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The MX300 2TB comes in the familiar Crucial clamshell box with a large image of the drive on the front, along with a description of the drive and its capacity. The rear of the box has a list of the contents and a link address to Crucial's SSD resources page.
Along with a 7mm – 9mm adapter (for installing the drive in notebooks with larger drive bays), the only other thing in the box is a handy activation code for Acronis TrueImage HD which can be downloaded from Crucial's website.
The MX300 is built on a standard 2.5in, 7mm format in a metal case which uses clips to hold the enclosure together.
Once the locking clips are released the 3/4 length PCB is revealed. The open side of the PCB holds four Micron 32-layer 3D TLC NAND packages. Two of these packages are 384GB (MT29F3T08EUHBBM4-3R:B), one is 144GB (MT29F1T208ECHBBJ4-3R:B) while the fourth is a 96GB package (MT29F768G08EEHBBJ4-3R:B). Along with these there is a single DDR3 1600 cache chip.
The remaining four NAND packages (two 384GB and two 144GB), another DDR3 1600 cache chip and the Marvell 88SS1074 controller sit on the other side of the board. The controller has a dab of thermal compound on it to help dissipate heat through the case. The 88SS1074 is Marvell's fifth generation controller. Built on a 28nm process, the 400MHz dual core, four channel controller supports 15nm TLC/MLC/SLC and 3D NAND, low power integrated DEVSLP and NANDEdge, Marvell's advanced error correction LDPC technology.
Crucial's SSD management software is Storage Executive. It's a pretty comprehensive utility covering most of what can be tinkered with in an SSD. With it you can check the drive's S.M.A.R.T data, update the firmware, see how the drive's capacity is being used, monitor the drive's operating temperature and overall health, reset the encryption password and enable the Momentum Cache feature.
One thing that is missing is an integrated data migration tool, but the drive comes with a download voucher for Acronis TrueImage HD which takes care of that job.
