Crucial showed off the upcoming M.2 variant of its MX500 product, available in capacities up to 1TB. They also announced (press release after the break) that the MX500 will be available from 250GB up to 2TB capacities.

Here is Crucial's product tour video for the MX500:

We previously tested the 1TB MX500, and Crucial passed along a 500GB model that I was able to spot check to ensure there was no performance fall-off at the smaller capacities of this line:

Looks good so far, and nearly identical to the 1TB capacity across our entire test suite. We did also speak with Crucial reps (Jon and Jon) about the TRIM speed issues noted in our previous review. They are looking into replicating our testing and may be pushing out a firmware to help improve this metric moving forward.

We also saw some sweet looking new RGB Ballistix memory, due out shortly. More to follow there! Crucial's MX500 CES announcement appears after the break.

Boise, ID JANUARY 9, 2018 – Crucial, a leading global brand of memory and storage upgrades, today announced the availability of the Crucial® MX500 SSD. The new drive features second generation Micron® 3D NAND technology and is 45 times more energy efficient than a typical hard drive.4 Available in capacities up to 2TB in the 2.5-inch form factor and up to 1TB in the M.2 form factor, the MX500 has sequential reads/writes up to 560/510 MB/s and random reads/writes up to 95K/90K IOPS.

“This next generation MX500 SSD features a stackable 64-layer, 256-gigabit component. Micron’s floating gate NAND is designed with CMOS Under the Array (CUA), which allows us to minimize the footprint of the die. At 59 square millimeters, it’s among the world’s smallest 256-gigabit die,” said Jon Tanguy, Crucial Senior SSD Product Engineer. “Our engineering team has incorporated this leading-edge NAND technology in an SSD that includes all the advanced features Crucial customers have come to expect to keep their data safe.”

Crucial also directly addresses two of the scariest issues for first-time SSD buyers: moving files and installation. Upgrading from a traditional hard drive is easy with the MX500 thanks to the data migration and cloning software included with each drive. And the Crucial SSD Install Guide helps new installers with directions for every step of the process.

“We’re excited about our next generation of SSD drives and the near-instant performance and lasting reliability that comes with them,” said Jonathan Weech, Crucial Senior SSD Product Manager. “Users can rest assured that their data, family videos, travel photos, music, and other important documents are stored safely on the MX500.”

The MX500 advanced features include:

  • Dynamic Write Acceleration for faster saves and file transfers.

●​Hardware-based encryption to keep personal files and confidential data secure.

Integrated Power Loss Immunity to avoid unintended data loss when the power unexpectedly goes out.

Exclusive Data Defense to prevent files from becoming corrupted and unusable.

Redundant Array of Independent NAND to protect data at the component level.

Crucial SSDs have been established, proven, and tested for over seven generations of drives. The MX500 is backed by a five-year limited warranty3 and supported by the Crucial® Storage Executive software tool for easy drive maintenance. The 2.5-inch version of the MX500 is available for immediate purchase at Crucial.com or through our global channel partners, while the MX500 M.2 version will be available in Q1’18. For more information about the whole Crucial SSD portfolio, visit crucial.com/ssd.