Since this week the new M500 SSD from Crucial is available is in the stores and this SSD has not only an enormously high performance, but now also offers a capacity close to the 1TB at a price where some other fast SSD starts with the half size. Today we have the smaller Crucial M500 480 GB SSD CT480M500SSD1 with integrated 256-bit AES encryption tested and extensively benchmarked. Crucial declares both the M500 480 GB SSD and the Crucial M500 960 GB SSD CT960M500SSD1 with the same read performance of 500 MB/s and with the same surprisingly high write performance of 400 MB/s. In the review we will see if the SSD is able to achieve this performance and in the SSD benchmark summary we will compare the new Crucial M500 SSD with the previously tested hard disk drives and solid state drives.
Thanks for the support …
Many thanks for the support with the Crucial M500 480GB 2.5″ SSD by the manufacturer Crucial.
The Crucial M500 480GB SATA3 2.5″ SSD CT480M500SSD1 has at present a price of approx. 380 Euro (04/2013).
The Crucial M500 SSD series contains at present the following types: Crucial M500 120GB CT120M500SSD1, 240GB CT240M500SSD1, 480GB CT480M500SSD1, 960GB CT960M500SSD1 SATA3 SSD, Crucial M500 120GB CT120M500SSD3, 240GB CT240M500SSD3, 480GB CT480M500SSD3 mSATA SSD, Crucial M500 120GB CT120M500SSD4, 240GB CT240M500SSD4 and 480GB CT480M500SSD4 M.2 SSD. Whereby the performance of this Crucial M500 SSD Series alters depending on the capacity. A higher capacity of this Crucial M500 SSD has a higher write performance, whereby the 480 GB as well as the 960 GB M500 has the same high 500 MB/s read- and 400 MB/s write performance.
Here you can buy the Crucial M500 SSD. *Ad
The supply of the Crucial M500 480GB SATA3 SSD …
In this cardboard box comes the Crucial M500 SSD:
That is contained in the delivery …
Crucial delivers the M500 2.5″ SSD CT480M500SSD1 well packed with a 9.5 mm adapter and the warranty conditions. Here is a first look at the small cardboard box:
The following picture shows the front of the 2.5″ Crucial M500 480GB SSD, where one can see the SATA3 connections for data and power on the right side. These connectors are identical to conventional SATA3 hard disks and these SATA3 SSDs can also operate with a slower speed at an SATA2 interface:
On the flipside you can see the label of the Crucial M500 SSD with some technical data and the pre-installed firmware version:
Here you can see eight out of a total of sixteen 20nm Micron NAND modules of the SATA3 SSD with a total of 512 GB capacity. Additionally you can see the 512MB SSD cache module and the new Marwell 88SS9187-BLD2 controller IC, which has replaced the previous Marwell 88SS9174-BLD2 controller of Crucial m4 SSD. The SSD also offers a built-in 256-bit AES encryption (TCG Opal 2.0 and IEEE 1667), which allows a hardware encryption with an appropriate UEFI hardware equipment and Microsoft Windows 8 with BitLocker enabled:
On the back of the circuit board, you can see the remaining eight 20nm Micron NAND modules:
Another feature is the lower height of the Crucial M500 480GB SSD or the Micron M500 480GB MTFDDAK480MAV SSD, which is only 7 mm and no more 9.5 mm, compared to the previous Crucial m4 SSD shown in the right picture:
To stay still compatible with the very popular height of 9.5 mm, Crucial includes a small 7 mm to 9.5 mm adapter which can be pasted on the SSD, if necessary:
