INTRODUCTION

   Although it's been almost 9 years since i had my first experience with solid state drives (SSDs) and most factory-ready desktop and laptops now come with at least one pre-installed it there are people who are still not aware of their presence in the market. For example a very good friend of mine came to me last week and asked what steps he could take to "optimize" the speed of an 8 year old system he has at work but when i mentioned the possibility of adding an SSD he had no idea as to what that was. In any case SSDs have come a long way since 9 years ago so now consumers can equip their systems with SATA III 480/512GB models for the same amount of money as SATA II 64GB ones did back then that had less than half their read & write performance levels and of course much lower durability/endurance levels. Crucial just released their first 3D TLC NAND SSD model in the market called the MX300 750GB Limited Edition and we're here to test it out.

   Crucial.com is a leading online retailer specializing in computer memory (RAM) and solid state drives (SSD), and is operated by a subsidiary of Micron Technology, Inc., one of the world's leading manufacturers of computer memory products. Crucial.com offers more than 250,000 compatible products for nearly every computer system: home and business, old and new, PC and Mac® computers. Utilizing a suite of easy-to-use, free online tools, including the Crucial® System Scanner and the Crucial Memory Advisor™ tool, crucial.com makes it easy to find a compatible upgrade to improve computer performance and restore system reliability.

   It's been roughly 2 years since Samsung launched the 850 Pro SSD line based on 3D TLC NAND and Crucial is so far the 2nd manufacturer to hit that milestone. Of course the MX300 model which we have here with us today is aimed at the mainstream market segment much like Samsung's 850 EVO line so we don't expect it to be much of a "threat" to the 850 Pro. The 32-layer 3D TLC NAND flash used by Crucial in the MX300 750GB SSD (and the rest of the soon-to-be line) utilizes four planes (quad plane) to communicate with the NAND flash processor and features FortisFlash technology for Dynamic Write Acceleration (through an emulated SLC layer). The NAND flash controller Crucial used with the MX300 750GB is the 4-channel Marvell 88SS1074 which features partial power loss protection, active garbage collection, redundant array of independent NAND (RAIN), LDPC error correction code (ECC), adaptive thermal protection, data-path protection, multistep data integrity algorithm and fully supports DevSleep (power save), TRIM, SMART, AES 256-bit hardware encryption, TCG Opal 2.0 and IEEE-1667 (fully compatible with Microsoft's eDrive). In terms of endurance crucial rates the MX300 750GB for up to 220TB TBW (roughly 120GB of writes per day for 5 years), gives it an MTTF of 1.5 million hours and as usual covers it with a 3 year limited warranty.