Crucial BX500 1TB 3D NAND SATA 2.5 Inch Internal SSD – Up
Crucial BX500 1TB 3D NAND SATA 2.5 Inch Internal SSD – Up to 540MB/s – CT1000BX500SSD101 (Acronis Edition)
From the brand
| Weight: | 35 g |
| Dimensions: | 10.03 x 0.7 x 6.99 cm; 35 Grams |
| Brand: | Crucial |
| Model: | CT1000BX500SSD101 |
| Colour: | 480GB |
| Manufacture: | Crucial |
| Dimensions: | 10.03 x 0.7 x 6.99 cm; 35 Grams |
It gave a new life to my 4 years old laptop, I have an impression that my device works faster then when originally purchased, easy to install and very good quality, 100% recommended.
I couldn’t find this info anywhere online, so it’s probably worth me mentioning it here. All the “Acronis Edition” bit means is that this one comes with a little leaflet that offers access to a cutdown version of their cloning software, and a discount on a subscription to their other software. The actual drive is identical to the “Non Acronis” version. There’s no pre formatting and install files on the drive. No unformattable second partition that holds their software. Nothing. To all intents and purposes it’s exactly the same item, just with an extra leaflet…… and a quite nice discount.
Anyway, the drive isn’t the worlds fastest, and it slows down a little when you chuck a large amount of data at it all at once, but it’s a hell of an upgrade from even a 7200rpm mechanical hard drive, and it’s about the cheapest “Name brand” unit you’ll find. It’s probably not ideal for a modern top of the line gaming computers main drive, but it’s easily up to giving an aging laptop a new burst of speed.
This particular one has gone in my aging Alienware M14x r1 to replace it’s original Seagate “Momentus” 7200rpm drive (A pretty quick unit in it’s day). I’d just put a clean install of windows 10 on that one before deciding it was still WAY too slow and I wanted to upgrade it to this SSD. This upgrade has near as damn it halved the boot up time, and it’s made the whole system feel significantly more responsive. Before, the laptop felt old, clunky, and annoying to use, but this has made it feel a lot less like the relic it is. 🙂
So, If you just want to replace a mechanical HDD and make your old system run noticeably smoother, there’s not a whole lot of point spending any more than this (And as far as I can see, no point paying extra for the non “Acronis Edition” version of this drive), but if you’re after a replacement C: drive for your all singing all dancing monster gaming/video editing PC, you might want to think about spending the little extra to get something that doesn’t slow down when large files are being wrote to it.
So, why the odd title to this review? Well, budget SSD’s like the BX500 cut costs somewhere and that somewhere tends to be with not having a DRAM buffer, or a much reduced capacity one, along with the absence of any mounting accessories. For those not in the know, DRAM buffers permit the SSD to maintain peak transfer rates while the data is organized onto the NAND flash array. This became painfully evident when transferring large files onto the BX500. Transfer began well enough, seeing transfer rates well in excess of that capable of by hard drives. However, as the transfer continued, speeds began to fall. Eventually the sustained transfer rate dropped to below that of my current hard drive.
Now, unless you’re doing lots of large file transfers, you will never likely notice any performance drop off on the BX500. As a daily use SSD, it feels as quick as the MX500. I’ve not tested it scientifically, but I don’t really feel there is any difference. Only sustained writes of large files, or quantities of files, will see performance drop off a cliff after a certain point. The Samsung QVO drives operate in much the same way. Once their buffer is full, transfer rates decline rapidly over large file copy operations. Samsung probably handles this better then Crucial, but you pay for it with a Samsung drive anyway.
Purchasing the BX version was a bit of a false economy for me as I needed to transfer almost 2Tb of data and seeing the drive crawl along at less than 50 Mb/sec at times (less than half the sustained transfer rate of my hard drive) , just became too much to bear and so I moved the BX into a budget desktop and purchased an MX model to replace it. Doing that saw higher, and more consistent, transfer rates on large copy operations.
The BX range is perfect for home/office PC’s that don’t do anything too I/O intensive and are worth the savings, especially if fitting out a load of PC’s in an office.
The BX500 is a solid budget SSD option that will more than suffice for most users needs, but it has its drawbacks for more intensive I/O operations.
The Crucial BX500 1TB 3D NAND SATA 2.5″ SSD is a game-changer for storage needs. The 3D NAND technology ensures fast and reliable performance, and the 1TB capacity provides ample space for all my data. Installation was a breeze, and the SATA interface guarantees seamless compatibility. This SSD significantly improved my system’s responsiveness, making it a top choice for those seeking high-quality, high-capacity storage.
I’ve bought this ssd for file storage, as se secondary drive. According to CrystalDiskInfo it’s new, behaves well so far, for a couple of weeks of work, the speeds on CrystalDiskMark are high enough, on external case (with 3.0 connector) it gives over 400 mb/s seq speeds, internally it shows better performance – over 500 mb/s. The random speeds, especially write, aren’t as consistent, when doing the tests continuously (running all the tests at once), the random speed gets low, and back to normal after running it separately. I’ve written about 700gb of data on it, and didn’t see the speed getting low, and the tests are done after filling with 700gb.
screenshots:
~400mb seq read – external drive connector (usb 3.0)
the rest – internal (in some of them, it has rerun on rnd-s, because the speeds were as low as 20mb/s in some cases I think, but more often about 40mb/s)
This was for an old laptop with a SATA HDD. The suggested free Acronis software to clone from one drive to another works well and is easy to use, reasonably quick if you can plug both drives into SATA on another machine. Big performance gain over the HDD, and ideal if M.2 is not an option. Good value.
As I cannot afford to upgrade right now or ideally build my own, I decided to make some tweaks to my existing rig as it is still fairly decent for its age. I upgraded ram a couple of years ago (2x16gb sticks) and last week upgraded from the stock cooler to a much beefier Be Quiet cooler as the CPU was really getting hot under heavy load.
While I was at it I thought it was time to finally go over to an SSD seeing as they now have much better capacity for not a lot of money.
I decided to go for Crucial as I have always had good experience with them. My PC ram is Crucial and so is the M.2 SSD in my PS5. I felt this had the specs that suited me and as I say, price wise, it was pretty damn cheap. Sadly due to my board being slightly older and being a micro ATX I don’t have an M.2 slot, so SATA was the only way to go.
I did make one error though as I assumed it would come with a SATA cable, but of course we know what you do if you “assume” anything. It was a simple enough solution, order a cable from Amazon and just fit the drive a day later than planned (I only mention this as I am sure there are others as naive as me who will get caught out too).
It was very simple to fit as well. Plugged the SATA cable into the drive and the motherboard and found a spare power plug coming from the power supply that fitted as well and then it was time to test things out.
Booted the PC up and while it did take a while to boot (remember this is still booting to my old drive) which is quite normal when installing new parts, but booted as normal. I then opened Acronis True Image (go to the website on the SSD instructions and download the file) and followed the onscreen prompts to clone my old HDD to my new SSD. I had deleted all my music from the HDD before starting this as it took up over 400gb and I felt that would just slow the cloning process down. Even with another 400+ storage still on the drive, it only took about 2 hours to do a full copy.
After it was finished I rebooted the PC, went into bios and assigned the SSD as my new boot drive.
The PC then booted to Windows so much faster than it normally does and programs loads almost instantly rather than the delayed response of yore.
Even web browsers and internet tabs load faster.
I also noticed that after the PC logs into Windows I can access programs straight away rather than waiting for Windows to do all its stuff before being allowed to access anything.
Seriously loving this piece of kit. The way it works is perfect for me, and is going to make using my PC so much of a better experience than it has been. Factor in the easy installation and the free no issues cloning software, and I think I got an absolute bargain at less than 40.
Oh, and I kept the old HDD in the rig but formatted it to use just as storage for my music which I have already reinstalled.
Only one program had an issue, with my copy of Photoshop saying the licence was not on it, but that was easily rectifiable, and every other program seems to have carried the licences over.
Pros:
Blazing Speeds: The SSD’s read and write speeds of up to 540MB/s are nothing short of impressive. This ensures near-instantaneous boot times and swift application loading, making multitasking a breeze.
Generous Storage Capacity: With a spacious 2TB capacity, this SSD provides an abundance of room for all my files, documents, media, and software applications. It effectively eliminates the need for external drives or additional storage solutions.
Durable 3D NAND Technology: The use of 3D NAND technology enhances the SSD’s endurance and longevity. It’s built to withstand continuous use, ensuring consistent and reliable performance over time.
Easy Installation: Installing the Crucial BX500 was a straightforward process. The 2.5-inch form factor is compatible with a wide range of systems, and the SSD fits seamlessly into my setup.
Energy Efficient: The SSD is designed to be power-efficient, helping to prolong battery life for laptops and reducing overall energy consumption for desktops.
Cons:
Lack of Additional Accessories: Unlike some other SSD packages, the Crucial BX500 may not include additional accessories such as mounting brackets or data migration software. However, these can be easily acquired separately if needed.
SATA Interface Limitation: While the SATA interface provides excellent performance, it may not match the speeds offered by newer NVMe SSDs. However, for most users, the difference in real-world applications may not be significant.
In summary, the Crucial BX500 2TB Internal SSD has surpassed my expectations in terms of performance, capacity, and reliability. Its high-speed capabilities and substantial storage space have significantly improved my computing experience. While some additional accessories may need to be purchased separately, the overall value provided by this SSD is exceptional
* They don’t have a RAM cache (which would be lost on power off) but a very large fast cache that survives power off. This is actually very useful if you are on a PC that’s likely to have power outages since you will lose nothing or next to nothing.
* When you save, it fills up this cache, so saving is very fast. That is then written at leisure behind the scenes from that cache to the slower bulk of the storage (20-40 MB/s). One of the consequences is that when you first populate the SSD e.g. as a backup, after about 50 GB (using the fast cache) it will then become very slow (20-40 MB/s), and cycle between fast and slow as the populating proceeds according to how the cache is committing what it holds to the slower bulk storage. This only affects the initial population, once filled and you are on with using it, saving is fairly instant as long as you aren’t saving huge amounts in one go (e.g. 50GB) as it will then slow until that is suitably committed in the background.
* Reading is fast as expected.
* 2TB x 2 in my view is better than 4TB, things do fail eventually and it’s best not to have all your eggs in one basket. Keep a mirror backup of everything (FreeFileSync is a decent program to do so).