Conclusion, Pricing, and Final Thoughts
Conclusion
PROS
- Solid overall performance and performance consistency.
- Competitive endurance.
- Good cost/GB.
CONS
- TRIM-related performance issues.
Pricing and Warranty (street price at the time of this writing)
- 250GB – $80 ($0.32/GB) *
- 500GB – $140 ($0.28/GB) *
- 1TB – $260 ($0.26/GB)
- 2TB – $500 ($0.25/GB) *
* 1TB initial capacity only. Others to follow at a later date.
The warranty period is 5 years, up from the previous 3. While the prices look great in today's landscape, it's worth pointing out that we are effectively frozen in time since 1.5 years ago, when the MX300 was shipping at the same $0.25-0.26/GB.
Final Thoughts
The SSD market certainly needed a good kick in the pricing, and the MX500 has certainly delivered. While we haven't seen products out in the open, the 1TB MX500 is available directly from Crucial at their stated MSRP. What do you get for your money? A solid performing SSD using a modern SMI controller coupled with Micron NAND and DRAM. Aside from a few TRIM-related performance hiccups uncovered by our exclusive test suite, the MX500 offers excellent performance for the price, and it will likely become one of our more recommended SSDs in the coming months.
The MX500 is a solid deal, but I'm dropping down to Gold due to the TRIM speed issues as they may not mesh well with some of the heavier power users out there.
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.