Crucial MX100 256GB SSD Review

[section_title title=”Conclusion”]Conclusion

So the Crucial MX100 256GB has had its chance to impress with our chosen benchmarks, but what’s the final verdict?  It’s arguably one of the cheapest 256GB SSDs on the market but does cheap really mean bad?  From personal experience, Crucial drives I have used/owned in the past have been very impressive but can Crucial follow that trend with me today? Let’s find out…

Performance wise, how can such a budget orientated drive perform so well?  ATTO threw up some very surprising results with the MX100 256GB beating the SanDisk Extreme PRO by a nice margin and even somewhat keeping up with the latest Samsung 850 Pro drive; this is a fantastic result and shows you that a higher price doesn’t always mean higher quality.  The read speeds did suffer somewhat in comparison with them being around one of the lowest we have tested so far with SSDs; not to discourage buyers as most SSDs will benefit more from the read speeds as constant writing to an SSD can somewhat shorten it’s life span over time.  CrystalDiskMark 3.0 was a slightly different story however with the MX100 falling slightly behind; it still made a very decent showing after managing to beat the SanDisk Ultra II 240GB drive which is, of course, slightly more expensive.  Write speeds again were a little disappointing with the Crucial MX100 256GB only managing to attain 345MB/s compared to other 240/256GB drives which have been tested so far; again not a major concern as these are around the touted speeds Crucial have advertised.

It is clear than the jump from 19nm to 16nm MLC NAND has made a slight improvement to the drives and overall the performance for such a low-cost solution is absolutely phenomenal.  In our 4.75GB transfer test, it was around 6 seconds slower than the SanDisk premium Extreme PRO 480GB but it managed to transfer around 6 seconds faster than SanDisk’s Ultra II which really shows the good job Crucial have done with their choice of controller; the Marvel Marvel 88SS9189-BLD2.

Design wise, the Crucial MX100 range has a very nice pleasing aesthetic and I really like the nice blue and silver contrast; so many drives in this day and age have switched to red themes which I find a little “boring” at the moment; not to say red is a bad colour but red seems to be the new black currently.  The drive does look very “metal”, but the case is however plastic; it certainly looks nice and metal which also makes look very premium.  Plastic or not, the MX100 actually feels very nice and I have absolutely no fears over the drives falling apart sporadically; unlike some Mushkin SSDs which have done just that!

For £75.99, you get one hell of a drive and for the price, you certainly won’t find anything better; very much so the cheapest 256GB drive I would ever consider buying, that is for sure.  The SanDisk Ultra II 240 drive which the Crucial MX100 256GB SSD consistently beats in benchmarks is only £4 more expensive but given the 3 year warranty and of course £4 can be the difference between having the money and not in this price range, the Crucial wins out this round.  I would go as far as saying this is probably one of the best bang for buck SSDs on the market however if you wanted a anything higher than 512GB in terms of capacity, you might have to look at the 19nm MX550 or another brand.  At £0.29 per GB of storage, the Crucial represents superb value and pretty much nails our value award hands down!

Overall the Crucial MX100 256GB SSD combines top value with the superb Marvel controller with better than average performance; some including myself would even say fantastic performance, especially in terms of sequential read speeds.  The write does however let the side down this time round but given the epic value for money and the actual target for this drive, Crucial have a gold award winning SSD today with the MX100 256GB and I’m sure the 128/512GB are more also deserving of your money too.  Sleek premium looks, decent 3 year warranty and also a free copy of the Acronis True Image HD cloning software really do sweeten the deal here today and Crucial can be proud of what they have achieved; an award winning budget SSD with all of the quality of one £20-30 more expensive.

A huge thanks to Crucial for sending in the MX100 256GB drive today and I look forward to seeing more from Micron/Crucial in the near future!