Crucial MX300 525GB & 1TB SSD Review

[SKYMTL]

Recently we reviewed Crucial’s then-new MX300 750GB and walked away impressed with their vision for the future of mass market facing SSDs. At the time, that version of the MX300 was supposedly a “limited edition” due to a number of different factors that happened in parallel with one another. There was a radical change in NAND from planar 2D to 3D and the actual NAND type switched from 2bit MLC to 3bit TLC versus Crucial’s previous generation SSDs. It was very much a work in progress and as a result the MX300’s performance ended up being a touch lackluster compared to their previous models.

That’s not to say it was a poor choice; it just failed to wow me like the MX200 series did when it replaced the MX100. This new generation’s overall performance was slotted right in between the MX200 500GB and the MX200 1TB instead of being better than either. In short, Crucial treated it as a litmus test that was simply meant to give potential buyers a taste of what was to come.

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Today we get to see exactly what the real, non-Limited Editions can do. Yes, Crucial has finally brought their 3D TLC NAND production capacity up to a level where they feel comfortable releasing more models meant to compete at a variety of price points. Specifically, the MX300 1050GB MX300 525GB models are now primed and ready to go.

These two drives share a few things in common, but for the most part allow the MX300 series to do what the MX200 could never accomplish: compete in both the entry level budget and mainstream marketplaces. Think of this as a true chameleon of SSDs which has been tuned for specific price points.

This is made possible by the new NAND type being used and is why buyers interested in their first Solid State Drive can spend only $130 (USD) and get a half terabyte solid state drive that promises to not suck all the enthusiasm out of their conversion. Conversely people with a bit more money to spend and are interested in higher throughput can get a better performing drive that tips the scales at over one terabyte of space… and yet only costs $260 (USD). That is one hell of a goal and one big ass promise and yet it appears that Crucial has been able to do just that.

On the surface both of these models offer the same three-year warranty, the same 'maximum' performance, and both have excellent Total Drive Write specifications of 160TB for the 525GB and 360TB for the 1050GB model. This is possible due to the same Drive Write Acceleration algorithms that made Crucial’s smaller MX200 models so potent – and such a great value. There are however a few caveats to this and DWA is not a magic bullet. As we show in this review there <i>is</i> a difference in real world performance. That is why the 525GB is focused more towards first time users, and the large 1050GB is able to satiate the demands of more demanding segments.

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Externally both drives are the same and no corners have been cut. Both use a full metal enclosure that has a 7mm z-height form-factor and thus can be used in a laptop, desktop, or even an UltraBook. In other words, the 525GB does not look like a 'cheap' drive, nor does the 1050GB look like a compromise in order to offer such good performance, great capacity at such a low price of 25cents per GB!

<div align="center"><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/akg/Storage/MX300_525_1050/board1_sm.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></div>

Instead of getting fancy and trying to mess with the NAND IC density Crucial has made the wise decision of simply using either more (1050GB) or less (525GB) of these ICs to reach a given capacity. To be precise the 525GB has exactly half the number of ICs as the 1050GB. This is slightly different NAND than the 750GB which is due to the 750GB being an early run limited edition.

Also if you take a close look at the NAND IC's there is actually two different capacities used ('h' and 'g'). Specifically, the 525GB has one 'G' IC and three 'H' ICs, whereas the 1050 has six 'H' and two 'G' ICs. This does explain why the 1050 has the same number of ICs as the 750GB but 40% more capacity and better NAND interleaving. However, all models use the same Marvell controller. Crucial has simply made the PCB short, or longer, as needed.

By streamlining the production process the overhead for the new MX300 series has been reduced and this too is a major reason behind how Crucial was able to release a half Terabyte model for only $130 and a Terabyte for only $250.

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<img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/akg/Storage/MX300_525_1050/board2_sm.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></div>

Interestingly enough Crucial has felt that the 525GB also only needs half the amount of RAM cache, and while this may impact overall performance it should only be noticeable in deep queue depths. Just as with the 750GB L.E., both of these new models have copious amounts of onboard capacitors to provide one of the best power loss data protection setups available outside of business orientated models. Of course the 525GB has fewer, but it needs fewer to ensure data security even in a worst case scenario.

 

[SKYMTL]

Introducing IMFT's 3D NAND

Introducing IMFT's 3D NAND

In the past 2D or 'planar' NAND was laid down in layers. Each layer was one cell 'high' which consists of the actual storage substrate and a 'bottom' controller substrate. In the case of MLC NAND this meant each layer was 2-bits of data high, and with TLC it is 3bits of data high - and how many rows of cells wide the die package was. Since making the actual footprint of the chip larger wasn’t efficient, manufacturers had only two options when increasing densities: utilize a finer-grain manufacturing process or stack these two dimensional layers upon each other to increase the overall density of each NAND IC.

Both of these solutions aren’t without their own potential challenges and switching up the manufacturing process was -at best- a stopgap measure. Every node shrink made the NAND transistors more fragile, and each layer added made cooling the NAND cells more and more difficult. As such combining the two has long been considered a dead-end design route that was quickly becoming harder and harder to improve upon.

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3D NAND on the other hand is not laid down in separate layers like carpet, and rather is built upon a three dimensional cube-like structure. How each NAND manufacturer goes about the actual design differs, but IMFT does things in a very interesting way. Instead of opting for a radical new manufacturing process they have taken the best parts of planar NAND and applied it to their first generation 3D NAND design. The end result is 3D NAND that looks somewhat like an apartment building.

Much like an apartment building, there are individual cells laid out in a grid pattern throughout the chip’s length and width as well as above and below. To command and control each cell there are hallways (horizontal pathways) and elevators (vertical pathways) built in between the cells that connect not only the cells but also join up to the CMOS control circuits.

These pathways not only allow for command and control but also enhance cooling so that the cells packed in at the chip’s center of the chip don’t have heat limitations like they would in a 2D NAND chip of such massive heights. To further help keep temperatures in check this 'apartment' has a metal 'roof' with integrated cooling fins. This built-in cooling feature does actually decrease the density per 'floor’. However, any capacity reduction is a minor concern since instead of including a main controller substrate at each floor of this 32 story high-rise apartment building (that would be required in 32 layer planar NAND die package) Micron has only needed to include one at the base of the 'building'.

In theory there really is no limit to how high this building-type structure can get, but 32 seems to be the point where things get tricky from both a latency and heat standpoint. As such we fully expect 'higher' IMFT 3D NAND chips to require either a new underlying design or new engineering feats before being ready for primetime.

Limiting to only 32 layers for this first generation does however represent a very nice increase in data densities. When combined with TLC (rather than MLC) storage transistors, a single 3D NAND 'layer' can theoretically pack in 384Gbits of data – or 48 Gigabytes. For reference purposes, remember that IMFT's planar NAND maxed out at 128Gbit, though once again that was MLC and not TLC.

To further boost total capacity per 'chip' 3D NAND has another ace up its sleeve in the form of layering. As with 2D planar NAND Crucial has been able to just use <i>two</i> layers of 3D NAND per package to create the necessary 96GB die package required for the MX300 LE 750GB. It is this combination of 3D design with layering that will allow future Crucial solid state drives to hit multi-Terabyte levels without requiring a massive PCB or complicated controller. This will be of special interest to M.2 enthusiasts as the lack of room for more than four NAND die packages ('ICs') on a M.2 2280's PCB was one the main bottlenecks to that form-factor's acceptance with mainstream consumers.

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In the meantime, 750GB drives may not sound like such a massive leap over the densest planar NAND designs, but reliability and performance are paramount with this new generation rather than just increased data densities. To help alleviate reliability concerns IMFT hasn’t radically changed the underlying NAND transistor storage technology like Samsung has. Instead of opting for the technically superior Charge Trap design they have carried over the proven Floating Gate transistor of previous planar designs. This not only makes manufacturing less costly with more consistent output, but it also removes one more variable from the equation when coding the controller firmware.

As an added bonus it also grants the firmware team the luxury of carrying over many of their previous works to this new generation without too much tweaking. This means Drive Write Acceleration, wear-leveling algorithms, and the like do not have to be radically altered just because the underlying NAND layout has been changed. As time passes more tweaking will obviously occur, but even launch day firmware will be fairly adept at handling the new NAND. It also means that tracking down issues and fixing them is a much more straightforward affair without the learning curve associated with a major transistor change – that may or may not perform in exactly the same manner as floating gates do.

This is why when a rather large performance bug was discovered late in the product testing cycle it only pushed the MX300’s release back from early Q2 to late Q2 release. In this short time span Crucial not only diagnosed and fixed the issue but also had the <i>luxury</i> of a full quality control / quality assurance testing cycle before launching this series series. Compare and contrast that with when TLC first came out and the issues that plagued Samsung's Evo line (that were never entirely fixed in the Evo 840) and there is a lot to be said for taking the conservative approach when transitioning from Floating Gate to Trap Charge transistor storage.

Regardless of opinions on which is the more optimal approach, there is no denying the fact that even though Crucial has not only gone from tried and true MLC to TLC but also from 2D to 3D NAND, that they have been able to keep the durability of the NAND extremely high. This increased durability is of course mainly due to Drive Write Acceleration and its ability to 'transform' TLC into quasi-SLC NAND but does point to toward the 3D NAND being not as fragile as what usually accompanies a new generation of NAND.

 

[SKYMTL]

Testing Methodology

Testing Methodology

Testing a drive is not as simple as putting together a bunch of files, dragging them onto folder on the drive in Windows and using a stopwatch to time how long the transfer takes. Rather, there are factors such as read / write speed and data burst speed to take into account. There is also the SATA controller on your motherboard and how well it works with SSDs & HDDs to think about as well. For best results you really need a dedicated hardware RAID controller w/ dedicated RAM for drives to shine. Unfortunately, most people do not have the time, inclination or monetary funds to do this. For this reason our test-bed will be a more standard motherboard with no mods or high end gear added to it. This is to help replicate what you the end user’s experience will be like.

Even when the hardware issues are taken care of the software itself will have a negative or positive impact on the results. As with the hardware end of things, to obtain the absolute best results you do need to tweak your OS setup; however, just like with the hardware solution most people are not going to do this. For this reason our standard OS setup is used. However, except for the Windows 7 load test times we have done our best to eliminate this issue by having the drive tested as a secondary drive. With the main drive being an Intel DC S3700 800GB Solid State Drive.

For synthetic tests we used a combination of the ATTO Disk Benchmark, HDTach, HD Tune, Crystal Disk Benchmark, IOMeter, AS-SSD, Anvil Storage Utilities and PCMark 7.

For real world benchmarks we timed how long a single 10GB rar file took to copy to and then from the devices. We also used 10gb of small files (from 100kb to 200MB) with a total 12,000 files in 400 subfolders.

For all testing a Asus Sabretooth TUF X99 LGA 2011-v3 motherboard was used, running Windows 7 64bit Ultimate edition. All drives were tested using either AHCI mode using Intel RST 10 drivers, or NVMHCI using Intel NVMe drivers.

All tests were run 4 times and average results are represented.

In between each test suite runs (with the exception being IOMeter which was done after every run) the drives are cleaned with either HDDerase, SaniErase or a manufactures 'Toolbox' and then quick formatted to make sure that they were in optimum condition for the next test suite.

Processor: Core i7 5930K
Motherboard: Asus Sabretooth TUF X99
Memory: 32GB Crucial Ballistix Elite DDR4-2666
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780
Hard Drive: Intel DC S3700 800GB, Intel P3700 800GB
Power Supply: XFX 850

SSD FIRMWARE (unless otherwise noted):

OCZ Vertex 2 100GB: 1.33
Vertex 460 240GB: 1.0
Intel 7230 240GB: L2010400
AMD R7 240GB: 1.0
Crucial MX200: MU01
Intel 750: 8EV10135
Kingston HyperX Predator 480GB: 0C34L5TA
OCZ Trion 480GB & 960GB: SAFM11.1
AData XPG SX930 240GB : 5.9E
AData SP550 240GB: O0730A
PNY CS2211: CS221016
PNY CS1311: CS131122
ZOTAC Premium Edition: SAFM01.6
Apacer AS720: PLD1130
Apacer AS330: AP121PD0
Crucial MX300 series: M0CR011


Toshiba TC58 controller:
OCZ Trion 480GB & 960GB - Custom firmware w/ 19nm Toggle Mode TLC NAND

Samsung MDX controller:
Samsung 840 Pro 256GB- Custom firmware w/ 21nm Toggle Mode NAND

SandForce SF1200 controller:
OCZ Vertex 2 - ONFi 2 NAND

Marvell 9183 controller:
Plextor M6e 256GB- Custom firmware w/ 21nm Toggle Mode NAND

Marvell 1074 controller:
Crucial MX300 - Custom firmware w/ IMFT 384Gbit TLC 3D NAND

Marvell 9293 controller:
Kingston HyperX Predator - Custom firmware w/ 19nm Toggle Mode NAND

Intel X25 G3 controller:
Intel 730 - Custom firmware w/ ONFi 2 NAND

Intel NVMe G1 Controller:
Intel 750 - Customer firmware w/ MLC 20nm NAND

Phison PS3110 Controller:
Kingston HyperX Savage 240GB - 19nm Toggle Mode NAND
PNY CS2211: 15nm Toggle Mode NAND
PNY CS1311: 19nm TLC NAND
ZOTAC Premium Edition: 19nm MLC
Apacer AS330 - TLC NAND

JMicron JMF670H Controller:
AData XPG SX930 240GB - 128Gbit MLC NAND
Apacer AS720 - 128Gbit MLC NAND

SMI SM2256 Controller:
AData SP550 240GB - TLC NAND

Special Thanks to Crucial for providing the memory for this testbed.

 

[SKYMTL]

Read Bandwidth / Write Performance

Read Bandwidth

<i>For this benchmark, HDTach was used. It shows the potential read speed which you are likely to experience with these hard drives. The long test was run to give a slightly more accurate picture. We don’t put much stock in Burst speed readings and thus we no longer included it. The most important number is the Average Speed number. This number will tell you what to expect from a given drive in normal, day to day operations. The higher the average the faster your entire system will seem.</i>

<div align="center"><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/akg/Storage/MX300_525_1050/read.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></div>

Write Performance

<i>For this benchmark HD Tune Pro was used. To run the write benchmark on a drive, you must first remove all partitions from that drive and then and only then will it allow you to run this test. Unlike some other benchmarking utilities the HD Tune Pro writes across the full area of the drive, thus it easily shows any weakness a drive may have.</i>

<div align="center"><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/akg/Storage/MX300_525_1050/write.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></div>

Based upon the Limited Edition model we knew what to expect with this new generation MX drive and its Drive Write Acceleration. That is to say that there is a limited amount used for it and when this is exhausted overall write performance does suffer.

As you can see by the different average write performance results, the 525GB has the smallest amount for DWA while the 1050GB has more. As such if you plan on doing a lot of intensive write scenarios – in the multi, multi-Terabyte range – without any breaks then the 1050GB would be the optimal choice. For everyone else the DWA allocation is more than adequate. Put another way the 525GB model acts more like a mainstream drive than the budget/entry level model it is priced like. Brilliant stuff!

 

[SKYMTL]

ATTO Disk Benchmark

ATTO Disk Benchmark

<i>The ATTO disk benchmark tests the drives read and write speeds using gradually larger size files. For these tests, the ATTO program was set to run from its smallest to largest value (.5KB to 8192KB) and the total length was set to 256MB. The test program then spits out an extrapolated performance figure in megabytes per second. </i>

<div align="center"><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/akg/Storage/MX300_525_1050/atto_r.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></div>
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Due to Drive Write Acceleration the 525GB version is actually able to keep up with its larger brethren in write scenarios, but this really is a best case scenario and we would put very little faith in these results. Rather we consider it to be an interesting anomaly… but one that will seldom been seen in real world scenarios. The same holds true of the virtual dead heat on the read side of the equation.

 

[SKYMTL]

Crystal DiskMark / PCMark 7

Crystal DiskMark

<i>Crystal DiskMark is designed to quickly test the performance of your drives. Currently, the program allows to measure sequential and random read/write speeds; and allows you to set the number of tests iterations to run. We left the number of tests at 5 and size at 100MB. </i>

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PCMark 7

<i>While there are numerous suites of tests that make up PCMark 7, only one is pertinent: the HDD Suite. The HDD Suite consists of numerous tests that try and replicate real world drive usage. Everything from how long a simulated virus scan takes to complete, to MS Vista start up time to game load time is tested in these core tests; however, we do not consider this anything other than just another suite of synthetic tests. For this reason, while each test is scored individually we have opted to include only the overall score.</i>

<div align="center"><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/akg/Storage/MX300_525_1050/pcm.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></div>

I was expecting to see the 525GB model perform worse than the 1050GB – Drive Write Acceleration or no – but what I wasn't expecting to see is the 525GB be such a fine entry level drive. This model really is in a different class than the BX200's of the marketplace. By that same token the MX300 1050GB model is no slouch either and is shaping up to be the true spiritual successor to the MX200 series… and that price… wow!

 

[SKYMTL]

AS-SSD / Anvil Storage Utilities Pro

AS-SSD

<i>AS-SSD is designed to quickly test the performance of your drives. Currently, the program allows to measure sequential and small 4K read/write speeds as well as 4K file speed at a queue depth of 6. While its primary goal is to accurately test Solid State Drives, it does equally well on all storage mediums it just takes longer to run each test as each test reads or writes 1GB of data.</i>

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<img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/akg/Storage/MX300_525_1050/asd_r.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></div>
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<img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/akg/Storage/MX300_525_1050/asd_w.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></div>

Anvil Storage Utilities Pro

<i>Much like AS-SSD, Anvil Pro was created to quickly and easily – yet accurately – test your drives. While it is still in the Beta stages it is a versatile and powerful little program. Currently it can test numerous read / write scenarios but two in particular stand out for us: 4K queue depth of 4 and 4K queue depth of 16. A queue depth of four along with 4K sectors can be equated to what most users will experience in an OS scenario while 16 depth will be encountered only by power users and the like. We have also included the 4k queue depth 1 results to help put these two other numbers in their proper perspective. All settings were left in their default states and the test size was set to 1GB.</i>

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<img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/akg/Storage/MX300_525_1050/anvil_w.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></div>

As you can see the reduction in NAND interleaving does have a direct impact on overall performance. Unlike the 750GB LE model we are perfectly fine with this as the 1050GB is a darn decent performer for the mainstream consumer and for budget consumers the 525GB will prove to be one heck of an upgrade…. assuming these synthetic performance results translate to real world performance.

 

[SKYMTL]

IOMeter

IOMETER

<i>IOMeter is heavily weighted towards the server end of things, and since we here at HWC are more End User centric we will be setting and judging the results of IOMeter a little bit differently than most. To test each drive we ran 5 test runs per HDD (1,4,16,64,128 queue depth) each test having 8 parts, each part lasting 10 min w/ an additional 20 second ramp up. The 8 subparts were set to run 100% random, 80% read 20% write; testing 512b, 1k, 2k,4k,8k,16k,32k,64k size chunks of data. When each test is finished IOMeter spits out a report, in that reports each of the 8 subtests are given a score in I/Os per second. We then take these 8 numbers add them together and divide by 8. This gives us an average score for that particular queue depth that is heavily weighted for single user environments.</i>

<div align="center"><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/akg/Storage/MX300_525_1050/iom.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></div>

These results are not all that unexpected and not that disappointing. This is because we <i>expect</i> a sub 150-dollar drive to not be able to perform as well as a $225 model. Of course neither the 525GB nor the 1050GB models are optimal choices for workstation users but we certainly would feel a lot more comfortable using the 1050 rather than the 750GB model.

 

[SKYMTL]

Windows 8 / Adobe CS5 Load Time

Windows 8.1 Start Up w/ Boot Time A/V Scan Performance

<i>When it comes to hard drive performance there is one area that even the most oblivious user notices: how long it takes to load the Operating System. We have chosen Windows 8.1 64bit Pro as our Operating System with all 'fast boot' options disabled in the BIOS. In previous load time tests we would use the Anti-Virus splash screen as our finish line; this however is no longer the case. We have not only added in a secondary Anti-Virus to load on startup, but also an anti-malware program. We have set Super Anti-Spyware to initiate a quick scan on Windows start-up and the completion of the quick scan will be our new finish line. </i>

<div align="center"><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/akg/Storage/MX300_525_1050/boot.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></div>

Adobe CS5 Load Time

<i>Photoshop is a notoriously slow loading program under the best of circumstances, and while the latest version is actually pretty decent, when you add in a bunch of extra brushes and the such you get a really great torture test which can bring even the best of the best to their knees. Let’s see how our review unit fared in the newly updated Adobe crucible! </i>

<div align="center"><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/akg/Storage/MX300_525_1050/adobe.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></div>

Once again the two new MX300 models are showing very distinctive abilities and seem near tailor made for their perspective groups of buyers. This to us is how things should be, as instead of trying to be all things to all people – like the 750GB LE tried and failed at- these two models are focused on the right segments for their respective abilities.

 

[SKYMTL]

Firefox Performance / Real World Data Transfers

Firefox Portable Offline Performance

<i>Firefox is notorious for being slow on loading tabs in offline mode once the number of pages to be opened grows larger than a dozen or so. We can think of fewer worse case scenarios than having 100 tabs set to reload in offline mode upon Firefox startup, but this is exactly what we have done here.

By having 100 pages open in Firefox portable, setting Firefox to reload the last session upon next session start and then setting it to offline mode, we are able to easily recreate a worst case scenario. Since we are using Firefox portable all files are easily positioned in one location, making it simple to repeat the test as necessary. In order to ensure repetition, before touching the Firefox portable files, we have backed them up into a .rar file and only extracted a copy of it to the test device.</i>

<div align="center"><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/akg/Storage/MX300_525_1050/ff.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></div>

Real World Data Transfers

<i>No matter how good a synthetic benchmark like IOMeter or PCMark is, it cannot really tell you how your hard drive will perform in “real world” situations. All of us here at Hardware Canucks strive to give you the best, most complete picture of a review item’s true capabilities and to this end we will be running timed data transfers to give you a general idea of how its performance relates to real life use. To help replicate worse case scenarios we will transfer a 10.00GB contiguous file and a folder containing 400 subfolders with a total 12,000 files varying in length from 200mb to 100kb (10.00 GB total).

Testing will include transfer to and transferring from the devices, using MS RichCopy and logging the performance of the drive. Here is what we found. </i>

<div align="center"><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/akg/Storage/MX300_525_1050/copy_sm.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/akg/Storage/MX300_525_1050/copy_lg.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></div>

As expected the 525GB does lag behind both the 750GB and 1050GB models, and the 1050GB is slightly better than the 750GB. However, all of these differences are by seriously infinitesimal margins. At this point there is nothing new to learn from these types of tests. Basically the 1050GB is the best MX300 model released to date, and the 525GB is a nice upgrade from older SSDs.