Crucial BX200 Solid State Drive Reviewed

The Crucial BX200 series SSD is the successor to the popular BX100 series. With this refresh Crucial have decided to move away from using a MLC (Multi Level Cell) NAND and have opted to use a TLC (Triple Level Cell) NAND with the newer Silicon Motion SM2256 controller instead. NAND for those that don’t know, is the flash memory that stores the data. MLC NAND stores multiple bits of data in a single cell with TLC NAND storing only 3 bits in each cell. Thus making TLC based drives cheaper to produce but at a performance cost.

As a result of moving to a TLC NAND we see moderate increases in sequential reads and writes but a decrease in random reads and writes in the specifications provided by Crucial.

Crucial SSD comparison:

	BX100	BX200	MX200
NAND	Micron 16nm 128Gbit MLC	Micron 16nm 128Gbit TLC NAND	Micron 16nm 128Gbit MLC
Controller	Silicon Motion SM2246EN	Silicon Motion SM2256	Marvell 88SS9189
Capacity	500GB / 1TB (lower capacity models not listed)	240GB / 480GB / 960GB	250GB / 500GB / 1TB
Part Number	CT500BX100SSD1 / CT1000BX100SSD1	CT240BX200SSD1 / CT480BX200SSD1 / CT960BX200SSD1	CT250MX200SSD1 / CT500MX200SSD1 / CT1000MX200SSD1
Box Contents	2.5" (7 mm) SSD 7 mm – 9.5 mm spacer, Acronis® True Image™ HD certificate	Crucial BX200 2.5-inch (7mm) SSD, 7mm to 9.5mm spacer, Data migration software key	2.5" (7mm) SSD, 7mm to 9.5mm spacer, Acronis® True Image™ HD certificate
Sequential Read MB/s	535MB/s	540MB/s	555MB/s
Sequential Write MB/s	450MB/s	490MB/s	500MB/s
Random Read IOPS	90k	66k	100k
Random Write IOPS	70k	78k	87k

Performance

Blackmagic Disk Speed Test and Xbench were used on an iMac to test the performance of the BX200. Whilst we didn’t hit the desired peaks on Xbench, the Disk Speed Test tool did get very close with peak reads of 526MB/s and writes of 490MB/s under its multimedia tests.

Final Thoughts

If you are wanting a larger capacity SSD at an affordable price for everyday use, the Crucial BX200 series will serve you well. If you are wanting an SSD for performance, this won’t be the drive for you. Instead, consider something like the Crucial MX200 series, an MLC NAND based SSD which is also a good little performer. Whilst, the BX200 series is only moderately better than its predecessor, we hope that Crucial reconsider using TLC NAND in the next update.