Crucial MX300 275GB Quad Raid 0

Crucial MX300 275GB - Introduction In the recent past we have put almost the entire Crucial MX300 series under the microscope and have walked away very impressed with the versatility of this series. The only criticism of the reviews to date is that they have focused in on the more expensive, higher capacity versions. In some instances this drives are price well outside the range of the average consumers budget. This is to be expected as no company wants anything other than their very best reviewed. This however is an oversight that we were well aware of and today are going to correct. To be precise, we are going to put the 'small' 275GB version of the Crucial MX300 under the microscope. As the name suggests this MX300 offers consumers a very decent 275Gigabytes of storage capacity, and since the entire MX300 series costs a mere twenty-five cents per GB it costs under $69. As such this version is easily one of the most in demand MX300 as it is within the realm of reasonable for even the most budget constrained builds…. and yet still offers all the cutting-edge features of its bigger brothers. The same 667MT/s '3D' TLC NAND, the same controller, even the same warranty. All that has been 'right sized' is the NAND amount, the amount of onboard RAM cache, and the Total Drive Write specification – which is still very good at 80 Terabytes! This of course does beg the question on value. Specifically where the entire lineup costs the same per Gigabyte does it make more sense to opt for more smaller capacity versions vs one larger MX300. That to we are going to answer today as we have sourced out not one, not two, but four of these wee beasties and we are going to show what a Raid 0 550GB array and a 1.1TB Raid 0 array can do. That way you can really get a good feel for what size MX300 is 'best' for you and your needs. In all likelihood it will come down to ease of installation and use versus shear performance…. as one SSD is easier to work with whereas having up to four times the controllers churning through your systems I/O demands should be one potent storage setup. So without further ado let's see what makes the MX300 275GB tick and what tricks it has up its sleeve. Crucial MX300 275GB - Specifications and Features <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-6261 lazy-loaded" src="https://realhardwarereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spec1-1.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 730px) 100vw, 730px" srcset="https://realhardwarereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spec1-1.jpg 730w, https://realhardwarereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spec1-1-300x177.jpg 300w, https://realhardwarereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spec1-1-50x30.jpg 50w, https://realhardwarereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spec1-1-300x177@2x.jpg 600w, https://realhardwarereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spec1-1-50x30@2x.jpg 100w" alt="spec1-1" data-lazy-type="image" data-src="https://realhardwarereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spec1-1.jpg" data-srcset="" /> <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-6260 lazy-loaded" src="https://realhardwarereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spec2-1.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 730px) 100vw, 730px" srcset="https://realhardwarereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spec2-1.jpg 730w, https://realhardwarereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spec2-1-300x197.jpg 300w, https://realhardwarereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spec2-1-50x33.jpg 50w, https://realhardwarereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spec2-1-300x197@2x.jpg 600w, https://realhardwarereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spec2-1-50x33@2x.jpg 100w" alt="spec2-1" data-lazy-type="image" data-src="https://realhardwarereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spec2-1.jpg" data-srcset="" /> <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-6262 lazy-loaded" src="https://realhardwarereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spec3-1.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 730px) 100vw, 730px" srcset="https://realhardwarereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spec3-1.jpg 730w, https://realhardwarereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spec3-1-300x170.jpg 300w, https://realhardwarereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spec3-1-620x350.jpg 620w, https://realhardwarereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spec3-1-50x28.jpg 50w, https://realhardwarereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spec3-1-300x170@2x.jpg 600w, https://realhardwarereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spec3-1-50x28@2x.jpg 100w" alt="spec3-1" data-lazy-type="image" data-src="https://realhardwarereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spec3-1.jpg" data-srcset="" /> <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-6259 lazy-loaded" src="https://realhardwarereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spec4-1.jpg" sizes="(max-width: 730px) 100vw, 730px" srcset="https://realhardwarereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spec4-1.jpg 730w, https://realhardwarereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spec4-1-300x242.jpg 300w, https://realhardwarereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spec4-1-50x40.jpg 50w, https://realhardwarereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spec4-1-300x242@2x.jpg 600w, https://realhardwarereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spec4-1-50x40@2x.jpg 100w" alt="spec4-1" data-lazy-type="image" data-src="https://realhardwarereviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spec4-1.jpg" data-srcset="" /> Crucial MX300 275GB - A Closer Look The shipping container, accessories, and even the overall aesthetics of the MX300 275GB is the same as all the others capacity models. That is to say good and professional. If you want a more detailed look at these components, please check out any of our previous reviews on the MX300. Also just as with all the previous MX300s, the 275GB capacity version does require a bit of explanation with regards to the oddball capacity rating. Basically, the new TLC 3D NAND has a density of 384Gbits per 'layer' (and yes even though this new NAND is built like an apartment building you can stack a layer upon top of another… or a fully-fledged apartment on top of another apartment) instead of 128Gbit (MLC) or 256GBit (TLC) like planar (2D) NAND in previous generations. This does lead to some rather odd combinations. For example, the typical '240GB' SSD is actually 256GB… but 256GB does not divide evenly into 48GB (384Gbits). So Crucial either had to used zero over-provisioning and use 5 layers (i.e. 240GB) or higher with 6 layers (288GB – the actual on-die amount this drive has though this extra 13GB is 'over-provisioning' that is not accessible by the system. Only the controller can access it and use these free blocks to replace bad blocks, wear leveling etc. etc.) Crucial decided to be generous and give us more rather than try and use 100% of the full on-die capacity -which would have been a bad idea. This explains why instead of 250GB, 500GB, 1TB or 2TB; MX300's are 275GB, 550, 1050GB and 2050GB. Consider this unintended consequence of using mega-density NAND a nice little bonus. It is also worth noting that the built in over-provisioning of the 275GB is precisely half of that of 550GB and is actually one of the lowest of all the MX300 series. To be precise 275GB is 13GB, 550GB is 26GB, 750GB is 18GB, 1050GB is 6GB, and the 2050GB is 14GB. Obviously 13GB is more than enough for a small sized drive. More importantly when you use four of them the OP becomes massive at 52GB or 8.67 times larger than a 1TB mx300 comes with! Needless to say, this capacity version really is meant for RAID environments! Also like all others MX300s it is annoying that 6 layers is not easily divided into 4 channels. Instead, two of the four channels of the Marvell 88SS1074 4-channel controller will have only one layer and the other two will have two layers. Neither is optimal from a NAND interleaving point of view as this does roughly equate to better real world performance… but no modern, small capacity SSD has great NAND interleaving. Once again this capacity version really does benefit from RAID'ing…. as the more controllers involved with dealing I/O demands the better the performance – low NAND interleaving or not. Now with that taken care of as you can see the MX300 275 actually makes use of a smaller half length PCB instead of the 3/4 found on most of the larger MX300s. Basically it uses the same PCB as the 550GB… which is fine. There is still plenty of room for the two NAND ICs, the single controller and the single RAM cache IC. Now even though there is only two ICs there are actually six layers worth of NAND to populate the four channels of the controller. This is because these two NAND ICs are NW853 three layer ICs (144GB). We are unsure why Crucial felt the need to use 3 layer NAND 'chips' when they do make single and dual layer ONFi 4.0 677Mt/s '3D' TLC NAND. Single layer 'chips' would run cooler than these two but three layers is not going to cause thermal issues either so this is mainly a moot point – it just offends our sense of sensibility. Moving on we can see that Crucial may have halved the capacity of the onboard NAND but they have not messed with the RAM cache capacity. Instead they, just as with most of the MX300 series, uses a single 512MB LP-DDR3 Ram cache chip. That is a lot of cache for such a little drive and should help keep performance up during high I/O scenarios. Color us impressed! To further boost performance the MX300 series also sets aside a portion of the NAND to use in what is best describe as pseudo-SLC mode. Much like smaller MX200s what the controller does is use an entire TLC cell in 1-bit mode… just as if it was SLC NAND. It then uses this space as a short-term cache for random writes and once the controller feels confident that this data is indeed needed for long term storage then – and only then - is it written to the TLC NAND portion of the drive. Doing this is a lot gentler on the TLC NAND as the wear and tear of physically changing the cell from a 0 to 1 state is a lot less than with the usual six states a TLC cell has. This is a big reason why the MX300 2050GB can boast a 400TB Total Byte Written specification and excellent write performance. The only downside is that the capacity of the cell is only 1/3 of what it originally was. To put that another way to create a 20GB cache buffer requires sixty gigabytes worth TLC NAND. Also, unfortunately Crucial has hard set the buffer size and no longer uses a 'floating' capacity buffer like the MX200 series makes use of. This is because it did cause the occasional hiccup if the drive was quickly filled and a main priority of the MX300 series is performance consistency. Another bonus of using a NAND based secondary cache buffer is the controller can quickly empty its RAM buffer and thus reduce the chance and amount of 'in flight' data becoming corrupted in the event of an unexpected power loss. To further reduce the chance of data loss the MX300 has a copious number of onboard capacitors that will allow the controller to do complete any writes that are ongoing, update its logs and then when the power is restored it can figure out what data in the SLC cache can be deleted and which needs to be transferred to the TLC portion of the NAND. The only data that will be lost is 'in flight' data stored in the RAM… but once again this amount is limited and since no Acknowledgement ('Ack') code is sent to the OS before it is written the NAND, the OS should not be expecting those changes to have been made. This doubling up of redundancy, triple if you include the ECC that also reduces uncorrectable data errors, means the MX300 may not have enterprise grade data loss protection but it is a lot closer than what most consumer grade drives do. Crucial MX300 275GB - Testing Methodology The reasons to purchase a high performance storage device are as varied as the consumers who purchase them. For some application load time is the deciding factor in their purchasing decision. For others it is Virtualized Operating System performance. For others still it is game load times. For others still it is to shave a .1 of second off their synthetic test scores so as to climb ever higher in the online rankings that various sites host. With such a wide variety of criteria it behooves us to use as wide and varied a list of testing protocols as possible. As such we have used a blend of synthetic and real world benchmarks, as well as custom recorded real world game benchmarking. For custom game play we have chosen f popular titles: Borderlands 2, Call of Duty: Ghosts, and Saints Row 3. These games should give a good overview of the potential performance a given storage device will offer in real world game centric scenarios. For game load times testing we have chosen games which are clearly not Internet, GPU, RAM or CPU bottlenecked. The system was cold restarted in between each load to make sure no data saved in the GPU’s ram could influence load times. As with all tests all games were run four times and an average rounded the nearest second is recorded as the official result. For the Call of Duty: Ghosts we timed the level load time for the map called Into the Deep in the single player game. This level was chosen as it contains a large map and loads a lot of data from the storage device to the GPU. For Borderlands 2 we have recorded the time it takes to fast travel from Sanctuary map to Oasis. Oasis is the beginning of the Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty DLC. This was chosen as it not only is a special level not included in the original Borderlands 2 game and thus contains additional data which should slow the load of this special map. For Saints Row 3 (labelled ‘SR3’ in the chart) we have recorded the load time from a specific save game. The game was saved just at the end of the ‘Shaundi saved’ version of “Three Way Ending” but before the cut scene. This was chosen as the game not only loads the Three Way Ending data but also the next level “Gangsta’s in Space” DLC level. For synthetic tests we used a combination of the ATTO Disk Benchmark, AS-SSD, Crystal Disk Benchmark, HDTach, HD Tune, and IOMeter. For real world (non-gaming orientated) testing we have used OS startup, Adobe Photoshop, VMWare, and data transfer times. For data transfer we timed how long a single 30GB rar file took to copy to and then from the devices. We also used 15gb of small files (from 100kb to 200MB) with a total 36,000 files in 1200 subfolders. All tests were run 4 times and average results are represented. To ensure optimum performance in between each test run the device was sanitary erased. Main Test System Processor: Intel i7 5930K Memory: 32GB (4x8GB) Crucial Ballistic Elite Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth X99 Cooling: Noctua U12S SSD: 1x Intel 750 1.2TB NVMe SSD Power Supply: Corsair AX860i Monitor: Dell U2714H OS: Windows 7 Ultimate x64 SP1 Crucial MX300 275GB - Read Bandwidth For this benchmark, HD Tune Pro was used. It shows the potential read speed which you are likely to experience with these storage devices. 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. Crucial MX300 275GB - Write Performance 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. The sequential read performance of this drive is really rather good, unfortunately the lack of onboard pseudo-SLC write buffer does handicap the sequential write speed. Crucial MX300 275GB - ATTO Disk Benchmark 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. For a small drive the MX300 275GB does offer decent performance curves but its lack of pseudo-SLC write buffer does handicap it. Thankfully this issue does quickly go away when you RAID them. Crucial MX300 275GB - Crystal DiskMark Crystal DiskMark is designed to quickly test the performance of your hard 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. Crucial MX300 275GB - AS-SSD 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. Due to its small size and small onboard pseudo-SLC write cache buffer the MX300 275GB is decent but only decent in single drive configuration. It really is not until you opt for four of these wee beasties does our opinion change… and boy does it change! Crucial MX300 275GB - IOMETER: File Server Test To test each drive we ran 6 test runs per device (1,4,16,64,128,256 queue depth) each test having 8 parts, each part lasting 10 min w/ an additional 20 second ramp up. The 6 subparts were set to run 100% random, 75% read 25% write; testing 512b, 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 6 subtests are given a score in I/Os per second. We then take these 8 numbers add them together and divide by 6. This gives us an average score for that particular queue depth that is heavily weighted for file server usage. This is the first MX300 that would actually recommend for workstation duty… but only when dealing with RAID 0 with four drives. On its own it really is a rather poor performer… just like any small budget SSD. So choose wisely when making your decision on how you spend your money. Crucial MX300 275GB - System Boot Time 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. While all the other tests were run with a Windows 7 operating system, this particular test uses another older test bed's “day to day” OS (copied over to our new testbed) which has accumulated a lot of crud over the months from installs and removals. We chose the Anti-Virus splash screen as our finish line as it is the last program to be loaded on start up. Crucial MX300 275GB - Real World Data Transfers No matter how good a synthetic benchmark like IOMeter is, it cannot really tell you how your hard drive will perform in “real world” situations. 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 30.00GB contiguous file, then a folder containing 1200 subfolders with a total 36,000 files varying in length from 200mb to 100kb (15.00 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. On its own the MX300 is a decent small drive, budget friendly drive… but it does have the option of becoming one beast of a storage option when four are used…. and yet only cost basically the same as a single MX300 1050. Brilliant stuff for those on a budget! Crucial MX300 275GB - ADOBE CS6 LOAD TIME 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 faired in the Adobe crucible! Crucial MX300 275GB - VMWare Load Time Performance VMWare is a powerful application which allows users the ability to run a virtualized Operating System from inside their main OS. This program is not only processor and RAM intensive but puts significant load on the storage subsystem with deep, heavy read/write IO requests to the drive. To help give you a general idea on the performance improvements from running a RAM Drive we have timed the time it takes to load XP SP3 from inside VMWare. If you want excellent, 'enthusiast grade' / 'workstation' level of performance four of these little bad boys is the way to go. For two drive RAID arrays things are not quite as cut and dry as the bigger MX300's do post very, very good numbers. Crucial MX300 275GB - Borderlands 2 Load time For Borderlands 2 we have recorded the time it takes to fast travel from Sanctuary map to Oasis. Oasis is the beginning of the Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty DLC. This was chosen as it not only is a special level not included in the original Borderlands 2 game and thus contains additional data which should slow the load of this special map. Crucial MX300 275GB - CoD: Ghosts Load time For the Call of Duty: Ghosts we timed the level load time for the map called Into the Deep in the single player game. This level was chosen as it contains a large map and loads a lot of data from the storage device to the GPU. Crucial MX300 275GB - Saints Row 3 Load time For Saints Row 3 (labelled ‘SR3’ in the chart) we have recorded the load time from a specific save game. The game was saved just at the end of the ‘Shaundi saved’ version of “Three Way Ending” but before the cut scene. This was chosen as the game not only loads the Three Way Ending data but also the next level “Gangsta’s in Space” DLC level. For its size the MX300 275GB does do a very decent job… but as expected it really flourishes when in RAID configurations. Crucial MX300 275GB - Partial and Full Drive Performance While it is important to know how a drive will perform under optimal conditions, more realistic scenarios are just as important. Knowing how drive will behave when partially or even nearly full than when it is empty is very important information to know. To quickly and accurately show this crucial information we have first filled the drive to 50% capacity and re-tested using both synthetic and real world tests. After the completion of this we then re-test at 75% and 90% of full capacity. Synthetic Test Results For our synthetic testing we have opted for our standard VMWare test. Real World Results For a real world application we have opted for our standard Adobe CS6, and Saints Row 3 tests. As expected the smallest MX300 does perform the worst when dealing with full drive's worth of data. By the same token when in RAID it blows the doors off any single MX300. So choose wisely before spending your dollars on one option over another. Crucial MX300 275GB - Performance Summary and TL;DR In an effort to make sorting through all the results as easy as possible we have combined the results all of all the test results into an easy to digest summary format. By comparing this drive to similar products in all the various tests you will be able to easily find the result(s) you are interested in, see the improvement and decide if this model is worth the investment. We must admit to being shocked at how good this mega-sized drive really is. Usually there is a point where consumers must trade-off performance in order to gain more storage capacity… but obviously with the MX300 series that point is well above 1TB. Color us impressed. Crucial MX300 275GB - Score Card and Summary Performance: 35 out of 40. On the one hand there is a rather noticeable performance penalty by opting for the small MX300 275GB over larger capacity version. On the other hand the same amount of money can net you one potent RAID array 'drive'. Thus performance will vary greatly on how you setup and use this version. Technological Innovation: 18 out of 20 As with all the other MX300's before it, the only thing that would have made this a perfect 20 out of 20 is if Crucial had opted for a NVMe controller instead of Marvell's SATA AHCI controller. Besides this 'issue', the MX300 is packed to the rafters with Innovation. Build Quality & Warranty: 19 out of 20 Like all Crucial MX300's the 275GB is built to exceedingly high standards – right down to including physical data lose protection abilities. On the warranty front a three year warranty is a touch disappointing as Toshiba, Intel, and even newcomers like PNY now offer longer warranties. However, Crucial has a stellar reputation for making the RMA experience as painless as possible so what it lacks in length it more than makes up for in quality. Value: 18 out of 20 When you combine decent performance with a rock bottom price the possibilities and the value really is darn near limitless. Now if Crucial would only release a NVMe model and do for the enthusiast class what they have done – with the MX300 – for the mainstream consumer! Final Score: 90 out of 100 With its combination of excellent value, amazing flexibility and good performance the MX300 275GB really is a good choice for those on a tight budget. Crucial MX300 275GB - Closing Statement As you can see the MX300 275GB is a fairly decent performer on its own, but when you add in a few more to the mix 'magic' really can happen. This was not all that surprising as the bigger versions of the MX300 series also show their true worth only when in RAID configurations… its just that spending that much on two (let alone) four of the MX300 1TB or 2TB models gets bloody expensive fast . These little beauties on the other hand are downright inexpensive. In fact they will set back consumers the same amount in grand total as if purchasers had just gotten one of the larger models. For instance, want 550GB of space and only went to spend 25 cents a GB for it? No problem two of these 275GB'ers will set you back basically the same as a single MX300 550GB. The same goes if you want 1TB or 2TB. In fact the higher the total capacity you are interested in the higher the overall performance will be when opting for the smaller version and RAID'ing them! The only downside is that in order to hit 1TB you need to use four drives and for 2TB you need to use eight. While Solid State Drives are a heck of a lot more reliable than hard disk drives they eventually do die. The more you use in a RAID config the more likely one of them is going to die. This is where the Meant Time Between Failure (MTBF) calculation actually comes from. What you need to do is take the MTBF and divide it by the number of drives you are using. That gives you a rough idea on how long it will last. Though that is not exactly the case. Instead it gives you a rough idea of what the realistic length of time it will before one dies… and the closer you get to that number of hours the more likely it is going to happen. So two drives are twice as likely to die sooner than one. Four are is four times as likely to have one (or more) die. This is not all that worrisome as most SSDs die either soon after build completion (about to the one month mark) and then very few will die until the warranty period is up. This is why we would strong recommend making daily backup for the first month or two… until you are sure that your new RAID array does not have a dud, and then using your typical backup cycle until you get close to the warranty extermination… and then replacing them with a new set of drives. This is the down side to RAID as you are dealing with higher probabilities of things going sideways on you. It also means using a lot more SATA ports than a single drive. As such while you can use the smallest 275GB'ers a more practical approach is figure out how much capacity you want and then limiting yourself to four MC300 SSDs at the most. Even two smaller drives will outperform one larger one (and have a greater chance of long term stability compared to four or eight). This really is the genius of the MX300 series as you can pick your total capacity goal and then pick the MX300 model you want… as they all cost the same per Gigabyte. That to us is amazing, and just underscores how flexible this new MX300 series really is.

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