The Crucial MX500 1TB SSD Review: Breaking The SATA Mold
by Billy Tallis on December 19, 2017 8:00 AM ESTAnandTech Storage Bench - Heavy
Our Heavy storage benchmark is proportionally more write-heavy than The Destroyer, but much shorter overall. The total writes in the Heavy test aren't enough to fill the drive, so performance never drops down to steady state. This test is far more representative of a power user's day to day usage, and is heavily influenced by the drive's peak performance. The Heavy workload test details can be found here. This test is run twice, once on a freshly erased drive and once after filling the drive with sequential writes.
The Crucial MX500 turns in the best average data rate score on the Heavy test that we've seen from a 1TB-class SATA drive. When the test is run on a full drive, the MX500's performance falls below that of the Samsung 850 PRO and 850 EVO.
The average and 99th percentile scores of the Crucial MX500 are typical for a good SATA SSD. The MX500 doesn't set any records here, but at least the latency doesn't climb out of control when the test is run on a full drive. This is a notable improvement over the MX300.
The average read latency of the Crucial MX300 is fast by SATA standards, but it doesn't quite match the Samsung 850 PRO. When the test is run on a full drive, the average read latency suffers and the MX500's score is merely average for a mainstream 1TB drive. The average write latency is slightly below average in both cases, but not to a degree worthy of concern.
The 99th percentile read latency of the MX500 falls in the middle of the pack, though running the test on a full drive has a bit more of an impact than for most drives. The 99th percentile write latency is reasonably low whether or not the test is run on a full drive.
The power consumption of the Crucial MX500 on the Heavy test is significantly higher than the record-setting MX300, but the MX500 certainly doesn't qualify as power-hungry compared to the broader field of competitors. The Samsung 850 PRO and EVO drives require much more power on this test than the MX500.
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ddrіver - Thursday, December 21, 2017 - link
@Arnulf, Europe is a civilized land.sonny73n - Wednesday, December 20, 2017 - link
You remind me of the path I crossed with Samsung customer service about my 840 Evo (2 months old then).Dear valued customer,
Please contact your seller (Newegg)....
We acknowledged the issue. Please wait for firmware update....
The worst of all is that all their customer service reps don't know shit but they insisted to guide me, a veteran in IT field, how to install an SSD in my laptop. After firmware update, BSOD still happened but less frequent. Best thing I did was throwing that sucker in the trash.
Forget Shamesung and their shameless fanboys. This MX500 is a good deal but I prefer the BX300 because of MLC over TLC.
Samus - Wednesday, December 20, 2017 - link
The BX300 is such an incredibly good drive. I've outfitted 20 office PC's with them since they were introduced, no problems whatsoever.ddrіver - Wednesday, December 20, 2017 - link
@sonny73n, I'll just repost this here: https://www.usenix.org/conference/fast16/technical...Short version: the difference between SLC and MLC is almost indistinguishable. Don't imagine that MLC vs. TLC will be a world of difference either. Not with new drives.
Samus - Wednesday, December 20, 2017 - link
I had one of the worst warranty experiences ever with the 840 EVO years ago. Haven't given Samsung money since. OCZ and Mushkin, and Crucial for that matter, all have advanced RMA options and very smooth exchange processes. Crucial offers data recovery starting at $200.Samsung doesn't even return initial emails and they lie through their teeth on the phone, if you can even get ahold of the right person after being in a transfer loop for 30 minutes.
Cooe - Wednesday, December 20, 2017 - link
Recently??? Lol try well over 3 years ago. The 850 EVO's been using Samsung's V-NAND (V = vertical, as in 3D) pretty much since it's inception. In fact, they have used 3 (iirc) different types of V-NAND (differing in layer density) so far through production. You need to get with the program lol. Micron's slapping the EVO upside the head here, and I say that as someone who's bought more EVO's then I can count.lilmoe - Wednesday, December 20, 2017 - link
They just need to lower their damn price, and they'd still be good to go. Their 850 series is tried and proven, with a much better warranty, which is a significant advantage over newly released SATA models.Just cut the 850 Pro's price in half already Samsung.... I don't mind if they even cut the 10 year warranty in half dammit.
bill.rookard - Tuesday, December 19, 2017 - link
Agreed. Performance is pretty decent for a change! And having the 1TB available at the 250$ price point is also pretty aggressive as I'm sure it'll come down a stitch more in the next month or two.Samus - Wednesday, December 20, 2017 - link
The M550, MX100, MX200 and MX300 have always been decent contenders to Samsung 830, 840, 850 and 860, often priced lower and in the same performance bracket. Support and reliability are excellent.Chaitanya - Tuesday, December 19, 2017 - link
surprising crucial decided to keep mx line on tlc nand while bx was upgraded to mlc nand.