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Here's some excellent news for PCIe Gen4 lovers. Today, Micron released the Crucial T500 4TB version to complete its venerable NVMe SSD.
If you remember, the internal drive was released after the T700, which is a PCIe Gen5 drive with extreme heat issues but offers up to 4TB of storage space. The new capacity makes the T500 a better alternative on all counts.
Crucial T500 4TB: Top PCIe Gen4 perform meets high capacity
The T500 is part of Micron's high-performance NVMe SSD, as opposed to the company's low-cost P Plus series, such as the recently released P310.
In my testing, when first released in November 2023, it proved to be one of the fastest, if not the fastest, PCIe Gen4 drives and was comparable to the T700 in some cases. It has remained in that position since.
The truth is that PCIe Gen4 is the sweet spot of NVMe performance thanks to the fact that it doesn't produce a lot of heat, and generally, a system only needs bus speed so fast to deliver top performance. Starting with PCIe Gen3, NVMe SSDs' performance has reached a saturation point—faster doesn't necessarily bring more in real-world performance.
Therefore, this new 4TB capacity helps the T500 maintain that optimal spot in delivering the performance you can experience, the capacity you need without the heat issue you don't want.
The table below shows its specs against the T700.
Crucial T500 vs. T700: Hardware specifications
| Micron Crucial T500 | Micron Crucial T700 | |
| Capacities | 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB | 1TB, 2TB, 4TB |
| Interface | PCIe 4.0 x4, NVMe 2.0 (compatible with PCIe 5.0/3.0) | PCIe 5.0 x4 NVMe 2.0 (compatible with PCIe 4.0/3.0) |
| Design | M.2 (2280) | |
| Controller | Phison PS5025-E25 | Phison PS5026-E26 |
| NAND Flash Memory | Micron 232L 3D TLC NAND | Micron 232-layer TLC NAND |
| Security | AES-256 encryption, TCG Opal 2.01 | |
| Sequential Read (up to) | 500GB: 7,200MB/s 1TB: 7,300MB/s 2TB: 7,400 MB/s 4TB: 7000 MB/s | 2TB, 4TB: 12,400MB/s 1TB: 11,700MBps |
| Sequential Write (up to) | 500GB: 5700MB/s 1TB: 6800MB/s 2TB: 7050 MB/s 4TB: 6900 MB/s | 2TB, 4TB: 11,800MB/s 1TB: 9,500 MBps |
| Random Read (IOPS) | 500GB: 800K 1TB: 1150K 2TB, 4TB: 1180K | 2TB, 4TB: 1,500K 1TB: 1,350K |
| Random Write (IOPS) | 500GB: 300K 1TB: 600K 2TB, 4TB: 1200K | 2TB, 4TB: 1,500K 1TB: 1,400K |
| Endurance (Terabytes Written or Drive Writes Per Day | 300TBW (500GB) 600TBW (1TB) 1200TBW (2TB) 2400TBW (4TB) or .33 DWPD | |
| Software | Crucial Storage Executive | |
| Release Date | October 31, 2023 (500GB, 1TB, 2TB) August 27, 2024 (4TB) | May 30, 2023 |
| Cost (at launch) | $139.99 (500GB) $159.99 (1TB) $169.99 (2TB) (add $10 or so for the heatsink version) Check the current price! | $179.99 (1TB) $339.99 (2TB) $599.99 (4TB) (add $30 for the heatsink versions) Check the current price! |
| Warranty | 5 years | |
Availability and pricing
The new Crucial T500 4TB is available now on Micron's website at the current launch deal price of $309.99. The heatsink version costs $20 more. You can also get the new drive on Amazon.
Despite the higher capacity, the new drive is the same as when it was initially released over a year ago. For more, check out the rating box below.
Crucial T500 SSD's Rating
Pros
Top PCIe 4.0 performance
Helpful Storage Executive software with useful settings and features
5-year warranty; run cool
Cons
A tad expensive at launch
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