Customer Ratings & Reviews

Great Gen 4x4 2TB SSD that won't break the bank, and gets you nearly same performance of ones that cost much more. I was able to install this into the Asus ROG Ally X with no problems at all. It doesn't get any hotter in the ROG Ally X than the 1TB model it replaced in the ROG Ally X. I would not install this with a heatsink in the Ally X, but just re use the thermal pad that is in the stock Ally X SSD. While there is a bit of room there, you need to get the battery cable on the ROG Ally X over the top of the SSD and if you have a heatsink you may not be able to clear that height.

Beats Samsung all day with superior customer service, consistent performance, and significantly lower failure rate vs. Samsung.

Incredibly fast for the price. Crucial has really done it with this one.

The Crucial T500 SSD is a PCIe Gen 4 NVME solid state drive. It fits into a standard M.2 slot with a 2280 drive form factor. This version of the T500 does not come with a heatsink, but rather has the typical heat spreader label found on most NVME drives. This didn’t affect me as my motherboard’s main slot comes with heatsink. I installed the T500 in my ASUS G16CH tower with an intel i7 13700KF CPU and custom ASUS B760M-A WIFI D4 motherboard. I moved the original NVME drive to slot 2 just below the GPU – both slots run at x4 PCIe Gen 4 speeds, but I wanted the T500 in slot 1 because of the heatsink and better airflow. I have used Crucial SSD’s for years and have had pretty good success. I have a P2, and a P5 NVME drive along with an older MX500 SATA SSD installed for years without issues. Looking up the drive with Reddit’s SSDBOT gives you a nice look at how it stacks up with other drives. It gets rated as a High-End NVME drive, and by the specs its right at the top of the PCIe Gen 4 speed rating. The only way to go faster is to jump up to Gen 5 based drives and spend 2.5-3x more for 50-80% speed bump. The current speed of this drive is rated at 7400/7000 read/write with 2500 P/E cycles for endurance. Physical installation was a breeze. Replacing or adding a PCIe based SSD is one of the easiest upgrades you can make. The drive does not come with a screw, so if your MOBO doesn’t have a spare you just need to track down an M2x3mm screw. I have a computer fastener kit, so I just pulled one from there. As far as software installation goes I figured I would give the Acronis drive cloning tool on Crucial’s website a try. I usually do a fresh install, but thought the clone might work a little better. I regretted it to be honest. It seemed to clone just fine, but after a few days I started noticing some glitches and some instability in Explorer. I eventually just wiped the drive and did a fresh install of Windows 11. The drive I replaced with the T500 was an OEM drive that ASUS sourced from Micron – something close to a Micron 2400. Micron happens to be the parent company of Crucial, so there’s that. It was a 1TB NVME drive that had QLC NAND chips and was also a PCIe Gen 4 drive. The T500 was an upgrade all around with some similarities. The obvious being the 2TB size over 1TB. Speed increases were also substantial as the T500 was almost 2X faster – R/W of 4500/3600 for the old drive and 7400/7000 for the T500. There are also some architectural advantages to the T500. The NAND chips used are TLC (triple layer cells), which have been around for years and are a mature technology. The TLC chips offer greater endurance over QLC and increased speeds. The controller used in the T500 is a Phison PS5025-E25 – the Phison lineup is used pretty heavily in higher end NVME drives, so that provides some confidence in its usage. I ran the drive through CrystalDiskMark 8.0.4 and I pretty consistently got around 7100 MB/s for read speeds and 6825 MB/s write speeds. This is a little below advertised but I would call it pretty close for my taste. There’s always some system overhead with this being the OS drive, so I can’t rule out that taking some bandwidth. For practical usage I redownloaded my Steam and Gamepass libraries to the new drive. Before I had to pick and choose what I wanted on the 1TB drive, and what I had to load from my SATA SSD or Hybrid Hard Drive. With 2 TB of storage I am just at 40% capacity used and I have plenty of space to grow my library. Launching games is a touch faster – load times are down noticeably for the larger games – MCC, Forza, Shadow of War. In some of the smaller/older games that get played the load times weren’t vastly different – 8 seconds dropping down to 6 seconds doesn’t register as much as 15-20 second improvement on the larger games. Compared to loading games from my HHD though – enormously faster. An HHD drive is already decently faster than a plain HDD, so I can only imagine the improvement you would see. I didn’t really have a chance to try out many other workloads – I haven’t gotten my Solidworks working after resetting my PC, but I do know that a faster drive is always welcome when I work on larger models. The jump from a SATA SSD to an NVME drive was a pretty big leap when messing around with large files, so I can only speculate that I should see further improvement going to the T500. As far as use cases are concerned I would suspect anyone looking for a large boot drive that has some speed would be interested in the T500. It doesn’t break the bank compared to the PCIe Gen 5 drives, and it is certainly fast enough to handle any gaming needs. If you have a laptop with only 1 M.2 slot this is definitely a drive to look at since you don’t have the luxury of multiple drive slots to spread your data around on. The durability of TLC NAND and the Phison controller would bring me some comfort if this was my PC’s only drive. Overall, this is a solid PCIe NVME drive. I don’t think you can really go wrong by choosing it.

The Crucial T500 2TB NVMe M.2 SSD is a quality hard drive that offers impressive performance. * Competitive benchmark scores - I ran various synthetic benchmarks on CrystalDiskMark. Using the NVMe setting, 1 run and 1 GiB test size I achieved a sequential (Q8T1) score of 6278 MB/s read and 6222 MB/s write. This is a vast improvement over my other Crucial P5 1 TB NVMe M.2 SSD which scored 3538 MB/s read and 3321 MB/s write. I achieved approximately 85% of the maximum advertised read speed and 89% of the maximum write speed. Overall, I am happy with the performance provided by this drive, especially at its price point (on sale). * Competitive real world performance - Games installed quickly onto the drive. Transferring old Steam game files only took a matter of minutes. The load times are not noticeably shorter than my other M.2 drives but still significantly faster than loading from a HDD/standard SSD. * Great warranty - Solid 5 year limited warranty included with the purchase. * Easy installation - I removed the M.2 cover on my motherboard, inserted the drive into the slot, and tightened the screw. The whole process took less than 30 seconds. Overall, the Crucial T500 2TB NVMe M.2 SSD offers great performance and a large amount of storage.

As someone who is fortunate enough to own both the WD SN850X and the Samsung 990 Pro I can say confidently that the Crucial T500 is a contender and performs at the same levels trading some blows depending on the test/environment. As this is a high-end Gen 4 SSD. As seen by the specs below. Most specifically, up to 7,400 read, 7,000 write speeds, 232-layer 3D TLC NAND, Micron LPDDR4 DRAM, 1 GB per 1 TB of NAND flash, and Phison PS5025-E25 controller. Supports Microsoft Direct Storage and can be used PS5, PC, or laptop. For my testing I put it in my gaming laptop. Which is an Acer Predator Helios 16 (2023). I didn’t get max speeds, ~7,000 read and 6,900 write speeds. Which is extremely close to what I am getting with my SN850x and 990 Pro. The differences between them I don’t think is meaningful. Transferring large files (>200 GB) went quickly and stayed at high speeds throughout. Again, traded blows with both the SN850X and 990 Pro where no one was an easy winner. I didn’t have any issues with thermal throttling. But that will depend on how much of a demand you are constantly putting on it along with if you have a heat sink or not. Overall, great SSD that I have no complaints about. I can’t mention an increase in speeds or game loading times compared to my old drives as I’ve already been using high-end SSDs. But can say this is very similar and if I was doing blind testing, I wouldn’t be able to tell a difference. If you are using an HDD or a gen 3 SSD (and your PC supports a Gen 4 SSD) I highly recommend the upgrade. As there are a lot more things that are starting to utilize these faster speeds so you will see a difference in multiple aspects such as boot times, transferring large amounts of files, loading files, texture loading in games, games loading up, and loading screens to name a few. Especially, with games that support Microsoft Direct Storage. The 5-year warranty is greatly appreciated and has multiple features to keep it fresh and as fast as possible. SPECS: Built for gaming, photo/video editing and high workload applications. Gen4 high-end 2280 M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD. 232-layer 3D TLC NAND Up to 7,400 MB/s read speeds and Up to 7,000 MB/s write speeds. But this varies a bit depending on storage size. Random read/write speeds up to 1.18/1.44 IOPs 2280 M.2 SSD Supports Microsoft DirectStorage Comes with or without integrated heatsink Supports, 500 GB, 1 TB, 2 TB capacities. With a 4 TB option to be available sometime 2024. Supports PS5, desktops, and laptops. Micron LPDDR4 DRAM, 1 GB per 1 TB of NAND flash Phison PS5025-E25 Controller Microsoft DirectStorage optimized with Phison I/O+ technology 5-year warranty Static and dynamic SLC caching Redundant array of independent NAND (RAIN) Multi-layer data integrity algorithms Adaptive thermal protection Data protection for power loss events TRIM support SMART monitor technology Error Correction Code (ECC)

My gaming rig was quickly running out of space to hold installs of all the active games I am currently playing. I was super excited at the opportunity to upgrade to the new Crucial T500 2TB NVMe SSD. Installation was a breeze on my machine, and I chose after install to perform a brand new OS install vs cloning from my old drive. This ensured everything would be fresh and error free. Once booted up into my new installed OS, I ran some initial disk speed test, and while my read speed was in the upper 6000 MB/s range, by write speed was around 1000 MB/s, a far cry from Crucials anticipated numbers. I found that Bitlocker had enabled itself automatically. Upon disabling, and running a new test, I was getting 7000 MB/s read and write speeds. I also got in the 99% range using disk mark on the performance test tool. These are absolutely incredible speeds. Please note that this is a Gen 4 NVMe and to get speeds close to this, you need to have a motherboard capable of Gen 4 NVMe. Aside from just RAW numbers, everything else about my system is super fast and snappy. Installing applications (when not downloading online) are super fast. Copy files, moving around the operating system, start up and shutdown, are all blazing fast, taking only a matter of seconds to perform any test. Windows open instantly too. Gaming performance isn't held back either by this drive. If you have all the other appropriate components, the T500 SSD won't be a bottle neck for you. You will realize the maximum potential of your games. This new Crucial T500 SSD is built using a brand new Micron 232-layer 3D TLC NAND and uses Micron LPDDR4 DRAM, 1GB per 1TB of NAND flash If you're rocking Windows 11, this also takes advantage of Microsoft's DirectStorage optimization with Phison® I/O+ technology This drive packs some serious performance with an impressive amount of storage space. I am absolutely loving this addition to my gaming PC and will be happily recommending it, and using it in my future builds to come.

The T500 is a great choice for a top of the line SSD. With synthetic read speeds around 7,000 MB/s and write speeds around 6,700 MB/s. I was able to move all of my steam games very quickly from a 2TB HDD to the SSD. Immediately I noticed faster load times in my games. Even the few games I had on a slower 5,500 MB/s loaded noticeably faster. I wouldn’t say it’s leaps and bounds vs the other SSD, but it dominated the HDD. Outside of gaming it’s easy to recommend this for anyone who moves a lot of large files such as creators who do a lot of video editing or could even be used as a cache drive for a NAS storage solution. The fast transfer speeds can allow for quick loading of videos from a micro SD card as well as let video editing software quickly load files. Installation can be a bit intimidating if you’re not comfortable with PC components, but most modern PCs and Laptops will take this drive. Installation is as simple as finding a free M.2 slot on your motherboard and slotting the drive and securing it with a screw. It may be a bit more daunting to open your laptop but many manufacturers make upgrading or adding a 2nd drive as easy as popping off the bottom panel. I would have liked to see an included screw for mounting the drive. While most PCs come with an included screw in the slot, I’ve found that some don’t. I wouldn’t recommend installing without one. It’s also nice knowing that this comes with a 5 year warranty. TRIM support, garbage collection, and other features ensure the drive lasts long and remains reliable for that time frame. I would be surprised if you didn’t get a few more years after the warranty period without any issue. Crucial also has software you can download to upgrade firmware, check drive status and health. It’s intuitive, light weight, and easy to use.

I've always heard of Crucial but never used their SSDs. The T500 is my first one from the company. My system is currently using a WD SN850X NVME for Windows, Samsung 850 EVO SSD, and my big boy WD Black 4TB HDD. This Crucial drive will alleviate some of the "pressure" on my 4TB HDD. Starting off, installation for me was very simple. I had access to my M.2 slot on my motherboard right above my graphics card. Took less then 3 minutes. Next was initializing it in Windows, and after that it was ready for work. I ran some tests using Crystal Disk Mark to get an idea of what gains I would be seeing. My current system is running an Intel 9th Gen i9, so my speeds are only PCIe Gen 3. The T500 supports Gen 4, so my results are a little lower than what they can be. But nonetheless, speeds blow my older drives out of the water. Compared to my WD NVME, the T500 sits almost the same or even better. Where the true difference lies is with my WD Black HDD. The new T500 sees speeds more than 15x that of the WD Black. It's crazy! Compared to my Samsung SSD, the T500 is more than 6x faster. I'm very happy with the results. Speed tests are great, but what counts is real world tests. I moved 5 games from the WD Black HDD to the T500, and this is where the magic happens. Loading screens are almost nonexistent. Playing Horizon Zero Dawn I saw load times drop from almost a minute to just 15 seconds or less. And with this drive being 2TB, it will hold a lot of games for years to come. For someone looking to upgrade their main drive or have extra storage for games, the T500 is one of the best drives I have used. It doesn't matter if you're using a motherboard with PCIe Gen 3 or Gen 4, you will see huge speed gains in everything that you do.

Crucial does it again. I have been using their little brother NVMe's (P5) in my other PCs and builds and have never failed me once. Speeds are always as advertised and performance is top tier. The T500 is their next entry into the aging Gen4 (T700 is the Gen 5 version) and I am quite surprised to see and reach speeds up to 7400+ reads. Just note when buying the drive that there is no included screw so make sure you have one on hand or there is one already on your MB. Installed on my gaming laptop and is using it for my Steam/Epic library currently. I have 0 complaints as everything loads fast and nothing studders at all. Temps range from ~30 idle to ~65 during heavy loads. Ran Crystal Disk (see pic) and constantly was getting 7400MB/s+ reads. If you have a Gen 4 NVMe slot open and are looking to add more storage or just plain upgrade, you cannot go wrong with Crucial. They have slowly started pulling me away from Samsung because of reliability and amazing Price to Performance ratio.

I did not realize just how slow my current M.2 was until I was speed testing both drives. The Crucial T500 is BLAZING fast, just make sure you insert it into the Gen4 slot. On initial install I accidentally installed it in the Gen3 slot which led to confusion about the still fast, but not face-melting speeds I was expecting with specs that list “Sequential Read: 7400 MB/s, Sequential Write: 7000 MB/s.” After swapping slots of the M.2s, and having to reformat the drive, I could experience those speeds. Also, just as an FYI, Windows is smart enough to find the appropriate boot drive, even if you switch which slot the M.2 is plugged into! I did have to go into Disk Management for Windows to even recognize the drive at the start though which was a little surprising. In disk management I reformatted the drive and that’s when it appeared in File Explorer. I ran some UserBenchmark to compare the two drives and here’s what I found comparing my old Gen3 drive to the Crucial T500. Crucial is the second SSD performing 611% faster than others using UserBenchmark. Check out the photo for more data. SSD: M.2 PCIe SSD 1TB - 162.6% SSD: CT2000T500SSD8 2TB - 611.1% All in all, this is THE M.2 SSD to get if you are in the market and need an excellent balance between storage, speed, and price. You just need to be ready to do a little tweaking after install. Pros: Insane speeds Very good price Trustworthy manufacturer Cons: No OS migration tools included Not formatted for Windows out the box Wasn’t able to actually hit the quoted speeds, but came close!

The Crucial T500 Gen4 M.2 2TB SSD offers a performance/price combo that is hard to beat! Documentation indicates speeds up to 7,400 MB/s read and 7,000 MB/s write. Installing the Gen4 2TB Crucial T500 went exactly as expected (almost). I had one remaining available M.2 slot, slid the new drive into place and snugged up the screw. When I benchmarked it, I was seeing numbers about half as fast as what was expected. After consulting my motherboard’s manual, I learned that one of its four M.2 slots is Gen3 – and I found it on the first try! Go figure. The fix was easy. I swapped the new Gen4 drive with an existing Gen3 drive and I was off and running. (As an aside, I was concerned that the OS (Windows11) might have a problem with the unexpected drive/M.2 slot reassignments, but drive letters were retained and the system didn’t miss a beat.) Benchmarking the new drive in the Gen4 slot shows that I’m getting read speed at 96% of rated and write speed at 99% of rated (see image). I’ll call that good enough! I moved my Steam library from its Gen3 home to the Crucial T500 Gen4 SSD and got an immediate performance boost. I expected some noticeable improvement, but wow! Load times are significantly reduced. The biggest change has been with Starfield; load time is actually cut in half (~25 seconds vs. ~50 seconds) and the incessant loading screens between environments are noticeably shorter. I’m sold on the Crucial T500. About my setup: - Intel Core i7-13700K - 32GB DDR5 5600 MHz Memory - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080

I’ve been using Crucial drives for many years now and have not had any compatibility issues so they are one of my go to brands when getting a new drive either as a main drive or as a secondary for storage/backups. I'm using this in my Alienware X17 laptop as a secondary drive and couldn't be happier. It runs fast and stays cool even with long gaming sessions "where my games are stored and the 2tb size gives me plenty of room for lots of games. Now when using with this X17 I did get the compatible heat spreader “with thermal interface material” for the proper installation, and luckily the laptop already had a screw installed in the secondary slot. Using Crystal Disk Mark 8.0 I easily got 6900+ MB/s read and 6400+ MB/s write speeds, which is really good for a SSD “at this price point” and simply blows away any spindle drive out there. When you are looking for either expanding on your main storage device or adding “if you have a M.2 slot available” storage space, you can’t go wrong with the drives offered by Crucial.

This crucial T500 2TB SSD to the naked eye is a contender to lead the market on read and write speeds per their specifications and testing using CrystalDisk as a benchmarking test. I was expecting to be able to get 7400Mb/s Sequential Read, which was met, 7000Mb/s Sequential Write which it met, and a random read/write of 1,180 / 1,440 mb/s which unfortunately also fell short of in a significant manner. When I ran CrystalDisk on a fresh installation, no files on the SSD, and disabling memory integrity in Windows, the random read write just performed abysmally. I was getting about 570 mb/s Random Read, and 350 mb/s random write. That is far below the expected performance of 1,180 and 1,440. I am happy to see that the sequential read and write was spot on specification as that is what matters most with an SSD. Most tasks executed on an SSD are in sequential manner, especially if using as a secondary drive for gaming/media storage. The actions are more sequential and predictable. However if you plan on using this drive as a boot drive that is where I would personally have some concerns because as soon as you start attempting to open multiple programs and files at once on the SSD thats where the random needs to kick in and you will see a slight performance drop. Granted to most this test specification will not be noticable to most except to those power users. This is a great drive for gaming and media storage but just do your research about random read/write before committing to using as a boot drive.

Crucial’s T500 SSD is their answer to WD and Samsung’s excellent PCIe NVMe Gen4x4 SSDs that have been on the market for awhile. They’ve also adopted a more clear cut naming convention that falls in line with their flagship Gen5 SSD, the T700, and now the T500 falls in place for Gen4 and starts making the product stack complete. Previously, Crucial sold Gen4 SSDs under the P3 and P3 Plus SKU, but I have a feeling they may rename these to T300 or something to fill out the round-up. I have a P3 Plus 1TB in my PS5 and it is fine for that, but compared to PC SSDs that can max out PCIe 4.0, it didn’t really compete. That’s where this T500 powered by the Phison E25 controller steps in, with Seq Read/Write speeds up to 7400/7000MB/s which is on par or better than the Samsung 980 Pro and 990 Pro drives and also the excellent WD SN850X. Crucial also has the ability to use their own Micron DDR4 DRAM and fast in-house NAND flash, with only the controller being farmed out, so Crucial really has a lot of control in the tech they put into this SSD. In terms of actual performance, this SSD did great. I got the version without heatsink because I wanted to put it in my gaming laptop and even under relatively sustained testing, it did not overheat or throttle. On my 13700HX MSI laptop, I was seeing 7077/6844 MB/s Seq Read/Writes and 924/728 MB/s RND4K in Crystal Diskmark. This was on par with my Samsung and WD drives within 10%, with the 990 Pro and WD SN850X eclipsing 7300/7000 MB/s read/write and performing better on random I/O as well. Still, compared to the Crucial P3 Plus, this is a huge improvement as that drive was in the 5000/4300 MB/s range with about half the random I/O as this T500. So while Crucial hasn’t exactly dethroned Samsung or WD on the high-end, don’t sleep on the T500 if you need a fast, well-priced Gen4 SSD from a rock solid brand like Crucial. I certainly trust this brand more than some of the other SSD makers out there since I have a lot of RAM and other products from Crucial and have used them over the years.

This drive is insanely fast. I think the only way you can get faster is if you have a PCIe 5 system and drive. With my out of the box testing, it still came up faster than other drives I have had, but like they even state in the small print “System variations will affect measured results.” I’m sure there are other settings I could probably change on my system to try and get the results higher, but this is already twice as fast as my older 512GB drive and of course the capacity. It is so hard to fathom 2TB on something so small. As with any NVMe drive, installation is pretty straight forward. A single screw for most computer systems, some just a clip. Of course, pending what you intend to use the drive for makes the rest of the process dependent on what you are doing. If you intend for this as a main OS drive, if you have the second slot, cloning the main drive first saves so much time and effort. As a secondary drive, just mounting it and assigning a drive letter and you are up and running. Overall, this is what I expect from Crucial, a company that has been in the memory business for 25 years. Now to fast forward time 5 years or 1200 TB written and see how well this drive stands up to time and use. It certainly will get the data usage there faster than my old drive.

I was looking forward to seeing if this can beat my high performing SSD and the limitations of PCIE-G4 currently. In summary I think we are getting close. I tried the stock 1TB OEM SSD that is a PCIE G4 and the game performance can be choppy at times. The initial logging in can be choppy. I think this is attributed to the drive’s limits. Then I moved onto a high-performance other brand Gaming 2TB PCIE G4 SSD and that added that little extra performance. The system runs smoother overall. The benchmarks were definitely better. Now enter the Crucial T500. When installing the drive, I was not sure how much it could improve. I followed the guides for Disabling Core Isolation in Windows 11. Then I proceeded to play some gaming matches in Forza, Fortnite and GTA 5. The performance seemed a little faster but it was hard to express how much. I did run a synthetic benchmark pictures attached. The speeds are better and worse by a little in some aspect but the drive so far is the best I have used. Crucial is very accurate on the advertised specs. That being said it is still running Windows and all the other things in my tray while this test is run. Pretty impressive. The only other thing that I was looking for was the improved battery life but that was hard to find since this is a powerful gaming laptop running an RTX 4090 so it would be hard to spot. Overall, I am very happy with the performance and the price point of the drive. The only other concern is if one was looking for more performance than waiting for PCIE G5 drives to come out with the 2024 line of notebooks yet to come or being announced currently. I feel like we are at a limit with the spec standard.

My current desktop PC only had 1 TB of storage so I was desperate for more space and faster read/write speeds. This 2 TB solid state drive from Crucial was just what the doctor ordered. Before purchasing, you will want to ensure that your motherboard has an M.2 slot available. And if you already have one solid state drive installed, you will need to check if your motherboard has a second M.2 slot. If you don't have an open/usable slot, there are adapters that can be considered but you will not get the full performance benefits that solid state drives offer. You would likely be better off upgrading your motherboard in a case like that. Installation for me, however, was very smooth and simple as I had an M.2 slot ready and waiting for me. The difference between using a standard hard drive compared to a solid state drive like this one from Crucial is night and day. Particularly for gaming, I observed a huge difference in load times. Whether you are launching a game, or loading maps / new levels, everything happens significantly more quickly. I can say that I will likely never use a hard drive again, as SSDs are now cost-effective and superior in basically every way. I feel like I'm getting 5-10 minutes back in my day with how much faster everything loads. That time adds up over a year! If you are looking to expand your computer's storage space AND improve its performance, the T500 from Crucial is a great SSD to consider.

This drive comes in 2 variants, one with a heatsink included, and this one, which does not have a heatsink. The one with the heatsink is designed/intended for the PS5, but would work in a PC as well, if you were interested in having extra cooling for your NVMe drive. You shouldn't need this unless your drive is an enclosed environment like the PS5. The drive is a Gen4 PCIe NVMe drive, meaning it can support double the bandwidth compared to a Gen3 PCIe slot. The maximum advertised read speed of this drive is 7400mb/s, so to get the most out of your drive, your m.2 slot should support PCIe x4 (for gen4) or PCIe x8 (for gen3). You'll need to check your motherboard specs to see what your motherboard supports. Advertised speeds of a drive are usually under ideal, perfect conditions, not necessarily real-world performance, but can help you compare drive performance. I ran CrystalDiskMark on this drive, and the read speeds regularly came close to 7000mb/s, which is really close to the advertised speed, which is really nice to see. And even though that's just a benchmark, testing it by loading games onto it seemed to reflect those top-notch speeds. This is a top-performing drive which I think will satisfy most people

TLDR : Near top tier performance without the top tier $$$! Crucial has been around for a LONG time and has been a “go to” for many of my PC builds, first with their memory, and now with their SSD’s. I’ve used their SATA units many times, but this is my first foray into their NVME line. (which is crazy because I’ve been using NVME’s since 2016) At the top level, it just looks like another run of the mill 2TB higher end PCIE 4.0 drive from a reputable brand. Once you start testing it, you’ll realize that it's crazily close to the top tier (which I own a 2TB model of) of PCIE 4.0. I was able to peak at 7.1GB per second reads, and 6.8GB/s writes, and that was on the chipset fed M.2 slot on my motherboard. (Had it been directly attached to the CPU lanes, I would expect a slight increase in performance, but nothing noticeable in everyday use) A couple of its RND4K speeds in crystaldiskmark actually beat my other top tier drive. All while staying under 60c (according to HWINFO) which is crazy considering I tested it in a mini ITX box on the back PCIE slot that has little to no airflow! If you need a solid near top PCIE 4.0 NVME drive, I’d heartily recommend this Crucial!