Crucial MX500 1TB M.2. SSD review - Specifications & Features

Specifications & Features

Crucial will be offering three versions of the MX500 M.2. which capacities of 250 GB, 500 GB and 1 TB. The sample that has arrived for testing is the 1 TB version of the drive. The MX500 series as stated will be fitted with TLC (Triple-level cell) written NAND flash memory from Micron. This allows Crucial to offer the big storage volume at a lower price point.  For the MX series, Crucial moved away completely from planar towards 3D (vertically stacked) Micron NAND, and that should give it a nice boost in (especially write) performance when compared to for example the BX200 series. 3D NAND is physical vertical NAND cell stacking not to be confused with chip stacking in a multi-chip package. In 3D NAND, NAND layers, not chips, are stacked in a single IC. The good news is continued cost reduction, smaller die sizes and more capacity per NAND chip. Also, installed NAND toolsets in the wafer fabs can, for the most part, be reused, thereby extending the useful life of the fab equipment. The NAND ICs are driven by a Silicon Motion SM2258 controller as well as a DRAM cache and a small partition that will be SLC written to keep write performance up-to-snuff.

• Sequential reads/writes up to 560/ 510 MB/s on all file types
• Random reads/writes up to 95k on all file types
• Over 90x more energy efficient than a typical hard drive
• Accelerated by Micron 3D NAND technology 64 Layer TLC
• Dynamic Write Acceleration delivers faster saves and file transfers
• More durable than a hard drive – no small moving parts that are prone to failure
• Adaptive Thermal Protection allows for adaptive cooling
• 5 year limited warranty

For those that wonder, why did Crucial skip the MX400 series? Well, the number four apparently doesn't sit well in Asian countries, much like the number thirteen in western countries, that's all there is to it. Pricing (MSRP) is set at 259 USD for the 1 TB model, so yes that's hovering at the 26 cents per GB marker as well as getting 5 years warranty. Street prices are even a notch lower, so for brevities sake, let's call this a 23~25 cents per GB SSD series.
 

Crucial MX Series
Volume	MX500 1024GB	BX300 480 GB	MX300 750GB	MX200 500GB	MX200 1TB
Form Factors	2.5" / M.2	2.5"	2.5"	2.5", mSATA, M.2	2.5"
Controller	Silicon Motion SM2258XT	Silicon Motion SM2258XT	Marvell 88SS1074	Marvell 88SS9189
NAND	Micron 64-layer 3D TLC	Micron 64-layer 3D MLC	Micron 32-layer 3D TLC	Micron 16nm 128Gbit MLC
DRAM	1024 MB	512MB	512MB	512MB	1GB
Sequential Read	560MB/s	555MB/s	530MB/s	555MB/s	555MB/s
Sequential Write	510MB/s	510MB/s	510MB/s	500MB/s	500MB/s
4KB Random Read	95K IOPS	95K IOPS	92K IOPS	100K IOPS	100K IOPS
4KB Random Write	90K IOPS	95K IOPS	83K IOPS	87K IOPS	87K IOPS
Sleep Mode	4mW	4mW	4mW	2mW	2mW
Idle	65mW	75mW	75mW	100mW	100mW
Max Power	5.0W	5.2W	5.2W	4.7W	5.2W
Endurance	360TBW	160TBW	220TBW	160TBW	320TBW
	Five years	Three years
Price	$259.99 (MSRP)	$149.99 (MSRP)	$199.99 (MSRP)	$139.00	$269.94

 
Endurance then, as defined by the laws of math and physics, it will vary per volume size, but Crucial is rating it as follows. Endurance in Terabytes Written are:

• 1TB (360 TBW)
• 500GB (180 TBW)
• 250GB (100 TBW)

So with our 1 TB model, we could, in theory, write 197 GB each day and per day for five years. Considering an avid end-user that heavily uses its SSD writes roughly 20 GB per day, you can do the math with me:

• 20GB x 365 days = 7.3 TB per year. With the 1TB version, 360 TB : 7.3 TB = 49.3 Years ....  That's TLC anno 2018 lads & gents.