Layout, Design and Features …
The following image shows the front of the 2.5″ Crucial BX100 500GB SSD:
On the back you can see a label of the Crucial BX100 2.5″ SSD with a few technical data and the installed firmware version. You can see the SATA3 connectors for power supply and data in the picture on the left. The SSD connector is identical to conventional SATA hard drives and a SATA3 SSD can be operated with a lower speed at an SATA2 interface:
Because Crucial no longer has provided the BX100 SSD enclosure with screws, it would be necessary to use force opening the BX100 in contrast to the also screwless MX200. So this time, we summarize only the data and show exceptionally no views of the BX100 PCB. Inside of the case are equal to the 500 GB MX200 SSD eight MT29F512G08CKCCBH7-10 16nm Micron NAND modules. As controller a significantly cheaper Silicon Motion SM2246EN controller used in this BX100 SSD in contrast to the MX200 SSD. Of course it although supports TRIM and Active Garbage Collection, but comes without 256-bit AES encryption. The MT41K256M16HA-125 M 512MB DDR3 module is used as cache. So, technically it offers less features.
BX100 SSD is made like the MX100 and MX200 in a lower construction height. Contrary to some previous SSDs it is only 7 mm and no more 9.5 mm such as the m4 SSD Crucial. Crucial includes a 7 mm to 9.5 mm adapter frame which can be layed or sticked on the SSD, if necessary to stay compatible with the very popular height of 9.5 mm.
SSD firmware update …
At review date, Crucial offered no newer firmware download than the already installed MU01 firmware for the BX100 SSD. With the new Crucial storage Executive tool, you can upgrade the firmware of the SSD relatively easy, but you should always secure important data before updating the firmware. The Crucial storage Executive tool incidentally has the peculiarity to update all SSDs of the same type, even if you chose to only one particular SSD.
Crucial BX100 500 GB Benchmark values and test results …