As much as the per gigabyte cost of SSDs has come down over the years and is edging ever closer to that of hard drives, some people still aren’t sold on making the change; even with its innate performance advantages. Crucial wants to change that with its new BX200 SSD, which is designed as an entry-level drive with solid performance, but at a price that even the die-hard HDD fans can’t sniff at.
While the specifications for this drive aren’t going to win any performance awards, they are still decent. Sustained read/write is 540 and 490 megabytes per second, respectively, and random read/write OPS are 66,000 and 78,000 apiece.
But those specifications are still much faster than your average hard drive, which is the buying audience that Crucial is targeting with this release. Indeed its marketing goes after that heavily, pointing out that these drives are “13 times faster than a typical hard drive,” and “40 times more energy-efficient.” They’re more durable too we’re told, but the big clincher is the price.
Available in sizes ranging from 240GB right up to 960GB at the top end, the most expensive of the bunch is just $300, making it less than 32 cents per gigabyte. The smallest is equally as cost-effective, letting you get on the SSD ladder for just $80.
All of them come in the 2.5 inch form factor and use the Silicon Motion SM2256 controller with TLC memory. Durability is a little on the weak side considering some of the lengthy write-runs that we’ve seen other commercial drives go on, but 72 terabytes is more than enough for the average user and certainly more than enough for those targeted in the Crucial marketing.
All drives come with a three-year warranty, as well as a free key for Acronis True Image HD software which makes the migration of data from one drive to the other that bit easier, as clearly Crucial envisages this drive ending up in PCs where the idea of doing things manually would be a little complicated.
Do you know anyone that still hasn’t made the jump to solid state?
