Crucial BX500 960GB SSD Drive Review

In this review we took a look at the Crucial BX500 SATA SSD.  The BX series is an interesting line from Crucial as they have taken a different approach to how SSD drives are built and sold.  On the surface they appear to be more affordable however when you look at the higher end MX500 you get considerably more features, better drive endurance with only a slightly higher total cost. 

As a consumer it makes sense to spend an extra 10 bucks to get a better drive and is something I would recommend all day long.  Though as a system builder and OEM who is buying thousands of these drives at a time that extra 10 dollars adds up quickly especially when you consider that many of the differences are not a concern in a budge oriented computer build.

The Crucial BX500 is a TLC based SSD using the new Micron 96-Layer 3D NAND technology.  To help increase speed you’ll find a SLC write acceleration cache that also reduces wear on the primary NAND chips.  According to Crucial the BX500 Life Expectancy is 1.5 million hours with 240TB of Total Bytes Written or about 130GB a day for 5 years.  A three year warranty gives buyers peace of mind and the advanced power saving modes give the drive about 45x the power efficiency over a typical hard drive.

Keep in mind that the TBW(Total Bytes Written) is reduced with smaller drives simply due to the number of chips on the PCB.  With more chips they physically have less data written to them and can handle more wear.  The lowest capacity drive in the BX500 lineup is 120GB with only 40TB of TBW.

Overall this drive is designed to combine Micron 3D NAND with a value conscious design to deliver features DIY upgraders and builders are looking for.  The Crucial BX500 is available in 120GB, 240GB, 480GB and 960GB capacities which encompass nearly the entire mainstream SSD market.

The benchmarks in this review show some pretty impressive numbers for a value based SSD.  We did notice a drop in Random Read/Write performance which translated into a lower score in our Real World benchmarks but still offered top of the line performance in synchronous Reads from 32KB up to 64MB making it still one of the fastest SATA based SSDs you can buy and a great upgrade for an older system that just needs a pick me up. 

Great Performance
SATA 6 Compliant
96-Layer 3D NAND
Available in Sizes up to 960GB
More Storage Less Cost
Included Imaging Software

TLC NAND
Wear rates are pretty high