Crucial MX500 1 TB

[W1zzard]

Today, Crucial released their new MX500 Series of SSDs. The new lineup is built using 64-layer 3D TLC NAND made by Micron, Crucial's parent company. Unlike previous models, an SMI controller is used, which delivers good performance that actually feels very much like that of an MLC drive.

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[dj-electric]

Holy $@#$*&. Well f#$@ing done Crucial.

 

[close]

All write requests contain random, incompressible data

Are there any controllers still on the market that do on the fly compression? I thought this was basically only used by SandForce and this was a good while ago. Any reason to go for specifically incompressible data?

 

[Liviu Cojocaru]

Mmmm this could be my next drive

 

[bug]

The Crucial MX500 1 TB currently retails at $260, which makes it the most affordable drive on the market

I'm pretty sure I recently paid $237 for my MX300 1TB

 

[P4-630]

Not bad with that 5 year warranty, I wonder what it will cost in Europe.....

 

[W1zzard]

Are there any controllers still on the market that do on the fly compression? I thought this was basically only used by SandForce and this was a good while ago. Any reason to go for specifically incompressible data?

None that I know of that mention it officially, but better safe than sorry

Not bad with that 5 year warranty, I wonder what it will cost in Europe.....

I heard something about € 220 without VAT, not sure if still accurate

 

[Gasaraki]

Where can I get this? Doesn't look like it's available yet.

I'm pretty sure I recently paid $237 for my MX300 1TB

Probably on sale.

 

[bug]

Where can I get this? Doesn't look like it's available yet.



Probably on sale.

If they announced it now, it's pretty clear they don't have stock for the holidays season. You can probably get lucky (not that way) if keep your eyes peeled, but then again you can get unlucky and find that it comes with a markup at first.

 

[newtekie1]

If they announced it now, it's pretty clear they don't have stock for the holidays season. You can probably get lucky (not that way) if keep your eyes peeled, but then again you can get unlucky and find that it comes with a markup at first.

The 1TB MX500 is in-stock at Newegg right now for $260. https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820156174

I'm not sure how much stock they have, but I added 3 to my cart and it didn't complain about not having enough stock.

It is also already available on Amazon as well. https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-MX50.../B077SF8KMG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1513693296

 

[TheLostSwede]

Or you know, direct from Crucial? http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/ct1000mx500ssd1

They also sell it online in Europe for €271.82 (inc. VAT) - http://eu.crucial.com/eur/en/ct1000mx500ssd1

Looks like a decent second drive for games and what not...

 

[Chaitanya]

Its surprising how Crucial has kept Mx series on TLC Nand while upgrading their BX line to MLC Nand.

 

[trparky]

Wow, some competition for Samsung's aging 850 EVO. The 850 EVO has aged quite well but lately nobody has been able to go toe-to-toe with it lately... until now.

I still have an 850 EVO and it's going strong with a little over two and a half years of runtime, 36 out of the total 2000 full write/erase cycles, and 18.4 TB written to it. Not bad for what many referred to as a "budget" drive.

 

[bug]

Wow, some competition for Samsung's aging 850 EVO. The 850 EVO has aged quite well but lately nobody has been able to go toe-to-toe with it lately... until now.

Why would you say that? This is basically as fast as the MX300 that has been available for a while. So if this is competition for the 850EVO, so was the MX300.

 

[trparky]

I was reading some of the benchmarks on the MX300, it tended to have latency issues as you attempted to write more data to it because the SLC cache filled up. The 850 EVO didn't seem to suffer as badly in that department. The MX500 seems to have corrected that issue or at least made it less noticeable.

 

[theeldest]

Its surprising how Crucial has kept Mx series on TLC Nand while upgrading their BX line to MLC Nand.

The MLC in the Bx series is NAND that didn't pass at TLC but did at MLC. So it's not *really* an upgrade so much as a vehicle to move NAND that may otherwise be thrown out or used as media grade TLC.

 

[lexluthermiester]

The MLC in the Bx series is NAND that didn't pass at TLC but did at MLC. So it's not *really* an upgrade so much as a vehicle to move NAND that may otherwise be thrown out or used as media grade TLC.

Citation please.

EDIT; I ask because your claim seems highly dubious.

 

[xkm1948]

Still waiting for a $300 4TB SSD. Don't care if it is still SATA based. That would let me finally ditch all mechanical drive in my PC.

But still, this is excellent pricing.

 

[theeldest]

Citation please.

EDIT; I ask because your claim seems highly dubious.

NAND is binned in the same way CPUs are. So if you've got MLC in a low-end drive, the only way it'll be there is if it is cheaper than the comparable TLC. In this case, that means using TLC that's binned as 'media grade' and using it as 'SSD grade MLC'.

I work for one of the big SSD manufacturers. NAND binning isn't really a secret, it's just not discussed on review sites.

 

[lexluthermiester]

NAND is binned in the same way CPUs are. So if you've got MLC in a low-end drive, the only way it'll be there is if it is cheaper than the comparable TLC. In this case, that means using TLC that's binned as 'media grade' and using it as 'SSD grade MLC'. I work for one of the big SSD manufacturers. NAND binning isn't really a secret, it's just not discussed on review sites.

Fair enough. What does such binning do to longevity of the "binned TLC->MLC" NAND as opposed to actual manufactured MLC? Is there a difference in the wear-leveling?

 

[Glaring_Mistake]

Are there any controllers still on the market that do on the fly compression? I thought this was basically only used by SandForce and this was a good while ago. Any reason to go for specifically incompressible data?

Phison controllers do, see this: https://www.kitguru.net/components/ssd-drives/simon-crisp/toshiba-tr200-960gb-review/4/
But I think that only applies if you're doing 0-Fill.

Believe Marvell controllers can as well but it does not seem to have much of an impact on performance these days seeming to focusing more on lowering the amount of wear on the drive instead.
However with the (early versions of) SanDisk Ultra II compression seems to have both improved the performance and lowered the write amplification for the drive.

 

[close]

However with the (early versions of) SanDisk Ultra II compression seems to have both improved the performance and lowered the write amplification for the drive.

Off topic, but could you give me some more details about this? A link I can read more maybe? Couldn't find anything.

Or you know, direct from Crucial? http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/ct1000mx500ssd1

They also sell it online in Europe for €271.82 (inc. VAT) - http://eu.crucial.com/eur/en/ct1000mx500ssd1

Looks like a decent second drive for games and what not...

In Europe many retailers have it for ~265E. Except Amazon.de which sells if for 320E...

 

[Vayra86]

Wow. I'm really happy I cancelled my new rig the other day now - it had an MX300 in the list.

This is going to be my new SSD.

 

[close]

One DRAM chip is also present

What's the second chip exactly on the other side of the PCB from the DRAM near the controller? Looks awfully lot like another DRAM chip .

 

[Glaring_Mistake]

Off topic, but could you give me some more details about this? A link I can read more maybe? Couldn't find anything.

Could you specify what you mean since there are several points on which you may want some more information?

At any rate this is where I first saw that it used compression: https://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/08/18/sandisk_ultra_ii_sata_iii_ssd_review/7
As you can see incompressible files can impact the performance quite a bit for the SanDisk Ultra II.

On compression lowering the wear on the drive - well I say that since I saw an endurance test of SanDisk Ultra II where it had a Write Amplification of about 0.5 which is low even in normal use let alone during constant writes.


Regarding it being the case that the early versions of SanDisk Ultra II did use compression and not necessarily the latter is that the hardware has reportedly changed at least once.
At release it used 19nm TLC NAND along with a Marvell controller (Marvell 88SS9189/Marvell 88SS9190) lacking native support for TLC NAND so they added a great deal of spare NAND for ECC/general operations.
And it also had an SLC-cache that was two to three times the size of the 850 EVO's.

Nowadays I believe it uses 15nm TLC NAND with the Marvell 88SS1074 controller (same controller as is used in for example the MX300).
So it may be that SanDisk Ultra II no longer uses compression or at least not as much as it used to.
May also mean that the overprovisiong is much smaller and perhaps that they've shrunk the SLC-cache as well since there wouldn't be a need for it.
No idea really since no one is likely to test the SanDisk Ultra II this long after release.