Introduction

Crucial, a subsidiary of Micron, a world leader in memory and flash production, brought us such wonderful SSDs as the M500 and MX100. We recently reviewed their new Crucial MX200, which impressed with increased performance. Today, we will review the Crucial BX100, which comes at an even lower price point than the MX100. Unlike other Crucial SSDs, the BX100 sees the introduction of the Silicon Motion SM2246EN controller into Crucial's lineup, paired with the company's own MLC NAND flash chips and a custom firmware.

The BX100 is available in capacities of 120 GB, 250 GB, 500 GB, and 1 TB.

Packaging

The Drive

The drive conforms to the dimensions set forth by the 2.5" form factor. It is made of metal to improve its durability and is only 7 mm thick, which makes it compatible with Intel's Ultrabook specification. Compared to the MX100, the surface finish has changed a little bit, and the screws to open the drive have been removed as it now uses a clam-shell design.


Like most recent SSDs, the Crucial BX100 uses the SATA 6 Gbps interface; it is compatible with any older SATA standard, but will, in such a case, work at reduced performance.


You will find the SSD controller and four flash chips on the PCB. A DRAM chip is also present. It provides the SSD controller with RAM.


For the first time, Crucial is using the Silicon Motion SM2246EN controller.


The four MLC flash chips are produced by Micron and are built on a 16 nanometer process.