Crucial MX300 CT275MX300SSD1 275 GB

third dimension

The Crucial MX300 is a prime example of what all cheap SSDs will look like in the near future. The fact is that planar (two-dimensional) flash memory ran into the physical limitations of the 15/16-nm process technology. Further downsizing of flash transistors is costly, if not impossible. The only way out of the impasse is to switch to three-dimensional memory, the cells of which are packed in layers in a chip.

Puff pastry

So, the 3D NAND TLC chips used in the Crucial MX300 manufactured by IMFT (a joint venture between Intel and Micron) have 32 layers of transistors (Samsung has 48 layers that are more difficult to manufacture) and a record chip capacity of 48 GB on the market (a competitor has only 32 GB) . It is because of the atypical capacity of the crystal (each memory chip has two crystals) that the disk capacity is not the usual 240, but an increased 275 GB (three chips excluding the spare area).

Cash by cash

In addition to IMFT 3D NAND flash memory, the MX300 has a Marvell 88SS1074 controller with support for 256-bit AES hardware data encryption, 256 MB of buffer RAM and a virtual SLC cache that is significantly larger than most other TLC drives, 10 GB. Due to this, the problem of falling write speed on large files will very rarely annoy. All this, plus the bonus 35 GB of capacity, is clearly worth paying a little more for the Crucial MX300 than asking for very simple SSDs with planar TLC memory.