The Crucial BX300 (480GB) SSD Review: Back To MLC
by Billy Tallis on August 29, 2017 9:00 AM ESTAnandTech Storage Bench - Light
Our Light storage test has relatively more sequential accesses and lower queue depths than The Destroyer or the Heavy test, and it's by far the shortest test overall. It's based largely on applications that aren't highly dependent on storage performance, so this is a test more of application launch times and file load times. This test can be seen as the sum of all the little delays in daily usage, but with the idle times trimmed to 25ms it takes less than half an hour to run. Details of the Light test can be found here. As with the ATSB Heavy test, this test is run with the drive both freshly erased and empty, and after filling the drive with sequential writes.
The Crucial SSDs occupy the bottom half of the average data rate rankings for the Light test, as the other 3D NAND SSDs in this bunch are able to deliver higher peak performance. The BX300 is slower than the MX300 when the test is run on an empty drive, but for a full drive the BX300 is the fastest Crucial SSD and also faster than the ADATA SU800.
The average and 99th percentile latency scores for the BX300 are worse than the other 3D NAND SSDs in this comparison, but there's enough of a gap for it to matter.
The average read latency of the Crucial BX300 on the Light test is better than any other Crucial drive, but is unimpressive compared to the 3D NAND SSDs from other brands. The average write latency is significantly higher than most of the other SSDs (excepting the BX200), but is not enough to cause real problems for light workloads.
The 99th percentile read and write latencies tell pretty much the same story as the averages for the BX300: it performs fine for read operations, but is a bit slower for writes.
The Crucial BX300 turns in another second-place score for power efficiency, behind the MX300. The Light test doesn't put too much stress on the MX300's SLC caching, so it keeps its first-place efficiency even when the test is run on a full drive.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
90 Comments
View All Comments
nathanddrews - Tuesday, August 29, 2017 - link
SSD prices at Microcenter dropped by about 25% over the weekend (850 EVO 500GB for $139) and Amazon and Newegg are also down a bit, I assume the NAND shortage is over? Just clearing inventory? I'm really happy to see MLC back in the mix! Time to upgrade the last of the mechanical computers...ddriver - Tuesday, August 29, 2017 - link
Oh no it is not. They are gonna milk that cow until Chinese NAND gets to the market. And then they will short the price.On a side note, way to go Crucial - making quality products with MLC flash, with endurance worse than that of TLC flash. It is quite the achievement.
ddriver - Tuesday, August 29, 2017 - link
On the bright side, it is good to see that the competition is finally catching up to samsung SATA SSDs. Be that a couple of years after they stopped developing SATA SSDs.Yojimbo - Tuesday, August 29, 2017 - link
I think Chinese production of NAND and DRAM will be by new companies operating in new foundries. Volume production probably won't be reached until 2019, and can we really be sure of what to expect when it does?leexgx - Saturday, September 2, 2017 - link
you do know that endurance actually means warranty void if you use more than the endurance rating, MLC drives norm have endurance levels of PB of data before issues start to happenlove the BX100 for its near 0 power use when idle but it does choke a little under high load meaning i actually notice it slightly when its struggling but still its many times faster then a HDD witch can get tied up under medium loads (like windows update and store)
be nice if they can replicate that on the BX300 (should be better than the BX100 due to SLC cache and improved controller )
Ryan Smith - Tuesday, August 29, 2017 - link
The NAND shortage is definitely not over. That won't abate until some time in 2018.I couldn't say if it was clearing inventory, a short-term deal, or something else, but right now there's no reason to believe any kind of price cuts will stick.
nathanddrews - Tuesday, August 29, 2017 - link
So what you're saying is "get it while it's hot"?Ryan Smith - Wednesday, August 30, 2017 - link
Yup.BrokenCrayons - Tuesday, August 29, 2017 - link
I picked up a 480GB Muskin Reactor Armor3D for $139 _very_ recently dropped from $149. Like you, I was wondering if the NAND shortage was coming to an end, but Ryan is in a good position to know these things so maybe there's just a good deal on at the moment.Alexvrb - Tuesday, August 29, 2017 - link
MLC or not the TLC Evo is still the better performing drive. If you're buying a ~250GB model the Evo is hands down the best option. At 500GB-1TB capacities there are a couple of cheaper options that are tempting but the Evo is still the best deal for the money IMHO until you hit 2TB class drives, where the MX300 really shines.