive over the course of the test.
The Crucial BX300 is tied for second-fastest average data rate on The Destroyer among SATA drives. The BX300's performance falls between the Samsung 850 EVO and 850 PRO, and matches the Intel 545s that uses a newer generation of 3D NAND and a newer SSD controller.
The BX300's latency during The Destroyer is best in class, with both average and 99th percentile latencies at the top of the chart.
Breaking the average latency score down by read and write operations, we find the BX300 in second place for each subscore, but with a different drive in first place each time: the 850 PRO is what beats the BX300's average read latency, and the Crucial MX200 beats the BX300's average write latency.
The Crucial BX300 does a great job keeping read latency low throughout the destroyer, with the lowest 99th percentile read latency out of this bunch of drives. By contrast, the 99th percentile write latency only ranks third, behind the Intel 545s and Samsung 850 PRO. The MX300's 99th percentile write latency is moderately worse than the BX300's, but its 99th percentile read latency is almost twice as high.
The BX300 further improves on the power efficiency of the MX300, but not enough to match the Intel 545s that benefits both from a newer Silicon Motion controller and from newer 64L 3D NAND.
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sonny73n - Wednesday, August 30, 2017 - link
Got my 840 Evo when it first released and it was the last Samsung product I ever bought. I have no idea why many praise Samsung products. I had a Samsung plasma TV and two horizontal black lines appeared only after 14 months, 3 more appeared 2 months after. Then it became unwatchable. Now let's not talk about Samsung phones.bug77 - Wednesday, August 30, 2017 - link
I guess you have a thing for picking bad products? Plasma (with its known shortcomings) over LCD? 840EVO when planar TLC is just about as bad as it gets?No, you can't blame this on Samsung. Granted, their products, with few exceptions, are definitely average, but so is their pricing.
sonny73n - Wednesday, August 30, 2017 - link
"No, you can't blame this on Samsung." Haha ok. Who are you to tell me not to voice my reasons? It was my money, not yours. Who would not expect a 3D Samsung plasma TV last for at least 3 years (2 hrs/day). And who would have thought a giant SSD brand like Samsung released something like the 840 Evo. Blame or not to blame, it's not important. I'd just never buy anything from a company that would up for sale half-baked products with/without knowing their shortcomings. Did they sell some phones that exploded recently? See, this is what I'm talking about.Until you get a Samsung blown up in face, everyone else's reasons for not buying Samsung are irrelevant.
chrnochime - Wednesday, August 30, 2017 - link
Hi Samsung fanboy. You really going to say plasma is worse in every way over LCD? Ignoring the black level and response time? Okay then.Alexvrb - Wednesday, August 30, 2017 - link
Bug never said plasma was worse in every way. He did say it had known shortcomings, which it does - like longevity. Plasma also has some advantages, although it's dying off in favor of OLED on the high-end. With that being said, yes in this case Samsung DID sell him a lemon. Even with a plasma you should get a good few years of service, at least.Alexvrb - Wednesday, August 30, 2017 - link
Way to assume things, buddy. I'm not a Samsung fanboy, FAR from it. I don't currently own any other Samsung products outside of their SSDs. The fact is that the 850 Evo is the king of affordable SATA SSDs, period. Sorry for not being biased and preferring a superior product despite being Samsung. The 850 Pro is better in some heavy workloads but is a lot more expensive. Although for the record the 840 Evo was actually OK, I've got a system with the last firmware released and it has been fine. The 830 was also solid.I don't have much personal experience with their recent TVs, and I've only used their latest model phones for a few minutes here or there. Although I don't have any strong inclination to defend them as a company, I would bet your experience is rare. TVs are a crapshoot anyway. Their phones *generally* seem solid, even if I occasionally rail against them for lack of easily replaced batteries and SD card slots for some models - aside from the most obvious butt of many jokes, the last gen Note. Again, this is coming from someone who rarely buys Samsung.
tyaty1 - Thursday, August 31, 2017 - link
Personally I am happy with their Series 6 TV from 2011, and I had no issue with their SSD-s.(Though I currently use a 256gb Crucial M550 in my notebook, which was 118 USD in 2015)
sonny73n - Monday, September 4, 2017 - link
Alexvrb, are you and bug77 the same person? If not, why are you responding to chrnochime's reply meant for bug77?It's the first I've heard (from you) that TLC is better than MLC. An TLC drive might have performance than an MLC if it has better controller. But for endurance, generally MLC is better than TLC and this is the fact. When you made a statement like "MLC or not, the TLC Evo is better...", people can only assume one thing about you. Anyway, you should have a little read about SSD tech before making such assertion.
chrnochime - Wednesday, August 30, 2017 - link
There are people who care a lot more about RATED endurance than performance. You obviously aren't one of them, and your opinion about the EVO being best option != the truth/fact. LOLAlexvrb - Wednesday, August 30, 2017 - link
They're also high endurance. 850 Evos have excellent endurance, and in real endurance torture testing they even exceed expectations. But feel free to spread FUD like a boss.