4TB Crucial MX500 2.5" 3D NAND SATA III Internal Solid State Drive Expired

Ok, out of curiosity I opened up one of the drives I received yesterday. It has 4x TLC chips (part MT29F8T08EWLEEM5-QA:E [mou.sr]) and 1x 4GB DDR3 (part MT41K256M16TW-107 [mou.sr]). So I think unless Micron is lying about their parts specifications, I think it is safe to say that these are indeed TLC drives with 4 GB of DDR ram. I'm not expert with how to read these parts spec, but that's my impression.

I've been reading crucial has lowered the dram from 2GB [older versions] to 512MB [current models of MX500 line]. this seems like a huge change.. feel like crucial shoulda just discontinued the mx500 and made a mx505 or something so people would know this.

You're right - the DRAM cache has been lowered to 512MB. They've also lowered the terabytes written rating from 1000TBW (as listed on TechPowerUp for the TLC models) to 360TBW. According to a site called TheOverclockingPage, the 2TB and 4TB models are using QLC now, but Crucial claims that it's still TLC. Why the massively reduced TBW rating then?

Who knows how much SLC cache it has now - probably not the ~380GB that it used to. I hate it when companies reuse the same model number for a different product :/

Thank you for the heads up. I'm still considering it, but it does put it in a different light if it's really QLC, since performance might be somewhat lower.

Ok, out of curiosity I opened up one of the drives I received yesterday. It has 4x TLC chips (part MT29F8T08EWLEEM5-QA:E [mou.sr]) and 1x 4GB DDR3 (part MT41K256M16TW-107 [mou.sr]). So I think unless Micron is lying about their parts specifications, I think it is safe to say that these are indeed TLC drives with 4 GB of DDR ram. I'm not expert with how to read these parts spec, but that's my impression.

Quote from MWink : The original MX500 had 1GB DRAM per 1TB NAND. Only the 2TB model had 2GB DRAM. There wasn't even a 4TB model. The new version has 512MB DRAM, regardless of capacity. That means the 500GB version is unchanged and the 250GB version has double. However, the 1-2TB versions have less. That said, it's debatable how much of a difference this makes. You have to keep in mind that the original MX500 used 64-layer TLC NAND. The new version uses 176-layer TLC NAND. This upgrade may help offset the reduction in DRAM capacity. I do agree that they should have made this a new line. Please provide links to backup your claims. To date, I've never seen Crucial change the warranted TBW on the MX500 line. I have seen plenty of third-party sites get it wrong. I have also not seen any compelling evidence of a QLC variant of the MX500. Rumors were circulating (possibly from the site you mentioned) but they supposedly turned out to be counterfeit drives. Ironically, I'd also like a source for where Crucial claims it's TLC. As far as I've seen, Crucial never claimed the MX500 was TLC, only that it used Micron 3D NAND. Technically, they could make a QLC variant, without running afoul of the original specs. The pSLC cache on the MX500 is at least partially dynamic, thus will shrink as the drive fills. I'm not sure what size it starts at but bigger is not always better. It may even be a moot point, as some of these high end SATA drives barely drop, when the cache is full. I hate to tell ya but that's 4Gb (GigaBITS), not 4GB (GigaBYTES). 4Gb=512MB.

MWinkThe original MX500 had 1GB DRAM per 1TB NAND. Only the 2TB model had 2GB DRAM. There wasn't even a 4TB model. The new version has 512MB DRAM, regardless of capacity. That means the 500GB version is unchanged and the 250GB version has double. However, the 1-2TB versions have less. That said, it's debatable how much of a difference this makes. You have to keep in mind that the original MX500 used 64-layer TLC NAND. The new version uses 176-layer TLC NAND. This upgrade may help offset the reduction in DRAM capacity. I do agree that they should have made this a new line.



Please provide links to backup your claims. To date, I've never seen Crucial change the warranted TBW on the MX500 line. I have seen plenty of third-party sites get it wrong. I have also not seen any compelling evidence of a QLC variant of the MX500. Rumors were circulating (possibly from the site you mentioned) but they supposedly turned out to be counterfeit drives. Ironically, I'd also like a source for where Crucial claims it's TLC. As far as I've seen, Crucial never claimed the MX500 was TLC, only that it used Micron 3D NAND. Technically, they could make a QLC variant, without running afoul of the original specs.

The pSLC cache on the MX500 is at least partially dynamic, thus will shrink as the drive fills. I'm not sure what size it starts at but bigger is not always better. It may even be a moot point, as some of these high end SATA drives barely drop, when the cache is full.



I hate to tell ya but that's 4Gb (GigaBITS), not 4GB (GigaBYTES). 4Gb=512MB.

I see, as you and others noted, Crucial.com and Crucial's product flyers say 1000TBW for the 4TB model:
https://www.crucial.com/ssd/mx500...0mx500ssd1
https://content.crucial.com/conte...yer-en.pdf

It's weird that different stores and some reviewers claim it's only 360TBW. I wonder where they're getting those numbers?

"SSD endurance is listed at 360 terabytes written (TBW); Tom's Hardware claims the drive is rated for 1,000 TBW, but we can't verify that (it's possible that Crucial simply hasn't fully updated its product page yet). Crucial does say the drive comes backed by a five-year limited warranty, however." --Techspot.
https://www.techspot.com/news/914...amily.html

Another (unsubstantiated) claim of 360TBW:
https://www.relaxedtech.com/revie...mx500-4tb/

B&H possibly erroneously lists it as 360TBW:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/pr...html/specs

Best Buy lists it as 360TBW:
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/cruc...Id=6481715

TechPowerup goes with the 1000TBW number, but warns that there are multiple hardware versions:
https://www.techpowerup.com/ssd-s...-4-tb.d951

StorageReview - 1000TBW:
https://www.storagereview.com/rev...aid-review

They subsequently fixed the failures with a firmware update, but this August 2022 r/sysadmins thread was one of the things that made me suspicious that they'd changed things, or that there might be multiple versions floating around out there:
https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin...t_batches/

Damn, i missed this. Wondering when will we see this for similar price again

i'm waiting for the samsung evo 870 4TB to go on sale. i skipped this deal.