The test system used in this review was an HP 8200 Elite. The computer came equipped with an Intel Core i5-2400 CPU, 4GB of DDR3 1333MHz memory, Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3250312AS 250GB SATA 6 Gb/s hard drive, NVIDIA Quadro FX580 512MB PCIe graphics card and an Intel 82579-LM gigabit network card. For the operating system, I installed a fresh copy of Windows 7 Enterprise.
To test the performance of the Crucial MX200, I ran a series of benchmarks using CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1, HD Tach RW 3.0.4.0, ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46, AS SSD, HD Tune Pro 5.00, Anvil's Storage Utilities and Iometer. For comparison, I've also included test results from the OCZ Vector 180, Crucial BX100, Samsung 850 EVO M.2, Samsung 850 EVO mSATA, AMD Radeon R7, Silicon Power Slim S80, Samsung SSD 850 EVO, OCZ ARC 100, SanDisk Ultra II, Crucial MX100, SanDisk Extreme Pro, Samsung SSD 850 PRO, Plextor PX-256M6S, Toshiba Q Series Pro, Plextor PX-256M6M, Samsung SSD 840 EVO mSATA, OCZ Vector 150, OCZ Vertex 450, Silicon Power Slim S55, Samsung SSD 840 EVO, Seagate 600 SSD, SanDisk Extreme II, OCZ Vector, Plextor PX-256M5Pro Xtreme, and Samsung SSD 840 Pro.
As I mentioned earlier, the MX200 is based on Marvel's 88SS9189 controller chip. Looking at the screenshot above, you can see that it performs equally well with both incompressible (0%) and compressible (100%) data.
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.3:
First, I ran a few quick tests using CrystalDiskMark. This benchmark tool measures the performance of a storage device by testing its sequential read and write speeds as well as its random read and write speeds using blocks 512K and 4K in size.
 Crucial MX200 500GB |
 OCZ Vector 180 240GB |
According to Crucial, the 500GB MX200 is capable of reading at 555 MB/s and writing at 500 MB/s when connected to a SATA 6 Gb/s port. While the drive performed well, it came up a bit short of these numbers in CrystalDiskMark's sequential read and write speed tests.
 Crucial MX200 500GB |
 OCZ Vector 180 240GB - All 0x00, 0Fill |
The MX200 performed equally well when using highly compressible 0x00 (0 Fill) data. This time around, the drive was able to read at 480.9 MB/s and write at 472.3 MB/s.
HD Tach RW 3.0.4.0:
Next, I used HD Tach to test the MX200's read, write and burst speeds as well as its seek times and CPU usage.
Crucial MX200 500GB
Looking at the screenshot above, you can see that the MX200 had average read and write speeds of 394.5 MB/s and 384.1 MB/s respectively, as well as a burst speed of 381.0 MB/s.
ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46:
I also used ATTO Disk Benchmark to test the MX200's sequential read and write speeds. The tests are run using blocks ranging in size from 0.5KB to 8192KB and the total length set to 256MB.
 Crucial MX200 500GB |
 OCZ Vector 180 240GB |
When tested with ATTO, the MX200's read speeds topped out at about 547 MB/s and its write speeds at 513 MB/s.
