Crucial MX500 500GB and 1TB SATA SSD Reviews
The SSD Benchmark Test System & TRIM Support
Before we look at the numbers, lets take a brief look at the test system that was used. All testing was done on a fresh install of Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (version 1709 build 16299) and benchmarks were completed on the desktop with no other software programs running. This means windows defender, windows update, disk fragmentation and everything else that would interfere with testing was disabled. Windows 10 also had the power option set to high performance and we also disabled c-states and Turbo mode on the Intel Core i5-8400 to ensure our numbers are spot on and repeatable.
The Intel Z370 platform that we used to test the storage drives was based around the ASUS ROG STRIX Z370-F Gaming motherboard with BIOS 0606 that came out on January 4th, 2018. We used Intel Chipset Driver v10.1.1.45, Intel Management Engine Interface v11.7.0.1045 and Intel RST v15.9.0.1015 drivers. This is important to point out as they include some of the fixes for Meltdown and Spectre design flaws that have recently rocked the PC Market. The Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 16GB 3200MHz memory kit was run with CL15 memory timings and a Samsung SSD 850 PRO 512GB SATA SSD was used as the primary drive.
Intel Z370 Test Bench
| Intel LGA 1151 Test Platform | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Component | Brand/Model | Live Pricing | |||
|
Processor |
Intel Core i5-8400 | ||||
|
Motherboard |
ASUS STRIX Z370-F Gaming | ||||
|
Memory |
Corsair Vengeange LPX 3200MHz 16GB | ||||
|
OS Drive |
Samsung 850 PRO 512GB | ||||
|
Power Supply |
Corsair RM850x | ||||
|
Operating System |
Windows 10 64-Bit | ||||
CrystalDiskInfo 7.5.1 Readout:
The readout on CrystalDiskInfo 7.5.1 shows that the Crucial MX500 series supports S.M.A.R.T., APM, NCQ, TRIM and DevSleep. The drive we received had firmware version M3CR010 installed and that is the version that we used for general testing and benchmarking.
The overall capacity shows up as 931 TB on the MX500 1TB model and 466GB on the MX500 500GB drive in Windows 10 version 1709. Please remember that 1GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes. A certain portion of capacity may be used for system file and maintenance use, thus the actual available capacity may differ from the labeled total capacity.
Does The Crucial MX500 SATA III SSD Series Support Trim?
Most SSDs today support the TRIM command, but we still run a quick test to ensure that the command is being properly passed through to the SSD and being done. A great free utility called TRIMCheck can be run to ensure that TRIM is functioning properly.
According to TRIMCheck v0.7, these two drives do execute the TRIM command correctly!
Let’s have a look at the performance!