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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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.