Introduction, Specifications and Packaging
A solid performer at an acceptable price.
Introduction:
Crucial and their parent company Micron have certainly launched their share of SSDs over the years. Product launches have effectively toggled back and forth between both names, with Crucial handling the upgrade market while Micron proper handles the OEM side of things. Both sides have one thing in common – solid performing SSDs at a budget-friendly price point. Having the best performing SSD on the market is great, but does nobody any good if the majority of purchasers can't afford it.
We had Micron out to discuss the MX500 before we completed our testing. Here is the full discussion video:
Specifications:
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Micron® 3D TLC NAND Flash
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RoHS-compliant package
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SATA 6 Gb/s interface
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TCG/Opal 2.0-compliant self-encrypting drive (SED)
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Compatible with Microsoft eDrive®
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Hardware-based AES-256 encryption engine
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Performance (ALL CAPACITIES):
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Sequential 128KB READ: Up to 560 MB/s
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Sequential 128KB WRITE: Up to 510 MB/s
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Random 4KB READ: Up to 95,000 IOPS
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Random 4KB WRITE: Up to 90,000 IOPS
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Power consumption:
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250GB: <3.5W
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500GB: <4.5W
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1000GB/2000GB: <5.0W
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Endurance – total bytes written (TBW):
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250GB: 100TB
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500GB: 180TB
- 1TB: 360TB
- 2TB: 700TB
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A few points from these impressive specs:
- Performance specs are common across *all* capacities. Yes, even the smallest model is rated to perform as well as the largest.
- Endurance is very high, especially for TLC NAND. Samsung's 850 EVO 500GB and 1TB models are rated at 150TB. Heck, the 850 PRO 1TB is only rated at 300TBW. Sure that's the same rating carried up from the 512GB model of the same, but it's not Micron's fault that Samsung opted to capacity-bracket their endurance ratings.
Packaging:
No frills here. Quick start guide contains a link to crucial.com/support/ssd to get you started.
Now go back on those long
Now go back on those long lists of SSD tested and put a red box around the SSD being tested because that’s some haystack of results to visually search through to see where the drive being tested compares to all those others in that very long List.
You can see the 4k and 128kb
You can see the 4k and 128kb scores in the 2 top charts, take that score and scroll down till you get to it.
The SSD being tested is at
The SSD being tested is at the top of the abbreviated charts – above the longer charts.
Allyn Malventano, Regarding
Allyn Malventano, Regarding the TRIM issues, can Crucial fix the problem with a firmware update? Thanks.
Most likely, yes.
Most likely, yes.
Looks like a solid
Looks like a solid alternative to 850 evo..
Allyn, what do you think of a
Allyn, what do you think of a MLC SSD with TLC cache?
TLC is slower than MLC, which
TLC is slower than MLC, which itself is slower than SLC. Micron has SLC mode caching for their smaller MLC/TLC drives because it improves speed.
A TLC cache would hurt performance.
I have the 1TB MLC Crucial MX200, which has enough flash that it doesnt need an SLC cache, however i do use the Momentum Cache which uses system DRAM as a fast cache. Its a good idea if you have a UPS, which i do.
Interesting, I wonder if,
Interesting, I wonder if, with the BX line being the ultra cheap ones, we’ll see it move to 3D QLC NAND before long, sure it’ll be slower than the others, but it’ll be a butt tonne cheaper.
get back to us when they are
get back to us when they are at $.10 a GB
Maybe in 5 years
Maybe in 5 years
With regards to what Jon
With regards to what Jon Tanguy said in the video about Power Loss Immunity eliminating the need for banks of capacitors – they were pretty cool to look at: https://i.imgur.com/wVXxOre.jpg
How does it compare with
How does it compare with MX300?
One of my takeaways is (trim
One of my takeaways is (trim speed aside) the performance on this isn’t all that different from a Vector. And the Vector was a monster (an unsafe hotrod that blew a gasket if you cycled power at the wrong time) of a client drive when it came out and was MLC only. It’s nice to see a budget TLC drive isn’t completely compromised.
Went from a 256 gig c300 at
Went from a 256 gig c300 at launch to a 500gig mx100, I just might upgrade to a 1 terabyte mx500.
Things are getting a bit saturated.
MX500 2TB appears to be 25%
MX500 2TB appears to be 25% cheaper than the 850 EVO 2TB
Maybe the trim results are
Maybe the trim results are like that because Crucial MX500 NCQ (Native Command Queuing) TRIM is actually working unlike Samsungs SSDs which have broken NCQ TRIM (this is why 8xx series are blacklisted for NCQ TRIM in Linux kernel).
Is there any test you could do to confirm this? Maybe somehow try to disable NCQ TRIM and then run the tests again. Maybe even run MX500 and 850 EVO in IDE mode instead of AHCI to make sure that NCQ is not a factor.