The New King of Gen4 SSDs - Crucial T500 Review

*Important - Check the pinned comment for information about a possible firmware issue*

Related:

Some other SSDs in this comparison: (affiliate links)

Heatsink tips for non-heatsinked SSDs: (affiliate links)

Lego Used: (affiliate links)

If you want to support what I do, check these out:

Timestamps:
0:00​ - Introduction
0:50 - Crucial T500 Overview & Specs
2:40 - Performance in Light Use
3:28​ - Performance in Heavier Use (OS Drive, Video Editors, etc)
4:05 - Latency
4:18 - Performance in Extreme Use (Consistency Test)
4:55 - Gaming Performance
5:35 - Techtesters SSD Gaming Performance Ranking
5:58 - Sequential Performance
6:30 - Playstation 5 Use
6:45 - Thermal Performance
8:10 - Pricing & Final Thoughts
9:30 - Sponsor Spot
10:00 - Outro

Disclosure:
- This product was provided by Crucial for the purpose of testing. As per my own guidelines, they don't get any say about anything in this video or any of my other reviews. It's not sponsored by them, they also didn't get to preview this video beforehand, or any other nonsense like that. My reviews reflect my own views, nothing more, nothing less.
- Amazon links I provide are (typically) affiliate links. Using these does not cost you anything at all. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This means they do provide me with a small commission when you decide to buy a product, at no cost to you.

#Crucial #T500 #SSD

[TechTesters]

Update - 31/10 10:30 (CET): We're currently looking into a potential firmware issue with the T500. Apparently, some others had reported issues with post-SLC performance, mentioning speeds can drop to 300MB/s in sustained writes. Our (two) drives didn't show any issues in the last few weeks we've had them, and part of testing is copying two sets of 500GB to the SSD, which it handled perfectly, three runs in a row. Similarly, PC Mark 10 Consistency pushes close to 30TB through the drive, and it did all those runs perfectly as well. SSDs with poor base level (once pushed through dram/slc cache) performance always show issues there.

Update 12/12: First off, sorry it took a while to update on this. We've been extremely busy the last few weeks for various reasons. Crucial has been pushing to discuss the firmware topic since day 1, it's not because of them this took a while.

Anyway, we've spoken with them since and talked about what we're seeing and what other reviewers are reporting, and they've been very open in talking about why some of these things are happening. The short version of it is that Crucial decided to push for as much SLC caching and as much "real world" performance as possible, at the cost of worse sustained performance when you dorun out of SLC space. But this really only happens if you don't give the drive a chance to clean up (SLC -> TLC) at all, so you basically have to write 1/3rd of the capacity without any interruptions for you to see that drop. So even when copying two sets of 500GB, with a little break in between, we didn't see that in early testing, and neither did we see that with PC Mark 10 Consistency which does push ~27 TB through the drive (and runs various tests with the drive nearly full), since it has some interruptions which allowed the T500 to clean up.

I'm happy we got this cleared up, and they did say they are looking into a possible firmware update in the future to improve post-SLC performance if possible, but if you ask me I really don't think the current situation changes anything for most of you, nor is it even a bad design choice for the majority of SSD buyers who end up with a larger SLC buffer with the T500 than with most other drives. If you really need an SSD just for constant file transfers of 100s of Gigabytes, maybe consider something else, but for everyone else, I stand by my opinion that the T500 is one of the top tier SSDs to consider, especially now that prices in most regions already seems very competitive.

Let me know if you have any questions!

[jaquestraw]

In the last 3 years I've needed 6 or 7 SSD's for various builds. Nada has steered me in the right direction every time. No need to look anywhere else for NVME info. Nada is the queen

[almansour_]

How come you only have 266K subs???!!! One of the best channels for PC hardware reviews. Thank you so much.

[rickfelz]

Thank you for the consistent, well put together videos.

[Rodrigo_Rodrigo]

Great review, the information is so clear I don't know a lot about computers but I learn what I need for the new main SSD that I'm looking for. Also I really liked that you explain what the different bench marks are for instead of just throwing graphics and numbers like other channels do
And your audio, voice and tone make it so easy to follow because english is not my main language

[steveclock]

Hands down the best ssd reviewer out there!🎉

[gregory]

Few days ago was release 4 Tb version. Will be nice to see a new review of 4 Tb version.

[RKBenchmarker]

I am very happy/pleased that Crucial decided to push for as much SLC caching and as much "real world" performance as possible at the cost of worse sustained performance once the SLC space is depleted! That is true performance! I'm tired of seeing "performance" ratings and reviews that have nothing to do with how I, and the greater majority of other users, actually use the drive! When a gen 5 drive runs at 15, 000MBps, what good does that do me when it can't even do Q1 random r/w speeds of the best Gen4!

[mitchk]

Great Channel Nada. I give your reviews as much weight as any of the other channels with a million or more subscribers... you deserve more for sure. With regard to the T500 2TB model. I purchased a pair to run in a RAID0 in my 3rd Gen ThreadRipper system as I had already used a pair of 500GB WD SN850's for the very same purpose for two years now. MUCH to my surprise, putting together a 2nd - 3rd Gen ThreadRipper system together (even better MoBo) and the pair of T500 NVMe resulted in no better performance than the OLD SN850 NVMe. I WAS expecting at least a 60 percent improvement and at VERY least 30 percent ... but it amounted to pretty much nothing. Everything triple-checked and up-to-date, clearly Crucial drives are NOT a good candidate for RAID configurations. I'll go to a pair of modern day 2TB SN850x NVMe instead. It seems the pinnacle of the T500 performance IS to use them in single drive mode and make SURE you enable the Performance Cache mode in the Crucial Storage Executive software. FYI, it was not enabled by default and in single NVMe mode, performance was also less than "great".

[KunalVaidya]

TCG Opal 2.0 encryption appears to be supported as per LinkedIn post by crucial/micron.
Another really good review for us, awaiting the launch of T500 at decent pricing in India

[Aisaaax]

Thank you. Very comprehensive video, everything I needed to know. 😊

[HorstJt]

Great to see more high end Gen 4 drives for uses that Gen 5 isn't needed/ possible on the platfrom.

[bartus]

Great review, impressive product. I also thought Gen 4 was at its limit but this is a notable improvement. I completely agree with your conclusion that this should be top recommend SSD for nearly everyone assuming pricing will be competitive. That being said, I am a little sad my SN850X lost the Gen 4 gaming crown.

[johnnywoolen]

I look forward to your reviews as much as I enjoy watching them. Excellent work Nada!

[robbiemer]

My current pc is about 7 liters and has 2 NVME drives on the motherboard. And a 2Tb SATA drive. The M.2 drives are also 2 Tb but are gen 3 drives. Haven't been tempted to replace those until this review. I think I will definitely be looking at a couple of these early next year. The 4TB versions will be tempting if the price is good. Time to start saving my nickels!
Thanks for the excellent review!

[afti]

i have both the T500 and the WD850x. I experienced a multitude of issues with the T500: not being able to install windows on it, issues in Unreal Tournament and a lack of software for it. The Wd850x was 20% faster in Random Read and Write speeds. Crystalmark showed the 850x to be a clear and definite winner. I was also able to install Windows on it from the first try, and installing Unreal Tournament 4 on it fixed my stuttering issues. Now it looks buttery smooth which feels incredible after more than 9 years of headaches. I got the wd850x for a lower price than the T500 and it performs better in every capacity.

[Idoiswin]

Thank you! Had some questions about what drive to go with in a SFF build in the FORMDT1 and you answered all of them.

[radekpecka]

Thanks for mentioning their temperatures...
Iam looking at this model but 4gb.. Iam owner of older P5plus 1 and 2 tb drives and really like these... After 2 years around 95% in crystal diosc !! Love Micron !! :)

[pkpnyt]

I just bought 2 - 2TB T500s for $145.99 each and that is awesome! I love the price to performance this has and it beats almost anything out there! Thanks for the recommendation Nada!

[mariodiy]

Thanks for your review. I bought this to replace an HP FX900 Pro that is on my HP EliteBook 840 G5 due to firmware issues, lack of support, and having 3F0 error.