Our Verdict
Excellent sequential read and write speeds make the Crucial T500 a solid option for a premium PCIe 4.0 SSD. At smaller capacities it struggles to truly stand out for speed, but the upcoming 4TB option is sure to be tempting.
- Excellent sequential speeds
- Decent random 4K speeds
- 4TB option
- Other PCIe 4.0 SSDs offer similar or better performance
- Needs a heatsink to avoid throttling
- Struggles to stand out from the crowd
While PCIe 5.0 SSDs are finally appearing on retailers’ shelves, PCIe 4.0 SSDs still offer far better value money, while providing similar real-world performance in most scenarios. The new Crucial T500 comes in capacities of 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and, thanks to a recent update, 4TB too. It has the option of a heatsink, Crucial claims it can hit speeds of up to 7,400MB/s, and you won’t need an expensive new PCIe 5.0 motherboard to get the most out of it either.
Why you can trust our advice ✔ At PCGamesN, our experts spend hours testing hardware and reviewing games and VPNs. We share honest, unbiased opinions to help you buy the best. Find out how we test.
So to test those claims and see how the Crucial T500 stacks up against the best SSDs for gaming, we’ve put it through its paces and found that, while it’s not the fastest SSD on the block, it does indeed offer decent sequential read and write speeds for the money.
Specs
| Capacities available | 500GB, 1TB, 2TB (tested), 4TB (in 2024) |
| Heatsink | Optional |
| Formatted capacity | 1.81TB (2TB model tested) |
| NAND | TLC |
| Controller | Phison PS5025-E25 |
| Endurance rating | 1200 TBW (2TB model) |
| Warranty | Five years |
Features
While the Crucial T500’s claimed peak read and write speeds of 7,400MB/s and 7,000MB/s respectively for the 2TB model we reviewed are quite a bit slower than those of PCIe 5.0 SSDs, you’ll only really notice this difference in sequential workloads when you’re dealing with very large files.
This drive uses Micron 323-layer 3D TLC NAND memory, and it also has 1GB of LPDDR4 memory per terabyte to act as a cache. Under the hood is Phison’s PS5025-E25 controller with Phison I/O technology, and it supports Microsoft’s DirectStorage tech to reduce game load times as well.
It’s available with a heatsink, but our cheaper review model lacked one. During testing, the temperature topped 80°C after a few minutes and then started to throttle with speeds falling to 6,500MB/s. Thankfully, using our motherboard’s M.2 heatsink resulted in this temperature dropping to a peak of 63°C, so you’ll need some kind of heatsink for it to run optimally.
In terms of capacities and endurance, there are 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB models of the T500 available now, and our 2TB review sample offers a standard 1,200TBW (terabytes written) endurance rating.
Sequential performance
We saw a sequential read speed of 7,456MB/s and write speed of 7,034MB/s in CrystalDiskMark, matching Crucial’s claims, with the AS SSD benchmark recording 6,246MB/s and 6,203MB/s read and write speeds respectively. Comparatively, WD’s PCIe 4.0 Blue SN580 managed CrystalDiskMark read and write speeds of 4,183MB/ and 4,147MB/s respectively, so it’s quite a bit slower than the T500.
Random performance
The T500’s random 4K performance was quite a bit slower than that of the PCIe 5.0 Crucial T700, which managed 6,113MB/s and 6,473MB/s respective read and write speeds, compared to 4,863MB/s and for the Crucial T500. In this respect, the T500 is also slower than some other PCIe 4.0 SSDs we’ve tested, such as the Solidigm P44 Pro.
However, the T500’s random speeds were much faster than the 2,541MB/s read and 3,374MB/s write results recorded by the WD Blue SN580. It was also faster on the Q1T1 random 4K test, with respective read and write speeds of 80MB/s and 302MB/s, compared to 73MB/s and 227MB/s for the cheaper WD SSD. Again, though, we’ve seen faster performance from the likes of Solidigm’s P44 Pro, which managed 87MB/s read and 343MB/s write speeds.
Real world performance
The faster performance of the Crucial T500 over cheaper PCIe 4.0 SSDs such as the WD Blue SN580 was also evident in the PCMark 10 full drive benchmark. This suite runs an SSD through real-world software tests such as booting Windows, loading programs and games, and also performing tasks in popular word processing and image editing software. Its score of 3,433 eclipsed the 2,921 of the WD Blue SN850, and was only a little behind the 3,754MB/s recorded by the pricier Crucial T700.
Verdict
Sitting at the upper end of pricing for a high-end PCIe 4.0 SSD, the Crucial T500 offers excellent sequential speeds, but is often outperformed by some stiff competition such as the Solidigm P44 Pro, in 4K random tests.
It will also require a heatsink if you opt for the heatsink-less model, but it does finally have the advantage of a 4TB model – a capacity that some other manufacturers lack, including Solidigm. If you want a smaller capacity than 4TB, though, the T500 struggles to stand out from the competition. The WD Blue SN850 might be slower, but it’s also much cheaper, while the Solidigm P44 Pro is a more consistent all-round performer.