Crucial BX200 480GB SATA 2.5-Inch SSD Review
Final Thoughts & Conclusions
The Crucial BX200 is an entry-level drive that we had high hopes for coming into this review as we were really curious with how Crucial’s first drive using their own 16nm TLC Flash would do. The BX200’s software package was excellent, but once we started to look at the performance numbers we saw the familiar sequential write performance drop when the SLC buffer filled up. Not all TLC-based architectures have this performance drop as Samsung’s SSD 850 EVO does not. Let’s not ignore the elephant in the room, the Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB SATA SSD is hands down the drive to beat when it comes to entry-level SSDs and the Crucial BX200 wasn’t able to compete.
The Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB was faster when it came to raw performance as well as having a longer warranty and a higher TBW rating. The only thing the Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB drive has going against it is that it is priced a bit higher at $163.88 shipped, but the cost per GB is about the same ($0.327 per GB versus $0.312 per GB) when compared to the new Crucial BX200 480GB SSD at $149.99. We should note that the Crucial BX200 480GB SSDs $149.99 price tag is the MSRP and we suspect that it will drop from there based on the performance numbers we are seeing.
When it comes to pricing against other entry-level SSDs though you’ll see the Crucial BX200 is competitive with the other drives currently on the market. Keep in mind that the Crucial BX100 is now EOL (End of Life) and will be gone once the remaining inventory is cleared out.
| Entry-Level SSD Pricing on November 3rd 2015 | |||
| Drive | 240/250/256GB | 480/500/512GB | 960GB/1TB |
| ADATA Premier SP550 | $72.99 | $154.99 | – |
| Crucial BX100 | $79.99 | $159.99 | $342.99 |
| Crucial BX200 (MSRP) | $84.99 | $149.99 | $299.99 |
| Crucial MX200 | $94.99 | $169.99 | $329.99 |
| OCZ Arc 100 | $91.99 | $149.99 | – |
| OCZ Trion 100 | $93.99 | $175.13 | $348.99 |
| Plextor M6V | $99.99 | $189.99 | – |
| Samsung 850 EVO | $87.99 | $163.88 | $346.00 |
| Sandisk Ultra II | $83.99 | $149.23 | $299.99 |
It’s disappointing to see the Crucial BX200 unable to compete with some of the other big names on the market, but we are hopeful that the price of the drives drop below the MSRP and that maybe Crucial will introduce some performance improvements in future firmware updates. We aren’t writing off the Crucial BX200 just yet, but what we are seeing isn’t enough for us to recommend this drive over others on the market right now.
Legit Bottom Line: The Crucial BX200 is late to the TLC party and doesn’t do enough to distinguish itself from the pack.
