Crucial MX300 275GB SATA 2.5 Inch Internal Solid State Drive - CT275MX300SSD1

This is a really nice drive with competitive specs, but not quite the best. The price per GB, the extra GB's in this size category along with it being made by Crucial and with a stated endurance of up to 220 TBW all add up to a great value. Some have complained that nothing comes with the drive and other than the 9mm spacer that is true, yet this is pretty much how most all drives are sold these days. The one drawback if you were hoping for a good migration tool is that they supply a key for downloading Acronis 2015 which recently was updated with patch 6613 and is now supposed to support Windows 10. I don't trust True Image any more after a simple cloning failed and corrupted my original drive. I simply downloaded Macrium Reflect Free which is very reliable and supports Windows 10. The way that I configured my new drive may not be the fastest, but it is safe and reliable. After installing Reflect, I created a full verified system image and put a copy on an external USB 3 drive, Next I disconnected my system drive and booted up off a Rescue Media CD. The external drive containing the system image was connected to one port and the new SSD was connected to another port via a Startech USB 3 to SATA 3 cable. Fired up the restoration and 22 minutes later it completed successfully. I connected it up to an internal SATA port and it booted right up without any problems. The only other thing I did was rename the C: partition to eliminate any confusion and pulled up Disk Management and extended the primary partition to incorporate the remaining unallocated space. This drive formats out to 489.05 GB which is about 43 GB more than a formatted 480 GB drive. My method isn't the fastest way to set up the new drive, but it is extremely safe because while I am doing the image restore my original drive isn't hooked up so even if the restore failed I would still have a perfectly good system drive if needed. In actual use it feels every bit as fast as my Samsung 850 EVO drive. I haven't tried enabling the Momentum Cache feature that allows for dynamically allocating up to 25% of idle system memory for burst writes and is supposed to nearly quadruple the speed. So far it is running very fast so I might not bother with it for now. My experience with other Crucial drives and memory has been excellent and have never had any problems and that was a big factor in choosing this drive as reliability is more important to me than having the absolute fastest drive. I also have several Samsung drives that have performed well and have never given me any problems. A 500 GB 850 EVO carries about a 25% premium over this 525 GB drive and it just doesn't seem to be anywhere near 25% faster, in fact under normal use I don't notice any significant difference, though the Samsung will benchmark out a bit higher. Either one of these drives would have been fine, but given the extra capacity and no discernible difference in everyday use I am very satisfied with this drive. Both are very well made and reliable drives. Update 9/24: I have enabled Momentum Cache and it does make a noticeable difference in the overall performance. My system has 16 GB of memory which means that this can allocate up to 4 GB of unused memory for caching. The nice thing is that it will adjust the amount of memory that it utilizes dynamically according to system demands and loading so that it won't have over allocated memory at a time when the system has a higher demand for more memory. It has worked very well so far without any hiccups, and I don't notice that it is there except that everything is faster. I am running Windows 10.

Until my purchase of this Crucial MX300 SSD, I only bought Samsung SSDs. I intended to buy a Samsung EVO 850 500GB, but I choked on its $179 price. THEN I saw the Crucial SSD 525GB for $119...and could not resist. So far, the Crucial is a GREAT choice. HERE'S WHY! FASTER THAN SAMSUNG: In comparison to my 'decommissioned' Samsung EVO 850 250GB, the Crucial MX300 is noticeably faster. The Crucial boots up Windows 10 a little faster. Big software, like Photoshop, opens a little faster. There isn't a massive performance difference. Nonetheless, I am very impressed with the very snappy speed of the Crucial. It is the fastest SSD I have owned yet. RELIABILITY: I always bought Samsungs because of their rock-solid reliability. That factor almost caused me to pay $179 for the EVO 850. HOWEVER, I bought Crucial RAM since the 1990s because of its extreme reliability for my custom PC builds . So, I hoped Crucial SSDs are as solid as Crucial RAM. So far, so good...but it is only Day 8...and thus only time will tell. MOMENTUM CACHE: This feature dramatically improves the SSD's 'burst' performance. (I think this feature is why software apps open faster in Crucial than with a Samsung SSD.) PRICE: At $119, the Crucial is a bargain in comparison to Samsungs and Intel SSDs. At $89, it is a screaming steal (which I paid for my 2nd Crucial during an Amazon sale). Definitely 5 Stars for price. SUPERIOR USA-Based TECH SUPPORT: I had a little trouble with setting up the SSD. I thought I got a defective one. I called Crucial Tech Support. A very courteous, knowledgeable technician discovered I overlooked a critical step. My mistake. Thus, the issue was resolved quickly. Afterwards, the SSD worked perfectly. The CON: MEDIOCRE SET-UP UTILITY: Crucial's software utility for setting up the MX300 SSD is a little clunky in comparison to the software offered by Samsung and Intel. Thus, initial set-up is slightly more tricky. In fact, my first attempt failed (but not to worry...just call Crucial Tech Support if you get stuck). CRITICAL ADVICE: You can't just install the Crucial SSD (either as an internal or external drive) and hope it will be immediately recognized by Windows. The SSD will not appear in Windows Explorer (or File Explorer). After connecting the Crucial SSD, you have to open Windows' Disk Management utility and INITIALIZE the SSD. Then it will be recognized and ready for the additional steps below. (If you don't know how to initialize the SSD, call Crucial Tech Support.) CRUCIAL ADDITIONAL STEPS: 1. Download and install Crucial's utility called Crucial Storage Executive. (I installed and used the utility after clean installing Windows 10 and updates on the SSD. You should use the utility before installing apps and other software.) 2. *** VITAL *** Use the utility to UPDATE the SSD's FIRMWARE. My SSD's firmware was out-of-date. 3. Use the utility to OVER-PROVISION the Crucial SSD. Use the recommended setting. (Over-provisioning will extend the life of the SSD at the cost of reducing the usable drive space by about 40 GB. Yes, some geeks say over-provisioning is unnecessary for modern SSDs...but I have a strong feeling that it should be done for the Crucial). 4. Enable the Momentum Cache feature. Perform the steps cited above...and your awesome Crucial SSD is ready to blast off! The VERDICT: If the Crucial MX300 proves to be as durable and reliable as Intels and Samsungs, it is definitely the best quality, fastest 'consumer' SSD for the lowest price. I am betting the Crucial is rock-solid. That's why I bought a second one less than 2 weeks after the first. :-)

I've been buying and using SSD drives since 2012, and have used several different brand ones. The ones I've been buying the last two years have been Crucial branded ones. As a part of Micron, they have direct control of the chips used in their drives, since they are one of the largest manufacturers of memory chips. I like that. In the last year I've purchased several of the MX300 series drives ranging from 256 gb to 525 gb all the way to the one TB one I bought here. They all installed and performed perfectly. The Acronis cloning software that you download from the Crucial site, worked easily to make an exact copy of the 525 gb OCZ SSD drive I was replacing. There was a small issue with getting the right partition size on the new drive, since the Acronis software was persistent in creating two 500GB partitions on the new 1 TB SSD. I wanted a single partition. It was easy to bypass that issue using a separate partitioning program that allowed me to adjust the partitions more to my liking. All is well with the new SSD after a couple weeks of use. It's blazing fast and has doubled my boot drive capacity from my previous OCZ SSD. The OCZ still shows 98% of it's life expectancy remaining after almost 5 years of use according to the SSD utility I downloaded from the Toshiba website. (Toshiba bought OCZ). I formatted that old drive and have re purposed it as a very fast storage drive. If you buy a Crucial ssd you should download the Crucial storage executive program from their website. It allows you to easily check the health and life remaining information on your ssd, as well as tune the drive for optimum performance and check the firmware and update that if a newer one is available.

I swapped an old Hitachi TS7SAA500 hard drive in an ASUS i5 Windows 10 PRO laptop with the MX300. Did not do any performance stats but the SDD is definitely much quicker. Firstly, backup your drive and create a recovery disk. It should not be a problem as you'll have the old drive in any event, but when you are playing with disk image software it pays to be extra careful. Also buy or make sure you have either a USB to SATA cable (I bought the $12 StarTech USB 3.0 to 2.5" SATA III Hard Drive Adapter Cable w/ UASP - SATA to USB 3.0 Converter for SSD/HDD ), or a spare slot in your PC to connect the MX300 or you will not be able to create a usable SSD drive. With cable in hand I firstly had trouble downloading the US version of the Acronis True Image (ATI) software, as the browser download would stall around the 140MB mark and then fail with a timeout error. This happened on the two machines I tried, and it took repeated goes before the 200+ MB file loaded. Then I found you have to create a Acronis login, which I did not want to do, esp. as I did not have internet connection on the PC. That's OK I thought, there is an "I don't have an Internet connection" option on the application start screen. That option takes you to a screen where you enter the drive serial number, but nothing actually happens. The only option is to revert to the page that requires you to login so that was frustrating. I don't want to have a relationship with Acronis, just use their app once to image my SSD. Eventually I gave up and used Partition Wizard's free MiniTool utility to copy my 500 GB HDD image to the MX300, which took a few hours on my USB 2.0 laptop. I also needed to delete the Acronis app because once installed - even if you've not used it - it is lurking in the background wanting to back files up. Once that was complete I physically swapped the MX300 into the single drive bay in the laptop. It is a simple unscrew/connect/screw process that took less than ten minutes. After that, the laptop booted up off the SSD and I was straight into Windows 10. Once the drive was installed I upgraded the MX300 firmware; even though it's a brand new drive, there is always a chance the firmware is out of date. That meant downloading the firmware from the Crucial site - which had no performance issues, unlike the Acronis site - and using the supplied ISO to create a bootable CDROM. Booting involved BIOS changes on the laptop to boot from the CD first, not the SSD, and the MX300 firmware update software looked like a Linux app when it ran, but it worked fine. All of this took a few hours, but a lot of that was waiting for software to download, install or run. I have not yet done is wipe the Hitachi HDD, but that's a task for tomorrow. Now I am just enjoying my hugely faster laptop which has been given a new lease of life for $200.

There are a couple reasons I bought this 275 GB Crucial SSD Drive. Some reasons prove to be very practical and others did not windup working out. 1.Larger size of the drive - worked. 2. Crucial Tech Support - left a great impression. 3. Company & Warranty - very good. 4. Software Bundle - glitchy and frustrating with my setup. Size of Drive Larger than Competitors The first reason I bought the 275 gigabyte SSD Drive is because the data and software on my original SATA drive was 224 gigabytes period I was concerned that a 240 gigabyte drive would not hold my software or data. Crucial Tech Support When I called Crucial to find about if the drive was compatible with my computer. I talked to some very good tech support people who impressed me with their knowledge of the computer I had and what I was trying to do. Amrican tech support people who are kind, helpful and extemely knowledgeable scored high on my list. It is very important when you buy an SSD drive that you have someplace you can call for technical support which they will help you. Crucial also has some very good videos. I also choose to buy The crucial drive because when I talked to the tech person he stated that Crucial is one of the few companies that make their own drives and their own and Flash NAND. The drive comes with 3 year warranty. These were all good buying choices. Software The next reason I purchased this drive is because it comes with the software from Acronis True Image HD 2105 software.. Most people buy the software after they buy the SSD drive. I figured it saved me some money. The tech also told me that when push comes to shove if I did not have electrical power for the new SSD drive I could take it off of the DVD drive already in the computer to enable the drive to work. The only place I ran into glitches was with the Acronis True Image HD 2015 software. The Crucial SSD Drive comes with an OEMversion of the software which means that only some features of the software are enabled. Basically the True Image HD 2015 Software did not boot as it was supposed to do after finding the Crucial Drive. I couldn't the software it to boot. I could generate an zip file error message but that’s all. I couldn't get the bootable drive to boot, then I became very frustrated there isn’t Acronis support for the for True Image HD 2015 software there is only Crucial support and I installed the drive on a weekend. The screen froze and the software was not doing what it was supposed to do which was to reboot to copy the drive. It was freezing in the middle of the drive not initializing the Crucial Drive. The support information from Crucial was not really clear what to do it said make a bootable Drive I tried that it did not work. Finally, I borrowed a full version of Acronis True Image from my neighbor who gave me up the bootable CD / DVD disc and then I was able to copy the information from the original drive to the SSD drive. I plan on buying a full version of a Acronis True Image to copy my drive in the future because I spent quite some time trying to get the OEM version to work which lacked certain functionality. It's not really clear whether the software was unable to copy the device correctly and but after about five hours I just gave up. I think the OEM software that comes with the drive is good enough for most people however it did not work for me. I realize that the Crucial SSD drive is not the cheapest but it is working now at the speed of light. I am very happy with the drive I wish the 500-gigabyte drive was less expensive. The tech support guy also told me that I didn't have to worry about an buying a 3/12” drive adapter kit that I could just use foam double stick tape to hold in the drive because it was a solid state drive. That saved me the price of the adapter kit which I am grateful for. I have had several people tell me that the SSD drive speeds up Windows functionality and they were right. Things that were cranking and taking forever now take very few seconds. The entire procedure for installing the drive took a several more hours because of the software not working, Therefore, I suggest if you really want to do the whole change over quickly to invest in buying the full version of the Acronis Image Software. Another thing that did not work out properly which I thought would is that I ordered the Crucial Drive from Amazon directly as opposed to ordering it from Crucial. I thought that ordering it from Crucial would take longer because they are in Idaho and I needed the drive delivered to California. However, it took a almost took 8 - 10 business days before Amazon shipped this SSD Drive. Once it was shipped it was delivered the next day. It leads me to believe that Amazon when it gets an order,contacts Crucial, who then sends the drive to Amazon and then they send it to the customer. Now that I see how fast Windows is running on the SSD drive I wish I bought an SSD drive sooner I rate crucial the drive itself very highly. They are they are aware that if you don't have the right software to install the drive then people will return the drive. I realize that they are not in control of whatever made it impossible for their OEM software to work. The technical support directly from Acronis does not work for the OEM version. The support documentation for the software from Crucial was not that great. Fortunately, for me I have a neighbor who is a software engineer and brilliant. He told me at one point “Google” the solution but the solution was having a good smart tech person to be your neighbor. I highly recommend the crucial SSD drive to users. I only wish they would bring the price down which I would suspect would be happening in a few years

Bought two of these 525GB MX300's to replace a 256GB M500 and 256GB M550 in my desktop and laptop. My goal was to clone both drives so I could swap them out without having to reinstall anything or lose any files. First, be sure you download the two pieces of software that help you get the most out of your new SSD: Crucial Storage Executive (displays info about supported drives, including SMART data and allows you to enable Momentum Cache - more on this later), and Acronis True Image for Crucial. There are a fair number of reviewers stating their drives failed after 10-12 months. I'm optimistic if the drive are going to have issues, the SMART software would identify these issues. Both existing drives that I replaced had 95-96% of their remaining lifespan and there were 0 bad sectors. I was able to see this data in the Storage Executive software. I first connected the SSD to a USB port using a SATA to USB cable connector (get one of these if you want to clone your drive for laptops or desktops without open SATA and power connectors - this is the one I used StarTech USB 3.0 to 2.5" SATA III Hard Drive Adapter Cable w/ UASP - SATA to USB 3.0 Converter for SSD/HDD ). Using the Storage Executive software, I confirmed the drive was recognized, healthy and not initialized (partitioned). The firmware was already up to date, another nice feature of the SE software. Next I installed Acronis True Image to perform the cloning. There is no fee to use the software, but it will only install as long as one of the active drives on your system is made by Crucial. The process from there is pretty simple - roughly 4 steps. 1) Choose clone; 2) choose source drive (most likely your C: drive) - I choose the automatic clone method, btw; 3) choose destination drive (your new SSD); and 4) proceed with clone/reboot. It took about 30 minutes for my laptop and 75 minutes for my desktop (different aged systems and speeds). Both clones worked perfectly on the first try and I had no issues booting up after swapping the drives. Getting back to the Momentum Cache setting - the MX300's allow you to utilize some of your DRAM for random write jobs in such a way that it can increase write speed by up to 10x. This is because all the random data will be temporarily stored to DRAM (up to 25% of available system memory or 4GB, whichever is less, and then it will write the data sequentially. According to Crucial, the benefit is faster write speeds (you won't see increased read speeds, so you won't see a performance increase when starting up the computer or using it under normal conditions), and it also helps extend the life of the drive as random writes will wear out the drive faster than sequential writes. Knowing I have so much remaining life on the drives I'm replacing (due to running out of space), I am going to repurpose them in my family's computers, as they still have HDD's and won't come close to using all 256GB. I'm very happy with the older crucial drives and looking forward to years of use with these new ones. If there are any issues in the future, I will update this review accordingly.

Holy mackerel !! Installed this in my old 2007 17" MacBook Pro that was about to be discarded because it was so slow. I'm in a slight state of shock right now because it's a totally new experience. It boots almost instantly & applications open before can I lift my finger off the trackpad . It was simple to install. I made a bootable OS X El Capitan installer on a thumb drive then removed the old hard disk. The new mx300 fit perfectly . After loading the new ssd with OS X from a time machine back up a simple terminal command to enable "Trim" finished the process.I Didn't need to contact crucial for anything. In 1994 when I got my first apple solid state memory cost $1.00 per mb. So this seems an amazing value. I was so pleased with the performance jump in my 10 year old Mac book pro I've since done the same upgrade to my mid 2012 i7 and I might even do my lonely win10 laptop too. I love it when a product works better than expected. UPDATE; 9/30/2016. Bought a second and installed it in my mid 2012 i7 quad. That thing is just scary fast now, no issues at all. Did a clean install of Sierra . At these prices there's no reason not to ditch the old spinner and update. I'm in no way associated with this product. I received nothing in return for my review. I HIGHLY recommend this product. 5/14/17 My two MacBook Pros are still lightning fast & running flawlessly, back here to buy a third for my Acer Win10 machine(sometimes you need windows) I guess there was a nand memory shortage in the 4 quarter 2016 so the prices have gone up 20% but still a heck of a value in my opinion. My Acer is really a slug so I can't wait to see the metamorphosis.

I recently installed this drive in a Dell Latitude E6420 laptop. It works beautifully and really sped-up the computer. Boot-up now occurs in only a few seconds. It was almost unusable before the SSD upgrade, especially when surfing the web using Internet Explorer. Acrobat Reader used to freeze but now works fine. I'm still using Windows 7, but have the latest versions of MS Office installed. Norton Anti-virus is also installed and running. Earlier, I had upgraded the computer's memory to 8GB, but that resulted in very little improvement in speed. It took me a while to figure out how to transfer the data and operating system from the old HD to the new SSD. I used the Acronis True Image software to clone the old internally mounted HD, with the SSD connected externally via. a USB cable. I then installed the SSD inside the computer. Some websites had suggested that I first install the SSD inside the computer and connect the old HD externally. They also suggested that I start the computer by using a bootable USB created with the Acronis software. But this method did not work for me. I could not create a bootable USB that the computer would recognise. I tried reassigning the boot drive using the BIOS Utility screen. But nothing I did made any difference. So, I then tried just using the Acronis software with the SSD externally connected and the data transfer worked fine. However, I realize that computers vary and the method I used may not work for everyone. I am hoping to get an additional year or two out of my old Dell computer. With the new SSD installed, it appears to run a little cooler and is also quieter.