Crucial MX200 1TB SSD Review

[Guest]

Crucial's new MX200 doubles the available capacity of the previous model and brings new form factors to the MX family.

Crucial MX200 1TB SSD Review : Read more

 

[Nuckles_56]

I'm quite impressed by this drive, I'd have to say that crucial pulled the rabbit out of the hat this time

 

[Soul_keeper]

I appreciated the critical honesty in this review.
The conclusion pretty much sums it up.

 

[twztechman]

I came to the same conclusion about a month ago and got a 1T Samsung EVO for $370. I have to admit some confusion over the Crucial Line of drives as I was considering a purchase. In my mind, the biggest competitor is/was the Mushkin Enhanced Reactor 1T which got a good review and a recommendation over at Anandtech back in February. Those drives are frequently on sale for $339 which makes them a really good value with good performance.

I will say my old Cruical M4 256 has been a rock solid drive and is being re-purposed as a boot drive in one of my secondary systems.

 

[ubercake]

I would say Crucial is going to stress reliability over all-out speed. They usually put out a high-quality reliable product. Most people appreciate this when it comes to storage. On the other hand, the warranty could be longer. 3-year warranties are not very competitive when it comes to the most reliable drives. I personally don't consider SSDs with less than a 5-year warranty in my systems.

 

[FritzEiv]

Internet Explorer is presently (early Thur morning 4/30/15) inducing an occasional crash on this article (or perhaps the other way around; a debate for another day). We're looking into the issue and hope to have it resolved shortly. Apologies.

Fritz Nelson, Editor-in-chief

 

[logainofhades]

Wouldn't mind having this drive, for my laptop. Only reason I would consider a 1tb is in my laptop. 500gb would be plenty for my desktops, as I have plenty of HDD storage.

 

[alidan]

I would say Crucial is going to stress reliability over all-out speed. They usually put out a high-quality reliable product. Most people appreciate this when it comes to storage. On the other hand, the warranty could be longer. 3-year warranties are not very competitive when it comes to the most reliable drives. I personally don't consider SSDs with less than a 5-year warranty in my systems.

in a perfect world i would be swapping drives out after a year or so and keeping the old drive as a backup, with ssd, i think this would be the best way to go.

 

[mapesdhs]

I can't help but feel that when it comes to pricing, manufacturers
are holding back. What are they waiting for? Just ditch the
pointless entry level 64GB models, move on already. Annoys me
when I see a 128GB priced at X, with the 64GB version at
something like 85% of X, because... reasons!

Given the shifting demands of users as video moves to HD and
beyond, games take up ever more space, people storing lots
of stuff from their phones, music, etc., surely it's time the
industry went sideways and set 250GB/256GB as a new
baseline (then maybe it'll feel like it's 2015 in at least one
respect; where's the jetpack I was promised as a kid?
I guess they won't though because as long as people are still
buying the lower capacity models, presumably there's money
to be made. Just wish one of them would break ranks and go
for it, then the others would follow. IMO if a midrange 256GB
goes below a certain price point, sales will skyrocket, more
than making up via volume for the lower price (a bit like the
way hardback books have a price above which most people
won't buy them).

Interesting btw, here (UK) at 250GB, the 850 EVO is exactly
the same price as the MX200.

Ian.

PS. Chris, one of the article subheaders is wrong, ie. where it
says, "A Closer Look at the MX100 1TB" - presumably that
should be 'MX200'.

 

[CRamseyer]

Thanks Ian, we fixed that one earlier today.

In response to your statement. You might have noticed we don't list 128GB models in the Best of Monthly anymore. I don't plan on reviewing any 128GB models either.

When we move to 256Gbit die the entry point will be 512GB and the 256GB drives will fall off. The 128GB drives till have a place in the market right now for business users and Facetwit Surfers but that group rarely reads performance reviews when shopping for a commodity product.

 

[mapesdhs]

In response to your statement. You might have noticed we don't list 128GB models in the Best of Monthly anymore. I don't plan on reviewing any 128GB models either.

Very wise. I know some have moaned, but it's for the best. As long as
consumers keep buying lesser capacities, manufacturers will stall the
advancement of newer tech if they think they can keep making more
money from older entry products.

When we move to 256Gbit die the entry point will be 512GB and the 256GB drives will fall off. ...

Hooray!! It would be great if everything could shift to 512GB minimum,
but I can't see that happening this year. Too many are still happy to
buy 256GB units. I'm looking for a 512GB atm, but what feels to me
to be an 'acceptable' price isn't even enough for an Arc. I'm building a
PC for someone soon, a typical pro user who isn't that bothered about
the tech nerdyness of it all and doesn't know what stuff costs now.
Their immediate feeling of a sensible boot drive capacity was 512GB,
which is hardly surprising given they've been using an old Dell 650 with
a 300GB SCSI disk for some time. Despite the speed, I'm sure a
256GB SSD would feel too much like a downgrade.

I had a look at Scan's 3XS pro-user systems recently, was surprised
at how many of the top-end models (costing high thousands) only
have 256GB SSDs. Surely not enough these days, though at least
they were mostly using Samsung EVO/Pro models.

Seems like in so many areas of tech now, it's all just gradual
percentage increases year after year. Nobody does anything to break
the mould. So much for all the big research headlines in the last 20
years promising huge breakthroughs in storage, etc. Sums up the
mediocre CPU speedups we've had since SB, similar MO. I get Intel
not forging ahead, no competition, they don't have to, but one would
think with SSDs there'd be scope for at least one maker to really
hurl the cat among the pidgeons somehow. Insert a CinemaSins
Jeremy-style *sigh*. :}

... Facetwit Surfers ...

That made me laugh.

I use 128s for system testing, but that's all. After installing the
benchmarks I use, a 128 is basically full, especially if it's in a
system that has a lot of RAM (bigger paging file) or a 'pro' build
(Viewperf12 uses so much space). Indeed, for a system with
64GB RAM, a 128 is perfect as a dedicated paging file device.

Ian.

 

[Techn0Smile]

The 1TB is worth more than my graphics card...

 

[A_J_S_B]

I think articlwe writter forgot to give importance in the conclusions to the power failure feature of MX200....IIRC, MX100 and BX100 don't have it or are VERY limited w/o capacity to save data in-flight.

This is a must have for me.

 

[mapesdhs]

Personally I think it's high time site reviewers started prodding SSD makers to include full PLP in all SSDs, not just the odd one or two. It's bizarre that models like the M500 and M550 have it, yet supposedly 'high-end' consumer models like the Samsung Pro editions do not.

Ian.

 

[CRamseyer]

None of the Crucial M/MX drive had real in flight PLP. I tested all of those drives as well as the OCZ Vector with Ulink's DriveMaster software and they all failed the accepted industry wide standard test. Off the top of my head I think it was created by JEDEC but don't quote me on that. I don't run the test very often because so few products give us reason to do so.

Full PDP is an enterprise feature that is rarely seen on client drives. From memory, the only full PDP client drive I remember testing was a Corerise SF-2291 when a few companies used CapXX. The CapXX setup had a few downsides. The capacitors would lose charging capacity within 2 years if memory serves me right. They also didn't like high temperatures.

I take that back, I think the Intel SSD 730 (client version of the DC S3500) had full PDP. I'd have to look at the DriveMaster 2012 results again to verify.

 

[mapesdhs]

You've missed my point, this PLP concept should not be just an Enterprise feature, not anymore. It should be standard on all SSDs, period. I'm tired of what ought to be essential features being treated like luxury ideas and costed accordingly.

Also, are you talking about the Vector or the newer Vector 180? The old Vector of course doesn't have any PLP (never had any problems with mine though, despite quite a few sudden power-offs while testing stuff), while the Vector 180 quite openly only has a partial mechanism. The M550 is supposed to have decent PLP, did it fail the test too? I wouldn't touch the MX models though.

Ian.

 

[unityole]

nice write up man, SSD still pretty competitive performance still keep climbing although really no where else to push for SATA format. when will we see a 4k read pass 100MB/s and write passes 250 1 drive