Reddit reviews Crucial MX300 1TB 3D NAND SATA 2.5 Inch Internal SSD - CT1050MX300SSD1

The 1TB model is $237.99 now. Slightly less expensive on a $/GB ratio.

Err. Crucial MX300 is at a lower price for $336.99 and fulfilled by Amazon:
https://www.amazon.ca/Crucial-MX300-525GB-Internal-Solid/dp/B01IAGSDUE/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1492868600&sr=1-1&th=1

This build looks good. I built myself a similar rig last year, and it performs well. I basically agree with everything /u/MrTesla said, mutatis mutandis.

• If you want to perform GPU computing just make sure this GPU is CUDA-enabled.
  
  
• I'd get a 1 TB solid state; they are only ~$250 if you went with Crucial instead of Samsung.
  
  
• I have that same CPU cooler. It looks awesome in pictures, when it's by itself, but in retrospect I wish I would have went with something much smaller and simpler. The problem is that it's a brick, and will stick out directly normal from your CPU, and takes up a ton of space. Let me take a picture of mine... here ya go. It makes cable management and everything else happening around your mobo more difficult. If you go with something like this Corsair Hydro, you get the same copper plate with liquid cooling, but move the fan element out of center of the tower, to a location where it should be. I'd highly consider this since you are only going with a mid, and not full tower.
  
  
• I like the modular PSU, but I'd almost want to beef that up a little, to like 800W.
  
  
• CPU looks good. For $50 more you get a decent benchmark bump for the 3.6 i7-6850K. Then again, you might have already said that, a few times.
  
  Overall though, pretty solid build. MATLAB is just an excuse to build this right? No shame in that. When it comes time to actually use MATLAB for analyses I would highly recommend converting whatever you can to MEX files. Like MrTesla mentioned, MATLAB is not the fastest tool available, and may not be the right tool if you're concerned about how long it will take to process your data. Optimizing the lang/software/code used to process your data will result in speed-ups orders of magnitude greater than simply running the same code on a more powerful machine. I experienced this first-hand; I was simulating particle diffusion on ruffled membranes in matlab using standard functions. To run one simulation (~20k steps for 1k particles) it would take about 10 minutes. I went out and build a new rig, and it went down to ~6 min. I converted some of my functions to MEX/C and it dropped to about 45 seconds.

This sale ends in 3 days. The same unit is on sale at Canada Computers for $379. That sale ends on May 18. According to RedFlagDeals this same unit was on sale last month for $349, so this is not much of a sale. But if SSD prices keep going up like everyone says...

Finding reviews of the 1TB model is strangely difficult. Tom's Hardware did a review of the lower capacity models and they spent time talking about the 3D TLC NAND it uses and they were not impressed.

>If you plan to purchase a low cost or even a premium SSD, the Adata Ultimate SU800 is not a good choice. You can find our picks in the Best SSDs monthly editorial that recommends other products that will offer the best performance per dollar.

[edit] /u/berserker_103 has pointed out that the 1TB MX300 is on sale on amazon.ca for $336.99 + free shipping. I'll leave this post up as a warning to people considering the Adata and also to highlight the mx300 price.

[edit2] And now it looks like Tom's did their testing before a firmware update - other sites' testing doesn't show the same lousy read/write performance. Welcome to my mess of a thread. ¯\(ツ)/¯

Samsung 850s are high quality. If you want to go crazy mode, this one is a good deal. I use the 275GB version of it.

I'd suggest one of two options.

First, the less expensive route (potentially) is to back up all the files on the drive (just clone it ideally), do a secure erase, and then restore the files and see if that helps. It might take a few hours, and it could fix the problems.

If that doesn't work, buy a new drive, because read errors are usually a bad sign. Plus, the Corsair Force 3 is about five years old anyway, which means a new drive will have much higher capacity, better performance, and probably cost a lot less than what you paid for the Force 3 back in the day. The 120GB model cost $180 at launch (based on a quick search), which means for only a bit more you could now buy the 1TB MX300 (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01IAGSDUE). Check our Best SSDs for other options (though I'll admit I need to go update the picks a bit): http://www.pcgamer.com/the-best-ssd-for-gaming/

No, a 1 TB SSD is actually closer to $300.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01IAGSDUE/ref=twister_B01IB47HBG?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-75E250B-AM/dp/B00OBRFFAS/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1497739090&sr=1-1&keywords=850%2Bevo&th=1

https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-960GB-Solid-SDSSDA-960GB-G26-Laptop/dp/B01LY5ZZ4P/ref=sr_1_6_f_f_it?s=amazonfresh&ie=UTF8&qid=1497739137&sr=1-6&ppw=fresh&keywords=1+tb+ssd

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LXPENRR/ref=twister_B01N26TZ6M?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

MX300 is 238 on Amazon right now.

without ref link

I see 280 for 1 TB! https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01IAGSDUE/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

edit: Ah i see it here https://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=1050MX3SD1&c=CJ

Is the website reliable?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01IAGSDUE/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1494037287&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=1tb+ssd&dpPl=1&dpID=51Hqg6dEuvL&ref=plSrch

279.99 for an alright 1 tb ssd

Tomahawk B350

I see the m.2 slot but I just realized I've got an enclosed SSD.... Hm.

Its cheaper than that

Crucial MX300 Interno da SSD 1TB, 2.5" - CT1050MX300SSD1 https://www.amazon.it/dp/B01IAGSDUE/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_RTEKzbJ7AYWRD

I have to replace my PCIe SSD which is starting to flake out on me severely.

I'm thinking of the Crucial MX300 1TB SSD for my gaming PC:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01IAGSDUE

Anandtech had it in their list of recommended SSDs for 2016, and from what I read I should not really see any difference in performance for gaming changing from a PCIe SSD to a SATA one.

Any reason why I shouldn't pull the trigger? Buying today.

hey man, I'm just looking at amazon :) https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-MX300-NAND-SATA-Internal/dp/B01IAGSDUE

I just bought an AW 13 R4 but to get the GTX 1060, I had to sacrifice the SSD (same problem). I see the 1tb are 250 on Amazon. Is it pretty easy to install as a plug and play or is there more to it? Which style will work for me [This] (https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-MX300-Internal-Solid-State/dp/B01IAGSDUE/ref=sr_1_4?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1503929004&sr=1-4&keywords=1tb+ssd) or [This] (https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-MX300-Internal-Solid-CT1050MX300SSD4/dp/B01L80DH1Y/ref=sr_1_9?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1503929004&sr=1-9&keywords=1tb+ssd) Thanks in advance for any help

Start with something like this for your Fractal.

Crucial makes good SSD. I have them in several of my PC's with no problems.

> https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B01IAGSDUE/ref=twister_B01IB47HBG?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Any big difference between the Crucial one and the WD Blue one?

Might have to spend a bit more, Crucial MX300 has treated me well, along with other Crucial products.

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B01IAGSDUE/ref=twister_B01IB47HBG?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Like I said, he can get both and still stay under his 2K budget. A Ti is only $200 more than non-Ti right now. 1TB SSD can be had for less than $300.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01IAGSDUE/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LXPENRR/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01L80DH1Y/

Also, I've run into a game or two that's not well optimized and actually dips below 60FPS on a 1080Ti when MSAA is enabled.

I'm sure logicalincrements has something useful. I got mine during the November sales for like $200 flat. It's an excellent drive but it's pretty pricy when its not on sale (and even when it is).

Personally, I'd wait till November since things will be on sale and in RS2: Vietnam every slot fills up in 5 seconds anyway so you're just taking a gamble you get your preferred slot anyway with or without a SSD. It does make gaming pretty great in general though - you will never bottleneck because of a hard drive.

Now we're talking!

Your GPU is integrated into the motherboard, so there's no upgrading that physically, but it's definitely got fight left in it! Aside from that, we've got some options for easy and affordable upgrades! I've ordered from what I consider the most important to the least:

Hard Drive: Fusion Drive or SSD.

Upgrading the hard drive won't improve gaming performance, but it will make everything you do on your system faster overall. Looks like you've got a 1TB 5400RPM drive in there right now. Lots of space, but bare bones performance. Upgrading to a Fusion Drive or SSD will give you a huge performance jump. SSDs are the fastest drives out there, but assuming you don't want to decrease your disk space, your going to have to pay the premium. SSHDs aka Fusion Drives offer the best of both worlds; they add flash storage to a standard drive, and optimize performance by putting the system files and most frequently used files and programs on the flash section. Huge performance boost for a MUCH lower price than an SSD. I love these things.

RAM: Upgrade from 8GB to 16GB.

According to the spec sheet, you actually could increase your GPU's available memory by using something called TurboCache, which allocates system memory for use by the GPU. If you were to do that, you'd definitely benefit from increasing the RAM! I generally stick with Crucial's RAM when upgrading. It's never steered me wrong before. It's usually cheaper to buy on Amazon, but Crucial's website seems to be having a sale on DDR3 right now, so you're in luck! They list both DDR3-1600 and DDR3-1866 as being compatible, but Toshiba's spec sheet says DDR3-1600. 1866MHz RAM would work, it'd just be underclocked at 1600MHz. I'd recommend a pair of Crucial 4GB or Crucial Ballistix 4GB modules. The latter is marketed as higher quality performance RAM. I'm not personally familiar with the performance differences, but you can read their explanation here.

CPU: a faster i7

From the looks of it, your CPU could definitely be swapped out for a better one. While CPU upgrades have the potential to offer huge performance boosts, I've got it down here for a few reasons:

• Laptop CPU upgrades are often contingent on what CPUs the manufacturer has whitelisted in the BIOS. Thus, even if a CPU is physically compatible, there's a chance it might not work. There are sometimes ways around these whitelists, but getting into BIOS mods has the potential to get real complicated real fast.
  
• Upgrading the RAM and Hard Drive on your laptop is very easy. They are both easily accessible via panels on the bottom of your device. On the other hand, the CPU would require completely disassembling your laptop, removing the heatsink, reapplying thermal paste, and reassembly.
  
• You've already got a Quad-Core i7. I'd be much more inclined to suggest an upgrade if you were running dual-core, i3, or even i5, but your CPU is pretty capable, all things considered. I worry that with the amount of time effort, and supplies you'd need to perform the upgrade, you'd go well past the point of diminishing returns.
  
  All that said, I have no intention of dissuading you! If you've ever wanted to get into this sort of thing, then by all means...take chances, make mistakes, get messy! (and back up everything first.) I didn't know shit about upgrading CPUs a year ago, but we live in an age where we can use the internet to learn these skills in record time! If you want to tackle this, let me know, and we can dig deeper into which processors might be a suitable upgrade. A preliminary search tells me you might be able to swap in a 2.6GHz i7 3720QM or maybe even a 2.8GHz i7-3840QM, but more research would be needed. It's too much money to just guess!
  
  Wifi???
  
  I can't find a damned thing about the wireless card for this laptop. I assume it has to have one though. You can probably upgrade it, but unless you're having connection speed issues, it's probably not necessary. Still, if you want to find out, go into device manager and tell me what your wifi card is.
  
  
  Optical Drive: Extra Storage or Blu Ray
  
  Figured I'd mention this, but it's at the bottom since it isn't directly related to improving your performance. You could swap out your DVD drive for a Hard Drive caddy or a Blu Ray drive. The caddy would let you have two internal Drives, thus letting you use one for storage, and one for Windows and programs. The advantage of this is that you could purchase a small SSD for Windows, and then repurpose your existing drive in the caddy. This is a bit more involved than simply upgrading the original drive though, and some laptops I've come across aren't thrilled with having two drives inside them. If you're feeling adventurous, it could be a fun project, but I'd recommend the SSHD otherwise.
  
  
  Phew. That was a lot. Took longer than I expected too. Whoops! Before I close though, it's important to remember one thing: You don't want to spend more upgrading it than it would cost to buy a more powerful computer! Some of the components would definitely be reusable or resealable though, so you can factor that in as well.
  
  
  TL;DR: You can make it better!
  
  
  EDIT: Forget to ask, what exactly is causing it to die on you?
  
  

Never noticed that, read into it a bit more and you sold me. What would you suggest for a keyboard? I've been looking at the ducky keyboards. Would you suggest a 1tb drive IE: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01IAGSDUE/?tag=pcpapi-20 ?

I'm assuming this is CAD$ or AUD$? Because in the US, a 500GB SSD can be had for $145 and a 2TB FireCuda is $100.

I can't really recommend the 2.5" version of the FireCuda drives. The 3.5" one is good for gaming since the actual HDD portion of it is 7200rpm, but the 2.5" version is 5400rpm. Even with the hybrid component, that difference is large and easily noticeable.

If you're on a laptop and forced to 2.5" drives, a bigger SSD (despite the cost) is your best bet if you're concerned enough about performance to get an SSHD. 7200rpm drives kill battery life in laptops, and the SSHD bit of a 5400rpm FireCuda really only helps with your most commonly played games. If you switch between games a lot, it won't help much at all since only bits and pieces of every game will be cached.

Well, as far as most people seem to care at this point the Price per GB of a HDD over an SSD at that storage capacity wins for me.

The cheapest 1TB SSD I could find on amazon works out to $0.28 per GB. Whereas the HDD I linked works out to $0.05 per GB. HDDs are very much still worth it for storage that you don't need to be fast.

Here if anyone's interested, got mine a few days ago all good so far.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-MX300-Internal-Solid-State/dp/B01IAGSDUE/ref=sr_1_3?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1511574208&sr=1-3&keywords=mx+300

• £268 Samsung 850 EVO 1TB
  
• £237 Crucial MX300 1 TB
  
• £231 Western Digital Blue 1 TB
  
  Yeah, OP will save a few pounds. I just mentioned the Samsung because I have personal experience with them. WD has a drive that seems to be even cheaper than the Crucial.

In this price range, for VR. And prebuilt I'd give the backpack VR setups a go.

• https://www.amazon.com/MSI-VR-ONE-7RE-065US-i7-7820HK/dp/B01NANLHU3
  
  ----------------------
  
  Of the two you posted the Alienware hands down has more capability. The overclockable 6-core i7-6800K CPU will really help in titles that make use of it. It's a bit more "future proof". Both due to the more capable CPU, and the more "standard" chassis for future GPU upgrades.
  
  The Lenovo All-in-one is more like a laptop without a battery. And the specs are contradictory in that listing, so i'd be unsure what you actually get.
  
  I'd highly recommend getting the Alienware from the Microsoft Store. They have an excellent $99 2-year warranty for pre-built systems.
  
  https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Alienware-Area-51-a51R2-3237SLV-Signature-Edition-Gaming-Desktop/productID.5073942800
  
  The problem with the Alienware, and many of these prebuilds, is they come with tiny, or no SSD. It's the easiest thing to cut to combat on price. For most games, SSDs aren't a big deal. Personally however, I find them critically important for VR setups. As load times aren't just a minor inconvenience in VR. You are often thrown into blackness waiting for things to reload. This can be some of the more jarring transitions.
  
  I highly recommend adding a relatively inexpensive SATA SSD like these to at least house the VR titles:
  
  
• 1TB - https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-MX300-Internal-Solid-State/dp/B01IAGSDUE/

Buy a $90 256GB SSD and put your OS and most-played games on it:

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-75E250B-AM/dp/B00OAJ412U/ref=sr_1_18?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1503219298&sr=8-18&keywords=256gb+ssd

Or get a $290 1TB SSD and replace your old HDD completely:

https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-MX300-Internal-Solid-State/dp/B01IAGSDUE/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1503219790&sr=1-1&keywords=mx300+1tb

This will solve your problem and lead to a much better overall PC experience. SATA SSD technology has peaked, so you won't need to replace the drive for 5+ years.

FWIW you can get a crucial MX300 1TB for cheaper on amazon - https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-MX300-525GB-Internal-Solid/dp/B01IAGSDUE/ref=pd_lpo_147_bs_lp_t_2?_encoding=UTF8&refRID=B8MP2XMT81RFW2SM897M&th=1