After checking the performance of the Crucial MX500 4TB, we can clearly note that it works best as a secondary storage device, where speed is less of a priority, but the user will mainly be more interested in price per GB. The drive succeeds to maintain a rather high transfer speed even after the pSLC cache has been filled up thanks to the 176-layer TLC ICs, but also the DRAM for caching purposes. The use of TLC does also enhance the overall durability, the drive being guaranteed for 1PB of total writes during its lifetime.

The HD Tune write workload does show how the drive can maintain a sustain write speed, drop a bit when the pSLC gets filled up and then recover quite quickly:

We did really appreciate that Crucial did continue to use an aluminum chassis for this particular model, paired with small heat pads in order to keep the temperature load on the controller, but also the frontal NAND ICs, and this really shows, the drive never exceeding 46 degrees after writing more than 2TB of data continuously to it.

The drive has had a recent drop in price lately, being available for about 190 Euros, being one of the least expensive TLC SATA drives on the market.

Crucial MX500 4TB 3D NAND SATA 2.5-inch 7mm SSD is Recommended for:

We would like to thank again to Crucial for making this review possible!