Crucial MX100 (256GB & 512GB) Review
by Kristian Vättö on June 2, 2014 3:00 PM ESTRandom Read/Write Speed
The four corners of SSD performance are as follows: random read, random write, sequential read and sequential write speed. Random accesses are generally small in size, while sequential accesses tend to be larger and thus we have the four Iometer tests we use in all of our reviews.
Our first test writes 4KB in a completely random pattern over an 8GB space of the drive to simulate the sort of random access that you'd see on an OS drive (even this is more stressful than a normal desktop user would see). We perform three concurrent IOs and run the test for 3 minutes. The results reported are in average MB/s over the entire time.
Random read performance remains mostly unchanged. The 512GB MX100 appears to be slightly faster than the M550 while the 256GB version is a few megabytes slower.
Random write performance, on the other hand, is slightly up at the lower queue depths. This is likely due to firmware optimizations as the performance is up regardless of the capacity, although once the queue depth is increased the 256GB version falls behind due to the more limited amount of NAND die.
Sequential Read/Write Speed
To measure sequential performance we run a 1 minute long 128KB sequential test over the entire span of the drive at a queue depth of 1. The results reported are in average MB/s over the entire test length.
Sequential performance is also up by a bit, although the difference isn't dramatic.
AS-SSD Incompressible Sequential Read/Write Performance
The AS-SSD sequential benchmark uses incompressible data for all of its transfers. The result is a pretty big reduction in sequential write speed on SandForce based controllers.
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juhatus - Wednesday, June 4, 2014 - link
Does the Samsung XP941 use Samsung's 3D NAND? Availability at least would fit as the first drive's where seen last Q3/13 on OEM machines..juhatus - Wednesday, June 4, 2014 - link
To answer for my own question: Yes and that also explains XP941's rarityhttp://english.etnews.com/device/2963105_1304.html
Kristian Vättö - Wednesday, June 4, 2014 - link
So far Samsung has only been sampling 3D NAND SSDs to enterprise OEMs, although they have just started providing some to the PC OEMs with the new 32-layer NAND. The XP941 is still regular MLC but Samsung it's only available for OEMs.Samus - Thursday, June 5, 2014 - link
I've installed over 100 M500's and have personally been using a C300 since 2010 in my daily driver laptop. Rock solid drives. Who cares if they're 10% "slower" than a Sandforce drive.Onyx2291 - Thursday, June 5, 2014 - link
Just ordered a 512GB for $199.99. Such good value.beatsbyden - Thursday, August 21, 2014 - link
Great bargain for the price. I heard the 256GB drive is in fact a 320 GB drive with 20% overprovisioning...that would even be more a bargain. Performance decrades less than with all other brands that only have 7%. I also like the protection and encryption on the mx 100. Still have to chose between the samsung 840 evo 250gb and the mx100. Would chose the mx100 if had better writing performance...but now i have doubts...Gonna use it for audioproduction...so lots of reads and writes that would make the samsung evo 840 a better choice right....i have a Samsung 830 128GB now and i'm satisfied with it, never failed me, but need a bigger one. Should i stick with Samsung or get the MX 100?SpartanTech - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
Get the 512GB MX100, should satisfy your needs and provides even more storage....PS: Don't think you'll notice any difference tbh
Canadaram - Wednesday, October 22, 2014 - link
Because Crucial is a direct seller as well as a wholesaler, they can set the MSRP much closer to wholesale/street pricing levels, so don't expect as large of a discount from MSRP to street as you would on retail brands.akin1231 - Tuesday, December 2, 2014 - link
This drive is not a steal, it's a massive rip off because it doesn't work reliably. There's a massive issue with it falling off intermittently but frequently. There's no fix for it yet. Check the Crucial forum:http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Crucial-SSDs/MX100-wil...
I bought 3 of these... I'm a sucker
fossxplorer - Friday, April 10, 2015 - link
Good and very important info.