I just checked out a review of the T500, over on Storage Review, and all I can say is: oof.
Let's hope the T500 had some kinks that Micron was able to sort out in firmware, otherwise this one looks to me a lot more like a QLC drive than TLC-based . Read performance is good, but not quite matching either Solidigm's or Samsung's flagships. However, its write performance is abysmal.
> TweakTown says it's the best PCIe Gen4 SSD ever tested
So weird, given it came dead last in their PS5 read chart of like 50 different SSDs. It *barely* squeaked over the PS5's minimum threshold of 5500 MB/s. The PS5 only has PCIe 4.0, so being a PCIe 4.0 drive is no excuse for that.
Also, they only tested random writes at 1M. As for 4k random reads, they only tested at Q1T1, which is probably the most relevant metric but doesn't tell the whole story. And even then, it got solidly beat by Samsung 990 Pro - another PCIe 4.0 drive.
Anvil Read Score was another test where it was well-surpassed by some other PCIe 4.0 drives, like the 990 Pro. The Max Read IOPS test had the 990 Pro beating it by a margin of 50%!
Atto's 128k seq. read test had Solidigm's P44 Pro beating it by a good margin.
PCMark's tests also preferred Samsung 990 Pro.
Also, they do this weird thing where they test it on both Intel and AMD, seeming to credit it with the higher of the two scores. However, the scores of the other drives they're comparing against are just from the Intel test system, even when the other drives also scored higher on AMD.
All in all, it's just bizarre for them to heap such praise upon it. It performs between "okay" and "good", in their tests. In a couple, it indeed seems like the fast PCIe 4.0 drive. There's just no way it's "the best PCIe Gen4 SSD ever tested". Not according to their own data. IMO, they made a mockery of themselves with such a statement. It's also strange there are zero comments on that review.
As with Storage Review, they found writes to be a problem area, summarizing it as: "Inconsistent sustained write performance". To be specific, the issue seems to be that once its SLC buffer fills up, its write performance drops from being among the best PCIe 4.0 drives to among the worst. Perhaps this is also what Storage Review found. They might just have a better preconditioning regime and thus encountered that sooner.
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Terry_Craig - Tuesday, December 5, 2023 - link
Nothing impressive.[email protected] - Tuesday, December 5, 2023 - link
The TBW is ok at 600 x size. It is gen4. And the speed is good. What would be impressive is the pricings.mode_13h - Wednesday, December 6, 2023 - link
I just checked out a review of the T500, over on Storage Review, and all I can say is: oof.Let's hope the T500 had some kinks that Micron was able to sort out in firmware, otherwise this one looks to me a lot more like a QLC drive than TLC-based . Read performance is good, but not quite matching either Solidigm's or Samsung's flagships. However, its write performance is abysmal.
Adramtech - Wednesday, December 6, 2023 - link
Yet TweakTown says it's the best PCIe Gen4 SSD ever tested, and website reviews on it are all stellar. https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/10577/crucial-t5...mode_13h - Thursday, December 7, 2023 - link
Wow, thanks for the link.> TweakTown says it's the best PCIe Gen4 SSD ever tested
So weird, given it came dead last in their PS5 read chart of like 50 different SSDs. It *barely* squeaked over the PS5's minimum threshold of 5500 MB/s. The PS5 only has PCIe 4.0, so being a PCIe 4.0 drive is no excuse for that.
Also, they only tested random writes at 1M. As for 4k random reads, they only tested at Q1T1, which is probably the most relevant metric but doesn't tell the whole story. And even then, it got solidly beat by Samsung 990 Pro - another PCIe 4.0 drive.
Anvil Read Score was another test where it was well-surpassed by some other PCIe 4.0 drives, like the 990 Pro. The Max Read IOPS test had the 990 Pro beating it by a margin of 50%!
Atto's 128k seq. read test had Solidigm's P44 Pro beating it by a good margin.
PCMark's tests also preferred Samsung 990 Pro.
Also, they do this weird thing where they test it on both Intel and AMD, seeming to credit it with the higher of the two scores. However, the scores of the other drives they're comparing against are just from the Intel test system, even when the other drives also scored higher on AMD.
All in all, it's just bizarre for them to heap such praise upon it. It performs between "okay" and "good", in their tests. In a couple, it indeed seems like the fast PCIe 4.0 drive. There's just no way it's "the best PCIe Gen4 SSD ever tested". Not according to their own data. IMO, they made a mockery of themselves with such a statement. It's also strange there are zero comments on that review.
mode_13h - Thursday, December 7, 2023 - link
Toms gave it a slightly more mixed (but still positive) review, rating it at 4/5 stars.https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crucial-2tb-t...
As with Storage Review, they found writes to be a problem area, summarizing it as: "Inconsistent sustained write performance". To be specific, the issue seems to be that once its SLC buffer fills up, its write performance drops from being among the best PCIe 4.0 drives to among the worst. Perhaps this is also what Storage Review found. They might just have a better preconditioning regime and thus encountered that sooner.
SanX - Wednesday, December 6, 2023 - link
AT turns into second hand market news