Crucial Debuts Ultra-affordable MX100 Solid-state Drives

Does $0.43-per-GB sound good to you? Crucial has unveiled its SATA 6Gb/s MX100 series as a replacement for the venerable M500 family, while the M550 will stay on as the higher performance/capacity alternative. The MX100 is based on the Marvell 88SS9189 controller that is similar to the one found in the M550, but it’s the first to utilize the new 16nm 128Gbit MLC NAND.

Due to the use of 128Gbit-sized NAND, write performance improves dramatically with each higher capacity model, so prospective buyers ideally should stick to the 256GB or 512GB models for the MX100 if they have the option to do so. Consumers seeking a 960GB capacity SSD will have to look towards the M550 series, however.

Endurance appears to be similar to 20nm NAND with a 72TB rating, although in reality SSDs will easily even outlast this number as it is simply a minimum threshold rating. The MX100 does continue to use RAIN (Redundant Array of Independent NAND) for increased error protection with a parity ratio of 127:1.

Crucial is continuing to dominate the budget solid-state drive market with the MX100 thanks to launch day pricing of $0.43 per GB for the 256GB model. Did we mention that was MSRP? Good, because we’re already seeing both 256 & 512GB models listed for $0.40 per GB and it’s not even two-days-old! Needless to say SSDs are only becoming all the more affordable, and it is great to see that it doesn’t even require the endurance sacrifice of TLC NAND to do it. Just for comparison, MSRP is literally half that of the original M500 drive that the MX100 series is replacing.