The Crucial MX300 750GB SSD Review: Micron's 3D NAND Arrives
by Billy Tallis on June 14, 2016 9:00 AM ESTSequential Read Performance
The sequential read test requests 128kB blocks and tests queue depths ranging from 1 to 32. The queue depth is doubled every three minutes, for a total test duration of 18 minutes. The test spans the entire drive, and the drive is filled before the test begins. The primary score we report is an average of performances at queue depths 1, 2 and 4, as client usage typically consists mostly of low queue depth operations.
The earlier MX series drives had somewhat poor sequential read speeds, though the spread from best to worst is quite small. The MX300 brings things up to average.
The MX300 is still quite efficient, but the SX930 and BX100 500GB both beat it by a wide margin.
 |
|||||||||
With a higher starting point, the MX300's performance scaling is not as pronounced as the MX200's. The MX300 is a little bit slower at higher queue depths.
Sequential Write Performance
The sequential write test writes 128kB blocks and tests queue depths ranging from 1 to 32. The queue depth is doubled every three minutes, for a total test duration of 18 minutes. The test spans the entire drive, and the drive is filled before the test begins. The primary score we report is an average of performances at queue depths 1, 2 and 4, as client usage typically consists mostly of low queue depth operations.
Sequential write speeds on the MX300 are much slower than the MX200 or any other MLC drive, but it does manage to come out ahead of all the planar TLC drives.
Power efficiency is still great by planar TLC standards, but the Samsung 850 EVO managed to saturate the SATA connection while using the same amount of power.
 |
|||||||||
The MX300 shows essentially no scaling with queue depth. For this test we usually don't see much scaling as caching large writes allows for full performance even at low queue depths, but full performance for the MX300 is still disappointing.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
85 Comments
View All Comments
fanofanand - Tuesday, June 14, 2016 - link
Slower and more expensive than the competition. Bravo Micron/Intel! Bravo!ddriver - Tuesday, June 14, 2016 - link
They have no choice but to get realistic about the price.TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, June 14, 2016 - link
Other SSD manufacturers are living in la-la land then? Because other OEMS seem to have no trouble selling SSDs for less.Arnulf - Tuesday, June 14, 2016 - link
They should get realistic about their naming as well - this is clearly a BX300 ... Or perhaps a BX298.32, given more crappy performance considering the BX100 ...Oxford Guy - Friday, July 8, 2016 - link
The drive beats the 850 EVO in the power consumption (except idle) tests, though. So, if the drive is going to be used in a laptop that doesn't idle much it could be a potential choice over the Samsung based on that.barleyguy - Tuesday, June 14, 2016 - link
I was hoping it would be faster than the MX200. I have 3 of those.It's top of the charts in power efficiency though, so it might be a great choice for a laptop. The performance difference is probably barely noticeable in real world use, but the battery life advantage might be tangible.
Also, launch price is $199 for 750 GB, which is not bad at all.
chrisso - Friday, June 17, 2016 - link
I also use an MX 200,which actually only has a write speed of 330.I suspect launch price is a suits guestimate at selling point.
Real world differences are indeed minimal, price will be the main selling point later for the mainstream crowd (me).
chrisso - Friday, June 17, 2016 - link
(my drive IS the humble 256 gig, btw). I would buy a 750 later as pointed out,prices are a tumbling.eek2121 - Tuesday, June 14, 2016 - link
Prices quoted are MSRP, as an example, the Trion 150 listed above debuted at 38.5 cents per gb. Don't be surprised to see this drive drop below 20 cents a gig in a few months.Gondalf - Wednesday, June 15, 2016 - link
Strange comment. Anandtech article is not negative at all about this SSD driver, Techreport too says "recommended" at the end of the review.So you are a little biased in my opinion.