This post can be edited by most users to provide up-to-date information about developments of this thread based on user responses, and user findings. Feel free to add, change or remove information shown here as it becomes available. This includes new coupons, rebates, ideas, thread summary, and similar items.
Once a Thread Wiki is added to a thread, "Create Wiki" button will disappear. If you would like to learn more about Thread Wiki feature, click here.
Item 1 of 5
Item 1 of 5
expirednb013 posted Mar 18, 2023 11:03 AM
4TB Crucial MX500 3D NAND 2.5" SATA Solid State Drive
$209
$350
40% off
+ Free Shippingat Best Buy
Top Comments
for example, their return policy is:
Customer is responsible for return shipping expenses and restocking fee unless otherwise explicitly states on the product.
on the product, it says:
Return Policies
Return for refund within: 30 days
This item is covered by BTC and PC home Return Policy. <- this directs you back to their return policy page from which i quoted above
so neither page explicitly says free returns. obviously if things work as intended and you don't plan on returning it, new sellers like these pose no problem. but when things go wrong, that's where you really see the difference between places like amazon and smaller third party sellers.
i'd personally pay the extra $12 for the added peace of mind, but to each their own.
Also they don't magically blow up when the TBW is exceeded. I have a number of SSD that are years old (granted they were better made and not QLC junk) that have all exceeded TBW and not a single once has gave up the ghost yet. That is why backups are important. Any drive will die eventually.
You also have to take into account we are hovering at $50 a TB which is down 70-80% in the last few years so maybe in 5-7 years when this one dies its $10 a TB.
You make a great point SSD vendors have been pulling bait and switch w/ controllers/RAM/dramless/TLC/QLC now for a few years and keeping the same SKU. That should be a criminal act but it seems the US consumer protections are bought and paid for. But the computer industry has alway been rife w/ lies. Monitor sizes, terabyte is not a terabyte, this CPU chipset will last, not divulging SMR, etc.... Thankfully there are YT and the like channels calling them out for their deceptions, and this leaves a bad taste in people's mouths.
Join The Conversation
Share your experience with the Slickdeals community
Share information with the community. Please follow our Community Guidelines and be kind!
51 Comments
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank elefante72
Also they don't magically blow up when the TBW is exceeded. I have a number of SSD that are years old (granted they were better made and not QLC junk) that have all exceeded TBW and not a single once has gave up the ghost yet. That is why backups are important. Any drive will die eventually.
You also have to take into account we are hovering at $50 a TB which is down 70-80% in the last few years so maybe in 5-7 years when this one dies its $10 a TB.
You make a great point SSD vendors have been pulling bait and switch w/ controllers/RAM/dramless/TLC/QLC now for a few years and keeping the same SKU. That should be a criminal act but it seems the US consumer protections are bought and paid for. But the computer industry has alway been rife w/ lies. Monitor sizes, terabyte is not a terabyte, this CPU chipset will last, not divulging SMR, etc.... Thankfully there are YT and the like channels calling them out for their deceptions, and this leaves a bad taste in people's mouths.
Yeah yeah I know, "most people will never write the whole 1,000TB or come close to it". I understand that. I'm not one of those people. Interesting that my SN850 2TB has 1,200 TBW while this thing only has 1TBW.
MX500 series is great, plus they have DRAM. Another downside: apparently the 4TB only has 512GB DRAM... compared to the 1TB which has 1GB... WTF??
Better wear-leveling sure, but lots of recent reviews of newer MX500 drives just dying ~1 year in. Still not sure what the pattern is yet, is it specific models, generations, capacity? Was it a small blip that's been corrected? Having a tough time finding comprehensive info online.
Also FWIW 4TB Crucial P3 & P3 Plus NVMe M.2 SSDs are going for $200 to $220 right now, though those are QLC while this is TLC.
Yeah yeah I know, "most people will never write the whole 1,000TB or come close to it". I understand that. I'm not one of those people. Interesting that my SN850 2TB has 1,200 TBW while this thing only has 1TBW.
MX500 series is great, plus they have DRAM. Another downside: apparently the 4TB only has 512GB DRAM... compared to the 1TB which has 1GB... WTF??
this is just an example, but:
https://www.microcenter
offers 3x tbw at less than double the price. so in theory, it could last you 3x as long.
i'm not saying the inland is a better deal, but it seems like you're a very heavy user, and you need to buy the right tool for the job. like you said, most people won't hit the 1k tbw so it's not much of a factor for them.
Do you have a source for the claim about them switching to worse NAND with a lower endurance rating? The NAND has changed several times (64-layer > 96-layer > 176-layer, and possibly a QLC variant) but I don't know that the newer versions are any worse, except the supposed QLC version. Some things I've read indicate the newer 176-layer TLC should be an improvement. I'll also note that Crucial has never changed the warranted TBW on this drive. It's been the same since the original release with the 64-layer TLC.
Better wear-leveling sure, but lots of recent reviews of newer MX500 drives just dying ~1 year in. Still not sure what the pattern is yet, is it specific models, generations, capacity? Was it a small blip that's been corrected? Having a tough time finding comprehensive info online.
The new version of the WD Blue (SA510) is an absolute disaster. It's now DRAM-less and many report getting terrible performance. The user reviews have a terrifyingly high ratio of people saying it died with a few weeks/months. I wouldn't touch that drive unless I could be sure I was getting the old WD Blue 3D.
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
Join The Conversation
Share your experience with the Slickdeals community
Share information with the community. Please follow our Community Guidelines and be kind!