Crucial MX200 (250GB, 500GB & 1TB) SSD Review
by Kristian Vättö on May 22, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
- SSDs
- Crucial
- MX200
- Micron 16nm
Mixed Random Read/Write Performance
For full details of how we conduct our Iometer tests, please refer to this article.
Mixed random performance is great and received a nice upgrade from the MX100. The 250GB version doesn't do that well, but note that our mixed testing is conducted on a full drive, so the SLC cache can't do its magic.
Power consumption is relatively low given the performance, resulting in good efficiency.
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The performance of the 250GB SKU drops as more writes are thrown into the mix. That's not surprising given that the drive is full, so the drive needs to transfer data from SLC to MLC inflight, which reduces overall performance. The higher capacities without the SLC cache perform very well, though, and the performance scales nicely as the portion of writes increases.
Mixed Sequential Read/Write Performance
Mixed sequential performance isn't as good, but is still pretty decent when excluding the 250GB MX200.
Power consumption is average too.
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Again, as the drive is full, the 250GB just slows down with more write IOs. The higher capacities actually have a fairly even curve that isn't similar to the full-fledged bathtub curve that many drives have. It looks like Crucial has made an effort to improve mixed performance, which is always great news because it's an area where most drives are quite bad at.
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busky2k - Friday, May 22, 2015 - link
Thanks for the honest review. Its a shame the MX200 doesn't excel like its brethren.romrunning - Friday, May 22, 2015 - link
Agreed. That's why I appreciate seeing independent tests of manufacturers' claims. Crucial/Micron just showed me why I'll still buy Samsung over their drives. It's a shame; I used to recommend the MX100 as the best value drive. Now it's the 850 EVO all the way for value drives.sabot00 - Friday, May 22, 2015 - link
I feel the BX100 at the very least deserves consideration. The 850 Evo is not a blanket recommendation, especially for laptops where power consumption is important. The BX100 is probably the best mix of price / performance / power right now.Stoatie - Friday, February 12, 2016 - link
Then what you really want to look at is energy use for a given IO task. Consider the 512GB EVO and BX:EVO: ~350MB/s @ 1.6W. = 218.75 MB/J =
BX100: 300MB/s @ 1.4W = 200 MB/J
For a given task the EVO will finish faster and do it with less total energy use.
leexgx - Tuesday, May 24, 2016 - link
but overall BX100 uses less power (i norm aim to buy BX100 for laptops unless SED drive is required then its norm intel 1000 or 2000 drive)Samus - Friday, May 22, 2015 - link
Considering the price of the M500's (960GB model <$300) I still use those almost exclusively unless the MX\BX100's happen to be cheaper. Been very happy with Crucial drives since the C300, very few issues and decent performance for the price. Support is now excellent with their "storage executive" software making firmware updates relatively painless.emn13 - Friday, May 22, 2015 - link
Given the fact that most workloads won't cause noticable differences between high end and low end drives, the price, and the power loss protection mean that the ancient m500 is probably a better choice both featurewise and pricewise than its newer, faster competitors for most PCs.leexgx - Saturday, May 23, 2015 - link
Don't like the idea of DWA drives twice the amount of writes and silly more power draw (the bx100 is a good way on power just lacks FDE witch is unfortunate) mx200 is not on my list of drives to getedlee - Friday, May 22, 2015 - link
i am not sure why crucial stopped producing m550, it performs better than mx100 and mx200 series, and was true successor to the legendary m4 driveDanNeely - Friday, May 22, 2015 - link
Are the flash chips and controller it uses still available? If either has been discontinued they wouldn't have a choice. Even if the flash was available, but just significantly more expensive; keeping a competitive price would likely force their hand.