At the start of June, Crucial introduced their new MX100 series SSDs. Due to a transition to flash memory that has been produced on a 16nm process node, Crucial is able to take their next step in the ever lowering prices of SSDs. The MX100s are most certainly cheap. But, are they any good?

Crucial is of course a part of chip manufacturer Micron, which is, in addition to Toshiba, Samsung, and Sandisk, one of the world's largest manufacturers of flash memory used in SSDs. Up until now, the newest type of flash memory that came out of Micron's factories was produced using 20nm transistors. The new MX100 SSDs are the first models that utilize Micron's brand new 16nm MLC flash memory. As always, smaller transistors mean that less surface area is required to offer the same amount of storage capacity, which means that the manufacturer can offer the same capacity at a lower price point. 16nm is, at the moment of writing, the smallest type of transistors we have encountered in flash memory. Toshiba, Sandisk, and Samsung, which manufacture flash memory according to the ToggleFlash standard, are currently using a 19nm node.