Layout, design and features …
Here you can see the front of the 2.5″ Crucial MX300 2TB SSD.
On the back of the Crucial MX300 2.5″ SSD you find a label with a few technical data and the firmware version that has been installed. You can see the SATA3 connectors for power and data in the picture on the left. The SATA SSD connector is identical to conventional SATA hard drives and a SATA3 SSD can be operated with a lower speed at an SATA2 interface.
The MX300 SSD as well as MX200, BX200, BX100 and MX100 has a lower height, which is only 7 mm and no more 9.5 mm like some previous SSDs such as the Crucial m4 SSD. Crucial includes a 7 mm to 9.5 mm adapter frame which can be placed or sticked on the SSD, if necessary to remain compatible with the height of 9.5 mm for example in notebooks.
The enclosure of the Crucial MX300 SSD is pressed together without screws. Nevertheless we managed opening the SSD carefully, to allow a look at the MX300 PCB, which surprisingly didn’t even fill the SSD housing despite 2 TB capacity. Here you can see the small SSD board along with the SSD cover. You can see one of both Micron 512MB LPDDR3 cache modules and four of the eight Micron NW853 Micron 3D TLC NAND modules of SSD with 2050 GB capacity. The differences between TLC, SLC and MLC we have already extensively explained in the Crucial BX200 480GB SSD Windows practice test, which however was not yet equipped with the better 3D TLC NAND.
On flip side you can see the remaining four Micron NW853 NAND modules of the SATA3 SSD with 2050 GB capacity, the second Micron 512MB LPDDR3 cache module and … No, that’s not a pink chewing gum of a Micron employee … 😉
… after removal of the pads can be seen the Marvell 88SS1074-BSW2 controller IC.
Here you can see again a closer image of the Marvell 88SS1074-BSW2 controller, which offers Microsoft eDrive compatible, built-in 256-bit AES encryption (TCG Opal 2.0 and IEEE 1667), which allows a hardware encryption with an appropriate UEFI hardware equipment and Microsoft Windows 8, Windows 10 or Microsoft Windows Server 2012 with BitLocker enabled.
After we have shown the technical data of the Crucial MX300 2050 GB SSD, now we come to the firmware update.
SSD Firmware Update …
The MX300 SSD was shipped with the M0CR031 firmware. At Crucial, the firmware version M0CR040 is available as latest MX300 firmware. With the Crucial Storage Executive Tool, you can upgrade the SSD firmware relatively easy. Or your can select the classic method: Download the Crucial M0CR040 firmware, unzip the included ISO file, transfer the ISO file with unetbootin to an USB stick (can be transfered on CD or CDRW as well), boot with the USB stick and immediately updating the SSD firmware. Anyway, you should always backup important data before updating the firmware.
The new Crucial Storage Executive Tool provides some more features, so we have installed the firmware with the latest version.
The Crucial Storage Executive tool shows all SSDs and HDDs that are installed, values like SMART, allows the activation of momentum cache function that uses the memory as a buffer, allows the setting of Over provisioning part, and updating the firmware. Here you have the choice between a live update and a conventional update with restart.
Crucial MX300 2050 GB Benchmark values and test results …