Crucial BX500 2.5in SATA 480GB SSD

Pro: low unit cost per GB storage Cons: Slow write time; especially when moving large chunk (5GB+) at once. Transfer speed gets down to as low as 20 MB/s (slower than a spinning hard drive with 60-80 MB/s) with burst of 200-300 MB/s. The write speed profile is in wave form (up and down) throughout the write process. Typical SSD has a fairly flat write profile (no slowdown to 20 MB/s once in a while). Drive is relatively new (less than a month old) and empty (less than 200GB out of 2TB capacity). From this experience, I will not consider getting another Crucial drive. It is a terrible deal even at the low cost....

The Crucial BX brand are a pretty solid range of SATA SSDs that can usually be relied upon, and the price I paid is competitive. This 1Tb version seems to be up to scratch, and it’s shell is actually metal, rather than the plastic of the 500gb version I bought previously. However, with the advent of NVME SSDSs that have incredibly fast transfer rates for a similar cost, making them brilliant system discs, I do feel that SATA SSDs need to come down in price. They should actually be cheaper than equivalent capacity Olde Worlde spinny hard drives, which they must now be cheaper to produce… they need to replace them for general storage usage really - they are quieter, more reliable, and more energy efficient, so run a lot cooler too.

I've used Crucial SSD in all my builds, and have yet to have any issues. Great as storage or main drives, I'm really happy with the performance. I had concerns when first selecting an SSD with the smaller buffer sizes, with the whole "when you move a massive file write performance drops down to HDD speeds" but in practice I've never experienced it, or if I did, I never noticed it. Recently bought this one as a storage for game files, and have to say I'm really happy with it. Loading speeds are very quick, file use is great, and editing 4k video on these is also awesome. Can't recommend enough, and at this price, there's no reason to be buying dodgy secondhand or unbranded online junk when you get name brand performance and quality with solid warranty. If you're on ... MoreI've used Crucial SSD in all my builds, and have yet to have any issues. Great as storage or main drives, I'm really happy with the performance. I had concerns when first selecting an SSD with the smaller buffer sizes, with the whole "when you move a massive file write performance drops down to HDD speeds" but in practice I've never experienced it, or if I did, I never noticed it. Recently bought this one as a storage for game files, and have to say I'm really happy with it. Loading speeds are very quick, file use is great, and editing 4k video on these is also awesome. Can't recommend enough, and at this price, there's no reason to be buying dodgy secondhand or unbranded online junk when you get name brand performance and quality with solid warranty. If you're on the fence about whether to buy this VS a higher priced SSD, go for more expensive options if you're runing a workstation 24/7 and editing 4k video on a daily basis or moving huge files around constantly, or maybe if you're installing in a laptop that's going to be moved a lot (the crucial SSd's are pretty light, I don't think they are the most physically solid option out there). If like me you're doing odd video editing, 3d Modelling and rendering, and high def gaming in a desktop, then you've got nothing to worry about with this one.

"But is it any good?"

I needed a new system hard drive for the PC upstairs and replacing the old drive with this one gave new life to an older model PC, I was a little worried that maybe spending less on a new Hard drive meant settling for less, but the new Crucial SSD hasn't had any issues was super easy to install and has improved the performance of the old PC by leaps and bounds (no more waiting 5 minutes for the computer to boot Windows). Being someone who usually buys the more expensive breeds by default i was pleasantly surprised with its quality of build, reliability and performance. Hopefully a future sign of solid state reliability in general. Will definitely buy Crucial SSD's again in the future.

Best thing I did for an aging laptop. Broght it back to life

I used the SSD to replace an old HDD on my ASUS laptop. I was about to replace the laptop since it was so slow. The install/clone procedure was so easy! I was expecting problems, but there were no problems or issues. The physical install was just as easy. I really am pleased that Windows moved over with no issues, and works normally. The new SSD is so fast! The laptop used to take about 45 seconds to boot, and was so disk-intensive that it was basically unusable for about 5 minutes. Now the laptop boots in about 10 seconds, and is ready to go once the desktop appears. This has saved me from buying a new laptop (especially with prices these days). This was by far the best decision I made regarding the laptop and would definitely do it again. If you have an aging ... MoreI used the SSD to replace an old HDD on my ASUS laptop. I was about to replace the laptop since it was so slow. The install/clone procedure was so easy! I was expecting problems, but there were no problems or issues. The physical install was just as easy. I really am pleased that Windows moved over with no issues, and works normally. The new SSD is so fast! The laptop used to take about 45 seconds to boot, and was so disk-intensive that it was basically unusable for about 5 minutes. Now the laptop boots in about 10 seconds, and is ready to go once the desktop appears. This has saved me from buying a new laptop (especially with prices these days). This was by far the best decision I made regarding the laptop and would definitely do it again. If you have an aging laptop, try this before investing in a new one - it may save you as it saved me!

Brought new life to my old laptop

I purchased the CRUCIAL BX500 2.5 SSD in Sep 2022. So far, I am very happy with its performance. Granted it is not the fastest SSD on the market, but I just wanted to give my very old ASUS TP500LA new life as it has been very reliable over the years and I use it mostly for work. Installing the SSD was very easy and I used a cloning software program to get all my files including Windows 10 transferred. That way I did not have to worry about re-installing Windows 10…it was SO MUCH simpler. The SSD made the old Core I3 laptop run faster than when it was brand-new. It was definitely worth it and I am very happy with my purchase.

Extending the life of my old laptop.

This SSD worked exactly as I expected it to. I bought it a few months ago and finally had time to install it. It was fairly easy to install in my 10 year old Toshiba Satellite Laptop. The laptop screws were tiny, but I was able to reuse them and the mounting bracket. My plan was to start afresh by installing a clean version of Windows, so I had already created an installation USB drive for the task. I saw that Crucial supplies tools for cloning your previous disk, if it is still functional, which I think would be helpful, but I didn't use it.

Great product, watch out during cloning process

I bought two of these for two different older Win10 computers with spinning hard drives that were degrading, making the computers very slow. First was my wife's nearly 9 year old laptop. First attempt at cloning drive failed because the computer shut itself off during the process. Be sure to go into power settings and disable automatic shutdown or sleep mode. Once I did that the cloning succeeded. Second PC was a desktop with a 250GB spinning drive. The SSD is 1 TB. Using the cloning wizard, it wanted to create a 217 GB Windows partition (same size as it was on the spinning drive) and it wanted to blow up the recovery partition to well over 700 GB. Well, that's stupid! It should have kept the recovery partition the same size and increased the Windows partition as ... MoreI bought two of these for two different older Win10 computers with spinning hard drives that were degrading, making the computers very slow. First was my wife's nearly 9 year old laptop. First attempt at cloning drive failed because the computer shut itself off during the process. Be sure to go into power settings and disable automatic shutdown or sleep mode. Once I did that the cloning succeeded. Second PC was a desktop with a 250GB spinning drive. The SSD is 1 TB. Using the cloning wizard, it wanted to create a 217 GB Windows partition (same size as it was on the spinning drive) and it wanted to blow up the recovery partition to well over 700 GB. Well, that's stupid! It should have kept the recovery partition the same size and increased the Windows partition as much as possible. So I halted the cloning and restarted it in manual mode, which allows changing the partition sizes. In manual mode the cloning software made the correct suggestion: it kept the recovery partition and two small mysterious partitions the same sizes that they were on the hard drive, and it increased the Windows partition to 871 GB. So I accepted those sizes and did the cloning. Why couldn't the wizard have figured that out? Bottom line - pay attention during the cloning process to make sure the wizard isn't doing something dumb. Both computers are now running much faster than before. My wife is delighted with her new laptop. She says it is now super-fast. B&H sale price was great with free two day delivery.

Inexpensive way to enhance PC performance

My B-352 PowerSpec has served me well the past 11 years. It was slowing down and the motherboard would only support 8GB Ram. Replacing a relatively new 2TB HDD with this 1 TB SSD changed everything. I’m sure this will see me through the end of windows 10. For $60 I have very fast machine. I used Macrium to clone the new Drive. Bought extra Sata cable and did all onboard. Initialize crucial first.

Like molasses in winter

Been trying to use this SSD drive to make a workable clone. The Acronis software simply does not work. Even PC Mag that paid for Acronis could not make a functioning clone. Then tried to make a back up and a bootable USB. Neither functioned. I'm sure the extremely slow speed of this Crucial drive probably has something to do with that. I transferred a program from a thumb drive to a 7 yr old HDD in an hour. The same program, same thumb drive, same computer, it took over 5 hrs to transfer to this SSD