Crucial MX200 (250GB, 500GB & 1TB) SSD Review
by Kristian Vättö on May 22, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
- SSDs
- Crucial
- MX200
- Micron 16nm
Final Words
By having two separate BX and MX lineups, it's clear that Crucial is trying to position the MX200 in the higher-end segment and aim the drive towards enthusiast and professional users. On paper that works well because the MX200 does deliver considerably higher maximum performance than the BX100 and the feature set is more professional-oriented with hardware encryption support, but unfortunately the MX200 doesn't fulfill its promises in real world based IO trace testing. In fact, it turns out that the BX100 performs better in typical low queue depth client workloads.
That actually speaks of an industry wide problem. Most manufacturers only publish performance figures at high queue depths (typically 32, i.e. the max of AHCI), but as our IO traces show, only a fraction of real world client IOs happen at such a high queue depth. Even very intensive client IO workloads rarely go above QD2, so it's totally unrealistic to use QD32 figures as the basis of marketing and product positioning. Of course everyone likes big numbers, especially the marketing teams, but the truth is that focusing solely on those can potentially result in erroneous product positioning like in Crucial's case. I think the industry as a whole should try to move more towards low queue depth optimization because that yields better user performance and at the end of the day it's the user experience that matters, not the number of IOs the drive can theoretically process.
Another thing I'm not very satisfied with is the Dynamic Write Acceleration. I don't think an SLC cache is very useful in an MLC based drive because the performance benefits are marginal, at least with SATA 6Gbps. PCIe and NVMe open the door for potentially higher peak performance, but even then I think the design of DWA is inherently flawed. You don't really need more than a few gigabytes of SLC cache in a client drive because client workloads are bursty by nature, meaning that running as much NAND as possible in SLC NAND doesn't provide any substantial performance gain. In fact, DWA actually works against itself in more sustained workloads because everything is written to SLC (basically all empty space is in SLC mode in the 250GB MX200), so if you write more than the SLC cache can incorporate at the time the drive needs to transfer data from SLC to MLC in-flight, which has a larger negative impact on performance compared to just writing straight to MLC NAND that competing SLC cache designs do. As we saw in our tests, filling the 250GB MX200 with data results in performance decrease that is by far larger than we've encountered on other drives.
| Amazon Price Comparison (5/22/2015) | |||
| 240/250/256GB | 480/500/512GB | 960GB/1TB | |
| Crucial MX200 | $110 | $200 | $427 |
| Crucial BX100 | $96 | $186 | $380 |
| Crucial MX100 | $109 | $210 | - |
| OCZ ARC 100 | $95 | $185 | - |
| Mushkin Reactor | - | - | $404 |
| Samsung 850 EVO | $98 | $198 | $350 |
| Samsung 850 Pro | $143 | $258 | $483 |
| SanDisk Ultra II | $90 | $170 | $330 |
| SanDisk Extreme Pro | $145 | $260 | $440 |
| Transcend SSD370 | $90 | $175 | $360 |
The pricing is obviously higher than BX100, but compared to other high-end SATA drives the MX200 is pretty reasonably priced. That said, it still doesn't provide enough value for the money because the only advantage the MX200 has over the BX100 is hardware encryption, but if that's something you need/want the 850 EVO provides better bang for the buck given that it's cheaper, offers higher performance and you even get a 5-year warranty versus Crucial's three years.
I think Crucial seriously needs to reconsider its product positioning strategy. If Crucial can't deliver a true high performance drive, then I think it's better to focus all resources on one drive rather than have two overlapping products. I really liked the MX100 because it was such a simplified lineup, whereas the MX200 just adds unnecessary complexity without providing any real value. The BX100 is still a great drive and definitely at the top of my list of value drives, but as it stands today I honestly can't see a scenario where the MX200 would be a justifiable purchase because the performance just isn't anywhere near good enough to justify the higher price tag.
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jonovw - Saturday, May 23, 2015 - link
When I got mine, the MX200 was pretty reasonably priced compared to it's competition for a M.2 SATA drive.MrMilli - Saturday, May 23, 2015 - link
"Another thing I'm not very satisfied with is the Dynamic Write Acceleration. I don't think an SLC cache is very useful in an MLC based drive because the performance benefits are marginal, at least with SATA 6Gbps."Sandisk showed with the Ultra II that SLC caching doesn't have to mean terrible latency if implemented correctly.
As a cheap drive, the ARC 100 is looking better every day. For typical desktop workloads, it 'feels' the fastest thanks to it's low latency. I don't understand why it's not recommended more often.
MrSpadge - Saturday, May 23, 2015 - link
I looks like Crucial should really tune their algorithm. Very short bursty writes, which still fit into the DRAM cache, can easily be written in MLC mode. There's enough time for time. Longer bursts could / should be written as SLC, if enough drive space is available. Otherwise MLC mode would be better, if it's likely the data would have to be reorganized soon anyway. Which also happens under long sustained writes, where there's a point where the drive should switch from SLC to MLC mode.Johnny Five - Saturday, May 23, 2015 - link
Well, going back to when SSD's were becoming all the rage and OCZ was having all their problems with their controllers, etc.... Crucial was one of the most consistently reliable and dependable SSD's in the market....... I have consistently used my 4 m4 series 128 GB SSD's for nearly 5 years without not 1 single problem, and have used (2) m550's or several years with no problems........reliability is what makes me keep returning to a certain vendor,, be it motherboard, memory, videocard, HDD, etc....so far my MX200 250 GB SSD is working just as great as my old C300 or m4's are doing.... lets hope that this MX200 lasts at least 3 to 4 years with no problems.... something I can not say for SSD's made by OCZ, Intel, Samsung, or HD's like Western digital, Seagate, Toshiba, Maxtor.......... ( am hoping that Western Digital HD's get better now that they bought out Hitachi........ I have over 18 hitachi Hard Drives ranging from 14 yrs old to 2 yrs old, and have yet to have one brick on me, like most every other brand has...... )
regarding TRIM and SSD degrading performance.......... after 5 years +/- continuous use of my Crucial m4 series SSD's ...... running test via AIDA64 Extreme Edition software, I am still running around 98.7 + % performance level, hopefully this MX200 will run just as good....
Impulses - Wednesday, May 27, 2015 - link
Crucial's had it's rash of firmware issues like anybody else...fokka - Saturday, May 23, 2015 - link
i didn't expect the bx100 to stay that competitive, i guess it's the drive to get right now, especially in a mobile setup where power draw matters.Harry Lloyd - Saturday, May 23, 2015 - link
I want a 512 GB drive with MX100/200 performance for about 100 $. Possible next year (3D NAND or something)?Ramon Zarat - Saturday, May 23, 2015 - link
I'm glad my 2 X Crucial M4 128GB in RAID0 are *STILL* king in 99.999% of my desktop scenarios. over 3 1/2 years now, and not as single issue. Still pumping ~900MB/s in sequential read, even at 75% full! Diskinfo reports them at 97% good. At this rate, they will last me well over 50 years before reaching 50% degradation!hrrmph - Saturday, May 23, 2015 - link
It's good to see AT posting critical reviews (where deserved) again.It's also good to see innovative thinking again, such as the call for the industry to benchmark SSDs at lower queue depths. I would like to read more on the low queue depth issues and which client machines / users are able to push above 1 or 2 QD (if any) and under what circumstances.
philipma1957 - Sunday, May 24, 2015 - link
It would be nice if either crucial or samsung would make larger ssd's in a 2.5 inch form factor.a 1.5tb or 2tb ssd gives me an all ssd system while a 1tb ssd gives me the need for a second drive.
Instead of the little tweaks here and there. Like this one (MX200) which seems to me a fail gives us the size increase. How many years since the first 1tb ssd from crucial (listed 960gb)