Crucial bx500 review in Spanish (full analysis)

The Crucial BX500 series is one of the cheapest SATA 6 Gbps interface storage units we have on the market. This time we are going to analyze the 240 GB model in size 2.5 ”, an ideal unit for those users who need to update their old equipment with the space strictly necessary for the operating system and a good number of programs. In any case, it is available in sizes up to 960 GB.

We will see how this economic unit behaves in the test group. This SSD has been purchased by us for review. Here we go!

Crucial BX500 technical features

Unboxing

We start with the Unboxing of Crucial BX500, one that will be quite fast as on all hard drives. And it is that the product comes to us in a small box just slightly larger than the unit itself and with information about the unit and an identifying photo.

Inside, we have the unit tucked inside a rigid plastic package that protects it from blows, although not from crushing. In addition to the unit itself, we only found a small book of precautions and warranty on the disc.

Design and performance

Crucial's BX500 series is one of the most economical in the SSD industry, along with Kingston's UV500 and A400 series we've also reviewed, and ADATA's SU750 series. Deciding on one unit or another will almost always depend on the storage available in the units, their type of packaging and the favoritism of each one by the manufacturer in question. Obviously we will prioritize the units that we find on offer.

In any case, today the Crucial BX500 is the protagonist, specifically we analyze the 240 GB model, although in terms of design all sizes are exactly the same. We are talking then about an encapsulation that this time is made of hard plastic, not too hard, although it is quite flexible, totally black with a Crucial sticker distinguishing the type of unit we have.

The format is the normal 2.5-inch and standard format used for SATA III 6 Gbps drives, with their respective data and power connectors separately. Measurements are then 100mm long, 70mm wide, and 7mm thick for this, and all units in the series. We would have preferred to find aluminum instead of plastic, for reasons of durability and dissipation, but we will see that it is a fairly cool unit.

The system for fixing the unit to the chassis also remains unchanged, with four screws on the underside of the package, or with the corresponding four on the wider sides. In this case, the threads are not perforated in the plastic, but we have some metallic elements to ensure the correct fastening.

We have disassembled the Crucial BX500 unit with great care so as not to break the devilishly closed package, in order to see the controller and the memories that we have installed, thus being able to detail its technical characteristics. And how could it be otherwise, we have memories based on NAND 3D TLC technology (triple level for each cell). These specifically are built by the manufacturer Micron, Crucial's trusted partner for the supply of integrated flash chips. We have a total of 4 model 9EA2D memory chips that occupy the four channels that the controller supports.

The controller that has been used in this Crucial BX500 is the SiliconMotion SM2258XT. This is a controller with a SATA 6 Gbps interface specially designed for drives in 2.5 ”, 1.8” or M.2 format with the same interface and low production cost. It supports up to 4 channels with NAND 3D TLC memories from practically any manufacturer and implements an ECC system for error correction. Supports TRIM and SMART technology. and addressing of 28-bit and 48-bit LBA logical blocks. As for speeds supported by the controller, the manufacturer ensures a sequential read of 540 MB / s, sequential write of 450 MB / s, and performance in random read and write of 40K IOPS and 70K IOPS respectively.

The drive we are looking at today has 240GB of storage, but this family has 120, 480, and 960GB drives with sequential read and write speeds of 540MB / s and 500MB / s respectively. We've already seen that the driver supports slightly less speed, so we could assume that performance could be affected. In any case, we know this controller from other units such as ADATA and the crucial one itself, and we know that its results will be very good.

Finally we must talk about warranty, which stands at 3 years while the amount of 80 TB of written data (TBW) is not exceeded in the case of the unit we occupy. Depending on capacity, this limitation will vary, from 40 TBW for the 120 GB, to 240 TBW for the 960 GB. Crucial recommends Acronis True Image software for cloning data on your hard drives, although we will not test it here.

Test equipment and benchmarks

In this case we will not need a large test bench to test the maximum performance of this Crucial BX500 unit, since all the boards have SATA at 6 Gbps. In any case, here we leave you the test bench used:

TESTING BENCH
Processor:	Intel Core i9-9900K
Base plate:	MSI MEG Z390 ACE
Memory:	16 GB DDR4 G.Skill
Heatsink	Corsair H100i Platinum SE
HDD	Crucial BX500
Graphic card	Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti
Power supply	Be Quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 1000W

Crucial specifies a performance of 540 and 500 MB / s in reading and writing, practically the maximum available in the SATA 6 Gbps interface. Let's check it with the benchmark of the following programs:

Crystal Disk MarkAS SSD BenchmarkATTO Disk BenchmarkAnvil´s Storage

All these programs are in their latest available version. Remember not to abuse these tests in your units, since the life time is reduced.

As always, CristalDiskMark is the one that performs best giving read and write speeds, in fact, in this case it shows us that the unit exceeds even the speeds that the brand has obtained in the tests it has done, with up to 560 MB / s in reading and 514 MB / s in writing. Likewise, it is more than what the controller has originally recorded in Silicon Motion tests, something that we have announced during the analysis of its characteristics.

ATTO Disk is also right, although with slightly lower results as normal, in this case with maximums of 534 MB / s and reading of blocks of 256 KB and 485 MB / s in block writing of 24 MB / s. We are very similar to those also shown by AS SSD, and lower than those of Crystal.

Finally we see the performance in number of operations per second in the Anvil´s benchmark that once again exceed the controller specifications, with no less than 79K in writing and 47K in reading. Undoubtedly one of the best performance SATA 6 Gbps SSDs for this price that we can find.

As for the temperatures recorded in the unit in activity, these have never exceeded 42 degrees, despite the fact that we have a plastic package, it seems that the controller offers good thermal performance.

Final words and conclusion about Crucial BX500

We finish with the analysis of this Crucial BX500, a series that combines an excellent price with excellent performance, being the most economical, one step below the MX500 series.

However, we have excellent performance results in all the benchmarks we have performed, with sequential read rates that exceed in almost all cases 530 MB / s and sequential write rates of 490 MB / s. They are results very close to what the manufacturer specifies on their sheet, and not too far from other higher cost units. Which shows the excellent performance of this Silicon Motion SM2258XT.

We recommend our guide to the best SSDs of the moment.

Regarding the encapsulation, it is true that it is totally low cost, since it is made of plastic instead of aluminum. This is a way to lower costs logically, since, if you want a better one, go to the MX series. It is the only downside that can be taken from this unit, for making us demanding.

Crucial BX500 of 240 GB we can find it for a price of 34.90 euros in the main online stores, although the family extends with a capacity of 120, 480 and 960 GB to only 101 euros the latter. Not bad for the performance they offer us, right?

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ PERFORMANCE / PRICE	- THE ENCAPSULATION IS PLASTIC
+ UP TO 960 GB
+ SILICON MOTION CONTROLLER AND MICRON MEMORIES
+ EASY INSTALLATION SATA FORMAT