Crucial MX100 (256GB & 512GB) Review
by Kristian Vättö on June 2, 2014 3:00 PM ESTAnandTech Storage Bench 2011
Back in 2011 (which seems like so long ago now!), we introduced our AnandTech Storage Bench, a suite of benchmarks that took traces of real OS/application usage and played them back in a repeatable manner. The MOASB, officially called AnandTech Storage Bench 2011 - Heavy Workload, mainly focuses on peak IO performance and basic garbage collection routines. There is a lot of downloading and application installing that happens during the course of this test. Our thinking was that it's during application installs, file copies, downloading and multitasking with all of this that you can really notice performance differences between drives. The full description of the Heavy test can be found here, while the Light workload details are here.
In our Heavy workload trace, the story changes. Now the 256GB M550 is faster than the 256GB MX100 but the 512GB MX100 still leads the Crucial pack. I'm thinking that the 256GB M550 is more optimized for non-steady-state operation as that's more common for client workloads, which would explain why it performs poorly in the 2013 bench but is better in the 2011 Heavy test. What's surprising is that the 256GB MX100 is much faster than the 256GB SP920 despite that fact that the only difference between them should be the NAND lithography. Maybe Micron/Crucial didn't give ADATA the highest performing firmware after all.
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s44 - Tuesday, June 3, 2014 - link
Space will be the same, they're just advertised differently. But the Crucial idles at much lower power than the Seagate, so I'd consider switching to save battery life.tobho - Tuesday, June 3, 2014 - link
Some serious question over here: is this drive a real competitor to the Sammys Evo or even Pro SSDs? I was planning on buying the 256Pro but the Crucial seems to perform better in a lot of tasks. I cannot really differentiate much but the price: 256Pro = 512MX100hojnikb - Tuesday, June 3, 2014 - link
Just get MX100. For the price, its a steal..rvb3n - Tuesday, June 3, 2014 - link
Hi, can someone give me a suggestion for a pro SSD for a laptop with about 500 GB? Is the Samsung 840 Pro still the king (price/performance)?blackrain - Tuesday, June 3, 2014 - link
Looking forward to the Bench being updated with the Crucial MX100 line:http://www.anandtech.com/bench/SSD/65
blackrain - Tuesday, June 3, 2014 - link
I wonder how my Samsung 830 128GB compares to the MX100 128GB? Again, looking forward to the Bench being updated with the MX100 line.Kristian Vättö - Wednesday, June 4, 2014 - link
They were there, but just hidden so we wouldn't break NDA. Should be visible now :)rahuldesai1987 - Tuesday, June 3, 2014 - link
A 256Gbit die should enable a $300 1TB and $600 2TB drive, 6 months down the line. Hope we see a TLC Samsung 850EVO soon, at even cheaper prices.sequoia464 - Tuesday, June 3, 2014 - link
Killer prices on these already,, picked up a 256 GB drive this morning for ~$90 delivered.Oyster - Tuesday, June 3, 2014 - link
For those that are interested, looks like these are on a fire sale.512GB $200, 256GB $100, 128GB $70 AC
http://slickdeals.net/f/6972254-crucial-mx100-soli...