Crucial BX500 240GB Review: An Affordable and High-Performance SSD

I’ve tested the Crucial BX500 SSD for you, although it’s not the fastest SSD out there due to its SATA connectivity now lagging behind NVMe M.2 drives. It’s still an excellent option for upgrading the hard disk of a slow computer, though.

Full review of the 240GB Crucial BX500 SATA SSD

The BX500 is extremely lightweight, and its circuitry takes up only a quarter of the space available in the box. It’s matte black and has never changed color, so you won’t confuse it with the other model in the same format, which is metallic in color. The SATA plug is protected on its upper edge, and the female plug of the connected ribbon cable fits into the notch to secure the hole.

The box includes a mini starter guide to inform customers about the duration of the warranty (3 years) and the addresses for installing free disk cloning and optimization software. There’s also a link to videos showing how to disassemble the old drive and install the new SSD.

Enough pleasantries, let’s get on to the part that really interests us.

Crucial BX500 performance

Crucial’s BX500 SSD is a reliable and affordable SSD, as the manufacturer knows how to do.

As for the interface, we’re using SATA III 6 Gb/s, which delivers pleasant transfer rates, albeit necessarily limited compared to NVMe.

Crucial claims 540 MB/s sequential read and 500 MB/s sequential write speeds.

the BX500 has no DRAM, for cost reasons, and the cache is provided by the NAND memory itself.

Being slower than DRAM, this can in some circumstances result in rather flat performance, but still far better than a mechanical hard disk drive (HDD).

The endurance of the crucial BX500

The endurance of an SSD or TBWhard disk is a measure of the total amount of data an SSD can write over its lifetime.

Technical specifications of the crucial BX500 in 240GB

• Brand: Crucial
• Series: BX500
• Product range : Consumer SSDs
• Product size: 2.5″ 7mm
• Capacity: 240GB
• Connection: Sata3 6Gb/s
• Chip technology: Micron 64 TLC (SLC cache memory)
• Controller: Silicon Motion SM2258XT
• Performance: Sequential read: 540 MB/s; Sequential write: 500 MB/s
• MTTF (mean time between failure): 1.5 million hours
• Endurance: 80 TB Total bytes written (TOE)
• Advanced features : Multi-step data integrity algorithm, Thermal monitoring, SLC write acceleration, Active Garbage Collection, TRIM support, Self-Monitoring and Reporting Technology (SMART), Error Correction Code (ECC), User-upgradeable firmware
• Compliance: FCC, UL, TUV, KCC, BSMI, VCCI, CE, WEEE, ROHS, EPEAT, Halogen Free, SATA-IO, ICES
• Operating temperatures: 0 to 70°C
• Warranty: 3 years
• Package contents: SSD BX500, Acronis® True Image™ for Crucial cloning software and installation instructions.

Find a comparison of the best 2.5″ SATA SSDs here.