The Crucial MX500 1TB SSD Review: Breaking The SATA Mold
by Billy Tallis on December 19, 2017 8:00 AM ESTAnandTech Storage Bench - Light
Our Light storage test has relatively more sequential accesses and lower queue depths than The Destroyer or the Heavy test, and it's by far the shortest test overall. It's based largely on applications that aren't highly dependent on storage performance, so this is a test more of application launch times and file load times. This test can be seen as the sum of all the little delays in daily usage, but with the idle times trimmed to 25ms it takes less than half an hour to run. Details of the Light test can be found here. As with the ATSB Heavy test, this test is run with the drive both freshly erased and empty, and after filling the drive with sequential writes.
The Crucial MX300 performs very well on the Light test with an average data rate that the MX500 cannot quite match, but the MX500 doesn't lose as much performance when the test is run on a full drive.
The average and 99th percentile latency scores of the Crucial MX500 are largely unremarkable, though the 99th percentile latency is near the high end of the normal range. The MX500 is a substantial improvement over the MX300 when it comes to full-drive performance.
The average read latency of the Crucial MX500 on the Light test is close to the Samsung 850 PRO and EVO when the test is run on an empty drive, but is merely average when the drives are full. The average write latency is a bit below average in both cases, but the full-drive penalty is much reduced compared to the MX300.
As with the average read and write latency scores, the 99th percentile read and write scores fall within the normal range. The 99th percentile read latency is a bit better than average while the 99th percentile write latency is worse than most drives, but the MX500 isn't an outlier in either direction.
The power consumption of the MX500 ranks a bit better on the Light test than it did on the Heavy test. The Crucial MX300 is still substantially better, and the slow but DRAMless Toshiba TR200 holds on to a comfortable lead. The Samsung 850 PRO and EVO are in last place.
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tech6 - Tuesday, December 19, 2017 - link
It's nice to finally see a Samsung alternative that doesn't suck.ddrіver - Tuesday, December 19, 2017 - link
I am thoroughly impressed. And that's not something I take lightly. Samsung will have to get their game on now, with the age old 850 series no longer being king of the hill in SATA drives.mode_13h - Tuesday, December 19, 2017 - link
Not sure if you noticed this, but they recently released a new 850 EVO with 3D NAND.ddrіver - Tuesday, December 19, 2017 - link
Until now the 850 line was unquestionably better than everything else in almost every regard, except price maybe. It's enough if the competition is "close enough", even without actually taking the crown. Right now Samsung isn't the go-to SSD with good alternatives like the MX500. That's enough for me.Alistair - Tuesday, December 19, 2017 - link
Samsung has by far the worst customer service and warranty coverage. Good luck actually getting them to replace a drive in Canada. Glad to see Crucial stepping up their game, buying one immediately.Alistair - Tuesday, December 19, 2017 - link
Just to expand on this. Samsung is forcing customers to contact newegg for warranty coverage. I've already spent weeks just trying to get Samsung to respond to their normal emails. Newegg obviously isn't responsible for a year old drive failing. They have no RMA process, and I've already contacted their chat, voice, and email.Dear Samsung Valued Customer,
We have received your email and would like to thank you for the information that you sent us however, you will need to contact the place of purchase for warranty coverage. We already have notify the dealer and they will be calling you shortly to offer warranty coverage.
We apologize for the inconvenience this issue may have caused you.
Thank you/Merci
Regards,
(name redacted)
Samsung Electronics Canada
Alistair - Tuesday, December 19, 2017 - link
Nobody is getting coverage in Canada:https://forums.redflagdeals.com/has-anyone-dealt-s...
Alistair - Tuesday, December 19, 2017 - link
This was purchased from Newegg.caArnulf - Wednesday, December 20, 2017 - link
Interesting. Over here in EU it is far more common to deal with the seller/store.I buy hardware from a store, not the manufacturer, store gives me warranty on goods purchased and I don't care what hoops they have to jump through (RMA with the manufacturer? Deal with the national distributor? etc.) to get things settled as long as they beat the deadline(s).
Alistair - Wednesday, December 20, 2017 - link
Basically they sell the product in Canada, but have no procedure in place to provide their warranty service. That's not a warranty at all.