Introduction

Crucial, a subsidiary of Micron, a world leader in memory and flash production, has established itself on the solid state storage market with their Crucial C300 and m4 SSDs. They have now released the M500 that was demonstrated as 1 TB variant using Micron's new 128 Gbit MLC NAND die at CES earlier this year.

Today, we are reviewing the 480 GB version of the Crucial M500. It is based on an updated Marvell 88SS9187-BLD2 controller and Micron 20 nm MLC flash. The new flash chips use a 128 Gbit die to increase page size from 8 KB to 16 KB, which increases sequential throughput and makes page management easier since the controller needs to store data for each page and now only has to worry about half the number of pages.

Crucial's M500 is available in capacities ranging from 128 GB to 1 TB. The M500 480 GB in this review currently retails at $395.

Packaging

You will receive:

• The SSD
• Documentation
• 7 mm to 9.5 mm adapter

The Drive

The drive conforms to the dimensions set forth by the 2.5" form factor. It is made of metal, which improves its durability. Its height is only 7 mm, which makes it compatible with Intel's Ultrabook specification. Crucial includes a 9.5 mm adapter in the package, so the SSD will also fit into notebooks that require that form factor.


Like most recent SSDs, the Crucial M500 uses the SATA 6 Gbps interface. It is compatible with any older SATA standard, but will, in such a case, work at reduced performance.


You will find the SSD controller and 16 flash chips on the PCB. A DRAM chip next to the flash controller provides operating memory for the controller.


Crucial uses a Marvell 88SS9187-BLD2 controller. It is an updated version of the one we saw on the m4 SSD.


The sixteen flash chips are produced by Micron on a 20 nanometer process and are the first to feature a 128 Gbit die.


A DRAM chip is also installed on the PCB to provide RAM for the SSD controller.