Crucial MX300

Micron Outs Crucial MX300 With 3D NAND, Coming This Month

Review from The SSD Review

When will SSD Manufacturers realize that at this point, the only thing that differentiates SSDs is capacity, they are all super fast!

Same BS different day, 2TB max size......moving on......

 

MLC to TLC is the question.. Looks like more TLC lol..

 

At least it's not QLC yet.

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crucial-mx300-750gb-ssd,4544.html
http://www.anandtech.com/show/10274/the-crucial-mx300-750gb-ssd-review-microns-3d-nand-arrives
http://techreport.com/review/30267/crucial-mx300-ssd-reviewed

I think the summary is that this is a... whelming launch. The drive itself is a bit of a let down, but the 3D NAND process appears to be keeping it's promise.

The overall performance picture I got is that the MX300 performs a bit worse than the MX200. Depending on how you look at it, the drive either sits at the bottom of the MLC stack, or at the top of the TLC stack. This isn't too surprising given the use the TLC and a 4-channel controller (the other MX-series use MLC and 8-channels).

But at the same time, this drive which uses TLC NAND comes pretty close to MLC in terms performance, endurance, and power consumption. I think this is a clear indication of the superiority of their 3D NAND process over planar NAND. If their 3D TLC comes close to planar MLC, then I am very excited to see what their 3D MLC can do when paired it with a proper 8-channel PCIe controller.

That drive of course is the Ballistix TX3, which I think Micron should have launched first to showcase their 3D NAND. But maybe Intel hogged all the MLC and they were left launching this. It's not the huge disappointment that the BX200 was, but it's nothing to get excited about either.

I think it's clear that Micron is positioning this as a value product given the use of TLC and 4-channel controller. My guess is that at some point they'll kill off the abomination that is the BX200, the MX300 will assume the value role, while the TX3 will be the performance drive. Given that positioning, I do think it'll end up selling well once the price drops 10-20%, especially given it's higher end features like encryption and power-loss protection. If they can hit $0.20/GB, then this will become the go-to value drive to get (i.e. the new BX100).

 

I hope they will finally solve hardware encryption problems affecting older Crucial drives.
Also, I would prefer m.2 2280 drive over 2.5", for future-proofing.

 

So it was TLC.. Disappointing...