While drive makers are largely focused on faster M.2 form-factor NVMe solid state drives that shuttle data through the PCIe bus, not all systems support that type of SSD. For systems that don't, Crucial today introduced its new BX300 series, which sports 3D multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory packaged in a 2.5-inch form factor drive.
The BX300 is available in 120GB (CT120BX300SSD1), 240GB (CT240BX300SSD1), and 480GB (CT480BX300SSD) capacities. As these are SATA 6Gbps drives, they are not capable of reaching the blazing fast read and write speeds that NVMe drives, though in the realm of SATA these are peppy SSDs. Powered by a Silicon Motion SM2258 controller, each drive is rated to deliver up to 550MB/s of sequential read performance and up to 510MB/s of sequential write performance.
Where they differ in performance is in random read IOPS. The 120GB tops out at 45,000 IOPS, the 240GB at 84,000 IOPS, and the 480GB at 95,000 IOPS. On the random write side of the equation, each capacity is rated to deliver 90,000 IOPS.
Crucial knows that many people shopping for a SATA-based SSD these days are looking to upgrade an older system. To help with that, these drives come with free access to Acronis True Image HD software, a data migration utility that prevents having to start with a fresh Windows install (if you don't want to go that route).
Pricing for these drives has been set at $60 for the 120GB model, $90 for the 240GB model, and $150 for the 480GB drive. The latter is in line with our current top pick as the best SSD for gaming, Samsung's 850 Evo 500GB. Our current budget pick is Crucial's MX300 525GB, which can be found for around $157.
The new BX300 drives are available now direct from Crucial and on Amazon.
