Crucial Announces New BX500 Series of Entry Level SSDs

[Raevenlord]

Crucial has become one of the biggest players in the consumer SSD market due to their excellent price/capacity/performance ratios (their SSDs consistently score highly in our own resident wizard's reviews for some reason, after all). Now, the company is looking to lower price/GB even more as it launches the BX500 series to the market - available in capacities of 120 GB, 240 GB and 480 GB using Micron 3D NAND chips.

Yes, it's a SATA III SSD. And yes, the SATA III connector really is a limiting factor in this SSD's performance - but remember that SATA III controllers are much less costly than NVMe implementations. Sequential performance is rated for up to 540MB/s read and 500MB/s write (4K performance is sadly absent). The whole plethora of usual SSD technologies are here as well - multi-step data integrity algorithm, thermal monitoring, SLC write acceleration, active garbage collection, TRIM support, self-monitoring and reporting technology (SMART) and error correction code (ECC)... For the pricing, these are likely of the DRAM-less variety of SSDs, which means SLC caching is of utmost importance for performance. But pricing really is some of the lowest ever - Crucial is quoting $29.99 for the 120 GB model, $49.99 for the 240 GB one and $89.99 for 480 GB worth of BX500 storage. Crucial will start shipping out orders on August 31st.



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[DeathtoGnomes]

I like the pricing !

 

[RejZoR]

Crucial has the worst naming scheme. Why can't they name models by letters and numbers, like AX100, AX500 and AX800 for 3 models for the entire price range. And next would be BX100/500/800 and CX100/500/800 and DX100/500/800 and so on. I literally have no clue which model is older or never with their stuff.

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

HOLY MOLY!!! OAo $90 for 480GB is a steal! And it's using 3D NAND too!!

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Crucial has the worst naming scheme. Why can't they name models by letters and numbers, like AX100, AX500 and AX800 for 3 models for the entire price range. And next would be BX100/500/800 and CX100/500/800 and DX100/500/800 and so on. I literally have no clue which model is older or never with their stuff.

wait, you know what youre asking right? someone with intelligence doing the naming.

 

[cucker tarlson]

Crucial has the worst naming scheme. Why can't they name models by letters and numbers, like AX100, AX500 and AX800 for 3 models for the entire price range. And next would be BX100/500/800 and CX100/500/800 and DX100/500/800 and so on. I literally have no clue which model is older or never with their stuff.

Oh my God here we go again with the complaining about naming. Just don't look at it.

HOLY MOLY!!! OAo $90 for 480GB is a steal! And it's using 3D NAND too!!

3d what ? probably qlc with no dram buffer. Price is relevant for the quality.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Oh my God here we go again with the complaining about naming. Just don't look at it.


3d what ? probably qlc with no dram buffer. Price is relevant for the quality.

did you even read it?

 

[rtwjunkie]

I literally have no clue which model is older or never with their stuff.

Mx500 is 6 months older but is the performance oriented. Bx500 is the budget model. Newer, but more budget oriented.

B prefix has always been budget. Simple.

 

[cucker tarlson]

did you even read it?

what did I miss ?

 

[Kursah]

HOLY MOLY!!! OAo $90 for 480GB is a steal! And it's using 3D NAND too!!

I just picked up a WD Blue 3D NAND 500GB for $99 on Amazon, I've used them for a while with great success, they're fast and a good price point. I picked up the same drive last summer for my wife's laptop for $140-150-ish. Prices are getting there, slowly. These drives are fast and solid performing in my experience and have a DDR3 cache.

I have a BX200 960GB as my gaming HDD in my main PC, it's fine as long as you don't write files larger than 1GB as that's all it had for DRAM cache...after that writes were 70MB/s. Not a big deal as a gaming drive tho. But even so, compared with the WD, the WD is definitely faster and worth the extra $10 IMHO.

Oh my God here we go again with the complaining about naming. Just don't look at it.

Really?

Mx500 is 6 months older but is the performance oriented. Bx500 is the budget model. Newer, but more budget oriented.

B prefix has always been budget. Simple.

Exactly this, and for budget drives they're solid. Thank you for taking the time to post constructively!

 

[newtekie1]

Mx500 is 6 months older but is the performance oriented. Bx500 is the budget model. Newer, but more budget oriented.

B prefix has always been budget. Simple.

And the 3 number digits are the product generation. It's really not that confusing.

 

[_UV_]

HOLY MOLY!!! OAo $90 for 480GB is a steal! And it's using 3D NAND too!!

QLC, that's why no 4k speed ratings and just words "3D NAND", and also knowing how many staff and awards they got is main decision making factor for buyers of this product.

Spoiler: meanwhile

For 100$ you can buy same capacity overstock or light used intel enterprise SSD with MLC

 

[Frick]

The MX500 is roughly the same price.. We'll see what it looks like in a few months.

 

[natr0n]

Dramless isnt really true since the controller contains some ram internally.

 

[TheLostSwede]

From the Crucial datasheet.

Endurance:
120GB drive: 40TB Total Bytes Written (TBW), equal to 21GB per day for 5 years
240GB drive: 80TB Total Bytes Written (TBW), equal to 43GB per day for 5 years
480GB drive: 120TB Total Bytes Written (TBW), equal to 65GB per day for 5 years

This does indeed suggest it's QLC.

 

[xkm1948]

Now give us a 1TB for $170

 

[mihailc]

I looked up local offers, one shop already has bx500 480gb for 97€, thing is, I just recently got mx500 500gb for the same 97€, soo is it really worth?
P.S. Did a fresh search of mx500 500gb, there's some for mere 90€ atm!

 

[rtwjunkie]

I looked up local offers, one shop already has bx500 480gb for 97€, thing is, I just recently got mx500 500gb for the same 97€, soo is it really worth?
P.S. Did a fresh search of mx500 500gb, there's some for mere 90€ atm!

If they are close to the same price get the MX500 all day long.

 

[newtekie1]

Newegg has them up for pre-order:

120GB = $30
240GB = $50
480GB = $80

For reference the MX500 prices are:

120GB = N/A
250GB = $68
500GB = $99

IMO, the only one worth considering is the 480GB. There are cheaper alternatives in the other sizes.

 

[Minus Infinity]

Really, 120GB SSD's in late 2018. Total idiocy. Even 240GB is a joke. Why not 480GB, 960GB and 1920GB. Given they are budget line we want capacity.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

If they are close to the same price get the MX500 all day long.

yea $20 bucks is close enough for the working stiffs. IF , you are just buying 1 and not a raid set.

 

[newtekie1]

Really, 120GB SSD's in late 2018. Total idiocy. Even 240GB is a joke. Why not 480GB, 960GB and 1920GB. Given they are budget line we want capacity.

I wouldn't waste money on a 120GB drive today, not when 240GB drives can be had for $45. Realistically, 240GB is big enough for a system drive for most people still.

But, yeah, these are budget drives, and I'd rather have capacity over anything else. If the WD Blue 2TB is $340, we should be seeing these DRAMless budget SSDs hitting under $300 for 2TB.

 

[StrayKAT]

Seems like Crucial/Micron release all manner of SSDs.... except anything based on 3DXPoint.

 

[rtwjunkie]

Seems like Crucial/Micron release all manner of SSDs.... except anything based on 3DXPoint.

That’s all upper end stuff, and done in conjunction with Intel. I’m not even sure that is ready for prime time yet.

This is consumer level 3D Nand stuff, developed in house by Micron. It’s actually pretty darn good. And affordable. That’s why the MX500 is also reasonable cost.

 

[StrayKAT]

That’s all upper end stuff, and done in conjunction with Intel. I’m not even sure that is ready for prime time yet.

This is consumer level 3D Nand stuff, developed in house by Micron. It’s actually pretty darn good. And affordable. That’s why the MX500 is also reasonable cost.

I know.. it's just weird that only Intel releases consumer products based on it afaik. I was hoping Micron would and maybe get the price down a bit.