Crucial MX200 and BX100 Series SSD Review

Test System & Comparison Drives

This is our new Z97 test bench and we thank ASUS again for their generosity in providing the Z97-A motherboard for us to use for our testing. All tests were performed on a fresh and up-to-date install of Windows 8.1 Pro x64 with no other applications running while using AHCI mode set through the BIOS. Synthetic Benchmarks were run with the OS loaded on a Seagate 600 240GB SSD. In between every test, the test drive was secure erased using an instance of Parted Magic. As such, all results should be indicative of optimal performance with the exception being the PCMark 8 consistency test. Power saving modes, sleep and hibernation are all disabled and all components were set to their default/optimized speeds in the BIOS (1304) and are listed below.

Z97 Test Bench

Intel LGA 1150 Test Platform
Component	Brand/Model	Live Pricing
Processor	Intel Pentium G3258	Click Here
Motherboard	ASUS Z97-A (BIOS v.1204)	Click Here
Memory	Kingston HyperX KHX16C9B1RK28 8GB	Click Here
OS Drive	Seagate 600 240GB SSD	Click Here
Power Supply	Antec Basiq BP550W Plus-EC	Click Here
Operating System	Windows 8.1 Pro 64-Bit	Click Here

Comparison Drives And Other Models We Have Tested Since there are so many SSDs out there now with different controllers, we started a reference table of which controllers are used by each drive to help you compare results. Different controllers definitely perform differently and each has various strengths and weaknesses. Like CPU’s, even identical drives will have variations in performance and part of that variance may be attributable to the NAND flash used. Since the tests of the drives listed have spanned different test benches and represent different interfaces, we have listed the most recent ones for easy reference.

SSD MODEL	CONTROLLER	Interface
Samsung 850 Evo 500GB	MGX S4LN062X01	SATA III
G.SKILL Phoenix Blade 480GB PCIe	SandForce SF-2281 (x4)	PCIe
AMD Radeon R7 240GB	Indilinx Barefoot 3 M00	SATA III
SanDisk Ultra II 240GB	Marvell 88SS9190	SATA III
OCZ ARC 100 240GB	Indilinx Barefoot 3 M10	SATA III
SanDisk Extreme PRO	Marvell 88SS9187	SATA III
Samsung 850 PRO 1TB	MEX S4LN045X01	SATA III
Crucial MX100 256GB & 512GB	Marvell 88SS9189	SATA III
ADATA Premier Pro SP920 512GB	Marvell 88SS9189	SATA III
Intel 730 Series 480GB	PC29AS21CA0	SATA III
Crucial M550 512GB	Marvell 88SS9189	SATA III
OCZ Vertex 460 240GB	Indilinx Barefoot 3 M10	SATA III
VisionTek PCIe 240GB SSD	SandForce SF-2281 (x2)	PCIe
WD Black Dual-Drive 120GB SSD + 1TB HDD	JMicron JMF667H	SATA III
OCZ Vector 150 240GB	Indilinx Barefoot 3 M00	SATA III
Corsair Force LS 240GB	Phison PS3108	SATA III
Samsung Evo 500GB	MEX S4LN045X01	SATA III
Seagate 600 240GB	LAMD LM87800	SATA III
OCZ Vertex 450 256GB	Indilinx Barefoot 3 M10	SATA III
Crucial M500 480GB	Marvell 88SS9187	SATA III
OCZ Vertex 3.20 240GB	SandForce SF-2281	SATA III
Samsung 840 Pro 240GB	Samsung MDX	SATA III
Sandisk Ultra Plus 256GB	Marvell 88SS9175	SATA III
Corsair Neutron GTX 240GB	LAMD LM87800	SATA III
Intel 520 Series 240GB	SandForce SF-2281	SATA III
OCZ Vector 256GB	Indilinx Barefoot 3 M00	SATA III
Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB	SandForce SF-2281	SATA III
Samsung 830 Series 256GB	Samsung S4LJ204X01-Y040	SATA III

CrystalDiskInfo 6.2.1 Readout:

For the Crucial MX200 and BX100 drives, the readout on CrystalDiskInfo shows that both NCQ and S.M.A.R.T. are enabled, as well as TRIM. This is a great free tool to see lots of detailed information about the drive such as the firmware version for the drives is MU01. This is the latest available version for our sample drives but updates be available after this is published.

Crucial also has a new utility called Storage Executive that provides the ability to view system information, drive details, S.M.A.R.T. attributes, perform a secure erase, update firmware and do a PSID revert if you forgot the password for an encrypted drive.

Let’s have a look at the performance with some synthetic benchmarks followed up by some real world tests.