Crucial MX300 M.2 525GB SSD Review

Introduction By now I've got to know the Crucial MX300 series pretty well. I initially reviewed the limited edition 750GB model upon release and recently we had a look at the largest model which comes with 2TB capacity. Today it is time to check out the physically smaller and compact M.2 2280 format and I got the Crucial MX300 M.2 SSD with 525GB capacity in for the testing. Crucial has previously had two lines of consumer solid state drives and they still do, the BX and the MX series. However, the MX300 combines the best of the MX200 and BX200 drives into one resilient little drive that won't break the bank. You get an instant performance increase, especially compared to mechanical drives, a long lasting drive with a high endurance, a lot of capacity, and all that at a fair price. Besides this 525GB model, the M.2 version of the MX300 is also available as a 275GB model and a 1TB model. The MX300 is built with Micron’s 3D TLC NAND and it is more than just a storage container. Micron’s 3D NAND is engineered with larger NAND cells that improve performance and prolong endurance and that is what sets this drive apart from other TLC drives. In return, the Crucial MX300 sports impressive performance ratings of up to 530MB/s when reading and 510MB/s when writing sequential data . The random drive performance is rated equally nice, delivering up to 92K IOPS reading and 83K writing on all file types. The drive's endurance is something that will take a dive when we talk about TLC NAND, or so we have come to believe in the past. Crucial and Micron broke with this tradition and changed that with the Micron 3D NAND equipped MX300. The 525GB version of the drive is rated for up to 160TB total bytes written (TBW) which equals to 87GB data per day for a 5-year period. Crucial's MX300 series covers pretty much all aspects when it comes to features, both basic and advanced, and that's another vital part of a storage drive besides pure capacity. It is also something customers have come to expect from Crucial through their previous products. The basics are covered with Self-Monitoring and Reporting Technology (SMART), built-in Error Correction Code (ECC), Active Garbage Collection, and TRIM support. These are all vital features to have these days and the MX300 has them all. It also features the newer Device Sleep (DevSleep/DevSLP) function which is particularly useful for laptop users. When the mode is activated, the drive consumes so little power that it isn't even relevant noting, allowing you more freedom when it comes to the shutdown or sleep functions. On top of that, it also features hardware-based AES 256-bit encryption for that extra bit of data security on your files. The MX300 further features Dynamic Write Acceleration, a technology that uses an adaptable pool of high-speed, single-level cell flash memory to generate blistering speeds throughout the drive. This is partially responsible for the drive’s great performance. The Redundant Array of Independent NAND (RAIN) feature works much in the same way a RAID setup works with multiple drives, only this works on a cell-level, but the benefit is the same: your data is stored in more than one location. The data inside the drive has to arrive everywhere in correct order too and the MX300 features Data Path Protection and Power Loss Protection to make sure that this happens. The whole thing is rounded off with the Adaptive Thermal Protection that makes sure the drive performs great in any usage scenario. Last but not least, there's the software side of the drive. The MX300 series is fully compatible with Crucial's Storage Executive and all the features this includes. With this software, you gain easy access to all the vital drive information and features, including the Momentum Cache. Momentum Cache is in its essence an intelligent ram drive feature that can increase your system’s storage performance ten fold. By using part of your system memory as a file cache, fewer write operations have to be performed while you get a much faster access in general. This is also a feature that can prolong the drive's lifetime as that pretty much is determined by the amount of writes. Feature Highlights Sequential reads/writes up to 530 / 510 MB/s on all file types Random reads/writes up to 92k / 83k on all file types Over 90x more energy efficient than a typical hard drive Accelerated by Micron 3D NAND technology Dynamic Write Acceleration delivers faster saves and file transfers More durable than a hard drive – no small moving parts that are prone to failure Best-in-class hardware encryption keeps data safe and secure Exclusive Data Defense guards against data corruption Adaptive Thermal Protection allows for adaptive cooling Power Loss Protection completes write commands even if power is lost Includes free Acronis True Image HD software for easy data migration Compatible with the Crucial Storage Executive tool for easy drive maintenance 3 year limited warranty Specifications Package and Accessories The Crucial MX300 M.2 modules come in a simple package, a fitting match to the simplicity that M.2 modules carry. Inside the box is an activation key for Acronis True Image HD drive cloning software for easy system migration and two screws should you lost your motherboard's or adapter's M.2 screw. Testing & Methodology Hardware Gigabyte Z79X UD5H-BK Intel Core i7-4790K G.Skill Ares DDR3 1866MHz (2x4GB) OCZ Vertex4 256GB CoolerMaster Silent Pro Hybrid 850W NZXT Kraken X60 Dimastech Easy V3 Software AIDA64 Storage Benchmark Anvil's Storage Utilities AS SSD Benchmark ATTO Benchmark CrystalDiskMark IOMeter PCMark 8 Storage Benchmark Windows 10 In a bid to make our testing as thorough and as accurate as possible, we have devised a testing methodology that will give us the maximum amount of data. Whilst this means that testing each drive will take considerably longer – easily up 36 hours - the overall picture that we can gather from this helps us and you as the reader to gain a clearer picture of the drive's overall performance, strengths, and weaknesses and it provides a more accurate analysis at each drive performs under different conditions. There are many ways to test a storage drive and we have chosen to include close to every test possible. We will start with a normal benchmark analysis of the formatted drive with various fillage scenarios. Depending on how a drive is built, it might perform differently depending on how much data it already is storing. To test this, the drive will be tested empty as well as with 25%, 50%, and 75% space usage. For these tests, we will be using Anvil's Storage Utilities, AS SSD Benchmark, ATTO Benchmark, and CrystalDiskMark. Besides these synthetic fill tests, the drive will also be tested with PCMark 8's storage benchmark in order to get real-world performance results. Following the fillage tests, the partition will be removed and we test the drive's raw performance. These tests will determine the hardware's capabilities while removing any interference from the set file system. AIDA64's storage benchmark and IOmeter are both great tools for this and they help us paint an even clearer picture of the drive. The IOmeter tests I run are quite different from the rest as they will give a final result after a longer performance test rather than a maximum or average score. This gives us yet another view of the tested drive over the ordinary tests. Durability is a vital factor when it comes to NAND-based drives as the chips only can be rewritten so many times before they'll stop working properly. Modern SSDs come with wear-level algorithms to increase the lifetime and reduce this factor as much as possible. We also take this into consideration in our reviews even tho it would take years to simulate this under real-world conditions. Luckily, Anvil's Storage Utilities comes with an endurance test that can perform this action much faster, but it is still a time-consuming process. process. Depending on the hardware, this can easily take several days and we write thousands and thousands of small files in various sizes and compressibility to drive over and over. Following this conditioning process, all of the previous benchmarks will be run again in the same scenarios and in the same order. This will give us a great view on how a drive will perform after prolonged usage and that is a very vital factor when you pick out your storage drive. Modern operating systems all take care of the TRIM command in the background and it isn't something normal users need to worry about. However, For these reviews, I will add a waiting period between each benchmark to make sure that the TRIM command has been fully executed and finished. After all, we want a clear picture of the drives performance with minimal interference from the operating system. On each page that follows with the benchmark results, I have inserted result screenshots from the benchmarks, created drive analysis chart for the fill-level performance, and added drive comparison charts where possible. AIDA64 AIDA64 is a streamlined Windows diagnostic and benchmarking software for home users. It provides a wide range of features to assist in overclocking, hardware error diagnosis, stress testing, and sensor monitoring. It has unique capabilities to assess the performance of the processor, system memory, and disk drives and is compatible with most Microsoft Windows operating systems. It also has a disk benchmark tool, and that is the one I'll be using. Fresh Drive The Linear Read and Write tests measure the sequential performance by reading or writing all sectors without skipping any. It gives, as the name says, a linear view of the drives overall performance from start to end. The Random Read and Write tests measure the random performance by reading or writing variable-sized data blocks at random locations on the surface of the drive. The Random tests are actually a combination of both speed and access times as it moves the position before each new operation. The Access time tests are designed to measure the data access performance by reading or writing small 0.5KB data blocks at random locations on the drive surface. Conditioned Drive The Linear Read and Write tests measure the sequential performance by reading or writing all sectors without skipping any. It gives, as the name says, a linear view of the drives overall performance from start to end. The Random Read and Write tests measure the random performance by reading or writing variable-sized data blocks at random locations on the surface of the drive. The Random tests are actually a combination of both speed and access times as it moves the position before each new operation. The Access time tests are designed to measure the data access performance by reading or writing small 0.5KB data blocks at random locations on the drive surface. Anvil's Storage Utilities Anvil's Storage Utilities is a new benchmarking utility that we have started using here at eTeknix, it's completely free to download and has the ability to test mainly hard drives and solid state drives, but also any other form of storage medium that you can throw at it. As well as testing the drive in a variety of benchmarking tests, it also has a drive endurance test that consistently reads and writes data to the selected medium to give days, months and potentially even years of use in a shorter period of time to see how the drive copes in the longer term. Fresh Drive Conditioned Drive Drive Performance Analysis Drive Comparison For the purpose of drive comparison, I will be using the performance figures from both unconditioned and conditioned tests with 0% data-fill. AS SSD The AS SSD software determines the performance of Solid State Drives (SSD). The tool contains five synthetic and three practice tests. The synthetic tests determine the sequential and random read and write performance of the SSD. These tests are performed without using the operating system caches. In Sequential tests, the program measures the time it takes to read and write a 1 GB file respectively. To give a clearer picture of the drives tested, I've chosen to include all tests. Special the copy test is one that I think is relevant on the consumer level as it gives the user a view into one of the operations he's going to do many times. Fresh Drive Conditioned Drive Performance Analysis Drive Comparison For the purpose of drive comparison, I will be using the performance figures from both unconditioned and conditioned tests with 0% data-fill. ATTO The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage. Fresh Drive Conditioned Drive Performance Analysis Drive Comparison For the purpose of drive comparison, I will be using the performance figures from both unconditioned and conditioned tests with 0% data-fill. CrystalDiskMark CrystalDiskMark is a small HDD benchmark utility for your hard drive that enables you to rapidly measure sequential and random 4KB/512KB read/write speeds. Fresh Drive Conditioned Drive Performance Drive Comparison For the purpose of drive comparison, I will be using the performance figures from both unconditioned and conditioned tests with 0% data-fill. IOmeter & PCMark 8 IOmeter OMeter is an I/O subsystem measurement and characterization tool for single and clustered systems. It is used as a benchmark and troubleshooting tool and is easily configured to replicate the behavior of many popular applications. One commonly quoted measurement provided by the tool is IOPS. IOMeter allows the configuration of disk parameters such as the ‘Maximum Disk Size’, ‘Starting Disk Sector’ and ‘# of Outstanding I/Os’. This allows a user to configure a test file upon which the ‘Access Specifications’ configure the I/O types to the file. Configurable items within the Access Specifications are Transfer Request Size, Percent Random/Sequential distribution, Percent Read/Write Distribution, Aligned I/O’s, Reply Size, and TCP/IP status among others. Sequential Performance Random 4K Performance Drive Comparison PCMark 8 PCMark 8 Storage benchmark is used test the performance of SSDs, HDDs, and hybrid drives with traces recorded from Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office and a selection of popular games. You can test any recognized storage device, including local external drives. Unlike synthetic storage tests, the PCMark 8 Storage benchmark highlights real-world performance differences between storage devices. Fresh Drive Conditioned Drive Drive Comparison Software: Crucial Storage Executive Crucial doesn't just make great solid state drives, they also got a great piece of software to go along with it: Crucial Storage Executive. The app is a background app that will launch its interface in your default browser. That makes it easy to use for you while it is easy and quick for Crucial to maintain and update. The first page that will open when you launch it is the general system information page which will show your local IP address, Operating System version, memory usage, and basic drive information. From the first page, you can launch functions directly by pressing the appropriate button such as the firmware update or as seen here, the S.M.A.R.T. information of drives which support this. You can also find detailed information about the drives such as usage, capacity, temperature, driver and firmware versions. Updating firmware is easy enough, but my drive already has the latest version installed, so there is no need to do this. The Sanitize function is a great way to securely wipe the content of your drive - for example, should you ever want to give it to someone else and you want to make sure that they can't recover your old data. The Momentum Cache function is one of the main reasons you might want to install the Storage Executive. Said with basic words, it's a RAM disk function that will help speed up your entire system's performance by utilizing part of your system memory as a cache. This can make a huge difference and I'll show that on the next page. The tool recommends that you have battery-backed powered source and that's due to the fact that if the system should crash while data still is in the memory and before it has been flushed onto the drive itself, then you could lose that data. If your system is stable, then this shouldn't be a problem. The last page in the Storage Executive allows you to customize the over-provisioning of the drive. This function allows you to allocate a percentage of the SSDs free space to improve both performance and endurance. During my previous tests, I've kept this at zero to get a proper baseline comparison and show how the drive performs out of the box. Momentum Cache Performance I mentioned previously in this article how the Momentum Cache can increase your overall system performance and I'll, of course, show you some tests on this too. Once you have enabled the function and rebooted your system, you'll instantly notice the difference. Anvil's Storage Utilities AS SSD Benchmark ATTO Disk Benchmark CrystalDiskMark Verdict As we see above, the Momentum Cache isn't equally effective everywhere, but it still improves the performance on all levels. Some a little, but most a lot and it will make a huge difference to your overall system performance when it is enabled. Well worth it, especially considering most systems are built with more memory than they need. Final Thoughts Pricing At the time of writing, Crucial's MX300 M.2 2280 SSD with 525GB can be yours for $124.99 at NewEgg, £122.99 at Scan Computers, and €117.18 through Geizhals. Conclusion Crucial once again convinced me with one of their SSDs. The M.2 version of the MX300 solid state drive performed just as well as the 2.5-inch counterparts. We saw an SSD that performed consistently across all fillage scenarios, file type, benchmark type, and with both compressible and incompressible data alike. While it isn't the fastest drive in the charts, in fact, it comes in at the bottom of most charts, it is one of the most consistent performing drives tested. Even though it does come in below other drives in speed, it isn't by much. When we look at the numbers themselves, we see that there isn't much of a difference. Feature wise, Crucial provides us with everything that we could want from such a drive - just like we're used to from them. Basic features include everything from SMART and Active Garbage Collection over TRIM to DevSleep and ECC. Additional features include Dynamic Write Acceleration, Redundant Array of Independent NAND, Multistep Data Integrity Algorithm. The MX300 series also features Adaptive Thermal Protection, Power Loss Protection, Data Path Protection. A complete solution. An added bonus to the MX300 is the included software features. The MX300 SSD is compatible with Crucial's Storage Executive software which includes the Momentum Cache feature. By using a little of your system's main memory, the software is able to boost the drive performance up to 10 times while increasing the lifespan of your drives by performing fewer writes. Crucial also added an activation key for Acronis True Image HD drive cloning software. With this, you can quickly and with ease, migrate your complete system drive onto this brand new MX300 M.2 525GB SSD. Overall, a great value. Especially when you consider that it is one of the cheapest drives available. Pros Steady performance across all scenarios Up to 1TB capacity in M.2 2280 form factor Low price Momentum Cache function Bundled with Cloning Software Features everything from DevSleep to power loss protection. Cons none "Crucial's MX300 M.2 2280 525GB SSD is an impressive drive for its price. You get a full set of features, high capacity, and a steady performance." Thank You, Crucial for providing us with this sample.