The Crucial M500 SSD is a major step forward for Crucial and Micron, as the new SSD is much faster than the previous Crucial m4 SSD and also brings key new features such as 20nm NAND Flash, hardware-based AES 256-bit encryption, TCG Opal 2.0-compliant firmware, along with data integrity and temperature control features.

Bear in mind is that the Marvell 88SS9187 controller supports true hardware encryption which is different from most other controllers whose encryption is handled via software means. In addition, the drive packs features for power loss and thermal protection which make it suitable for use in enterprise applications.

Judging from its specs, the M500 is not a performance leader but most of you will find the M500 more than acceptable with reads of 500MB/s and writes of 400MB/s. The Crucial M500 SSD performed slightly ahead of Crucial’s specifications in file transfer operations against competing solid-state storage solutions. Among the current series of non-SandForce SSD manufacturers, the M500 does reasonably well. The drive also showed an excellent I/O performance in a queue depth of 32 - leaving behind even the recently launched OCZ Vector SSD. In 4K 32QD tests using AS-SSD and CrystalDiskMark, the Crucial M500 SSD also achieved the second highest scores.

The Crucial M500 480GB left us with the impression of a solid SSD designed for everyone, packed with performance and enterprise features and available at a competitive price. The 480GB drive is retailing for $390 which is translated to a respectable $0.87 per GB. The 960GB drive is retailing for $599 which really a great deal with a cost per GB at $0.62.

Overall, a very good value SSD.