Crucial T500 2TB SSD PCIe Gen4 NVMe M.2, Up to 7400MB/s, TLC NAND, Laptop and Desktop Compatible, Microsoft DirectStorage, Solid State Drive - CT2000T500SSD8

As an IT professional and part-time gaming enthusiast, I’ve seen my fair share of storage solutions, but the Crucial T500 2TB SSD has redefined my expectations. This isn’t just a drive—it’s a technological masterpiece that makes other SSDs look like floppy disks in comparison. Performance: Up to 7400MB/s read speeds? Believe the hype—it’s like strapping a jet engine to your data pipeline. Boot times are nearly instant, games load before I can grab my coffee, and transferring massive files is no longer a patience-testing ordeal. For reference, I transferred a 50GB game in seconds. Seconds! Gaming Ready: If you’re a gamer, this SSD is a no-brainer. I’ve installed my most demanding titles, and they run buttery smooth, with near-zero load times. Open-world games feel like teleportation—fast travel is actually fast! Build and Compatibility: The M.2 form factor makes installation a breeze (assuming you’ve got a compatible Gen4 slot). It’s compact, sleek, and stays impressively cool under load, thanks to excellent thermal management. Crucial clearly knows what they’re doing here. Reliability: Crucial’s reputation for solid, dependable storage is well-earned, and the T500 lives up to the brand. With 2TB of space and no hiccups after heavy usage, I feel confident my data—and my gaming—is in good hands. TL;DR: The Crucial T500 is a blazing-fast, reliable SSD that’ll supercharge your system. Whether you’re a gamer, creator, or IT nerd like me, you’ll wonder how you ever settled for anything less. It’s the hero your rig deserves. Signed, an IT guy who finally understands what “lightning fast” really means.

The Crucial T500 1TB NVMe SSD delivers excellent performance and is a noticeable upgrade over older drives. Read and write speeds are extremely fast, resulting in quicker boot times, faster file transfers, and noticeably improved application and game loading. Installation was straightforward in an M.2 slot, and the drive was recognised immediately. It runs reliably during everyday use as well as heavier workloads, making it a great choice for gaming, productivity, or upgrading a laptop or desktop system. Overall, it offers excellent performance for its size and capacity. Pros: • Very fast PCIe Gen4 performance • Quick boot and load times • Reliable and stable operation • Easy to install • Great upgrade for laptops and desktops Cons: • None so far

Choosing the ideal NVMe drive can be a daunting task. There are so many different manufacturers and specifications out there but I had read numerous reviews before going for this drive and it gets consistently good reviews. I got the T500 2TB as part of a project to refresh an old desktop PC which had been using an SATA SSD as the main boot drive. This is so much quicker than the old SATA SSD and makes the PC feel like new. The drive was installed into my PC without problem and was immediately detected and ready for use. It does need a heatsink fitted or it can get quite warm while running. It shouldn't get too hot without one, but any heatsink helping to keep the drive cool will keep the drive running for longer.

Bought, used disk genius to duplicate old hard drive, then swapped. It is usually easier to swap a drive than you might think. Remember to use the correct size screwdriver on the screw holding the original drive, and to press reasonably firmly to avoid rounding the screw. If you have managed to rounded the screw like I did the first time I ever did this, use a little TPE tape between the screw and the screwdriver, use the correct size bit, and press firmly and turn. This drive is fully compatible with my Huawei MateBook 14s EVO. The 2TB size is also useful. With casual browsing the drive is sitting at 31 degrees Celsius. The key thing for the best performance is to install Crucial Storage Executive then update the firmware and enable Momentum Cache. At these kind of operating speeds, it's almost like upgrading the RAM itself - which on many laptops, including mine, is not possible as the RAM is soldered to the motherboard. I also tested speed in a USB enclosure, but did not include a picture of this - just worthwhile knowing that the speed is poor in a USB enclosure, clearly the bottleneck is the USB/enclosure itself. If looking for a drive to use exclusively in a USB enclosure, I would recommend going for the cheapest possible with the capacity you need - unless you definitely intend to use it connected to a motherboard or inside a laptop in future. You just will not benefit from the speed of this drive with a USB enclosure. First picture is T500 after updating firmware and enabling momentum cache. Note the massive increase in performance of both read speed and write speed compared with the second picture. Second picture is T500 before. Third picture is the original SSD in my Huawei MateBook 14s EVO (what I upgraded from).

Excellent value for money, easy to install and plenty of performance. Not as fast as a Gen 5 model but Gen 5 speeds don't really help you unless the game supports Microsoft DirectStorage, which the vast majority of games do not. Have only had the drive for 6 months, but my brother has been operating a pair of these drives for quite some time so they are reliable and durable. I have a pair of these, a 2TB for my Windows and system apps drive, and a 4TB one for my gaming drive.

Nice and quick. A word of warning though. Make sure your PC BIOS is set to AHCI mode and not RAID as with the latter you will not be able to update Firmware or use any other useful features of the software for it. Knocked a star off because of that. If you are cloning then this can still be done but involves a few steps. Go into msconfig, set minimal boot, boot up to BIOS, change BIOS to AHCI, Boot to Windows (now in safe mode), Back into MSCONFIG and set back to "Normal Startup" and deselect Minimal Boot, Reboot and all is good and you can now use storage executive.

Have never had issues with crucial. I tested the read/write speed performance and it is there or thereabouts as advertised. SLC cache on this T500 is around 370 GB so if you are working with video and have a lot of large 4K footage for example, this drive should be able to sustain good speeds as long as you keep that rough limit in mind when moving things around. Have a couple of these installed in my rig and they have not let me down when transfering large files or many small files.

This is the probably the best you can buy in terms of value and performance for mixed workloads (gaming, productivity, and everyday use). I ordered the non-heatsink version and installed in an X570 Tomahawk, which has an integrated heatsink (no throttling or heat-related problems so far in 4 months of use). I'd previously been using a 1TB SATA Samsung EVO as the main drive, bought in 2020 when I only had a laptop. I'm running Windows 11 on this for applications, game installs, and downloads; and using my EVO, and a smattering of HDDs collected over the years as extra storage. I can't say you'll notice much practical difference in load times for applications coming from 3500MB/s (SATA) to 7400MB/s (NVME); it will be fast, and an extra few seconds in read speed isn't going to be life-altering. However, you will notice the difference in writes for large file transfers (just remember that when transferring between drives, performance also depends on what the other drive is capable of). Obviously, Gen.5 drives will be faster, but if you don't already have a compatible motherboard and aren't looking at upgrading in the next couple of years, then this will be a good investment — besides, old drives can always be re-used. I considered the SN850X from Western Digital as prices were similar when I ordered (~£150), but this had the better specs for the use case I wanted. I don't care about RGB, and was more interested in raw performance and longevity. You can also stick this in a PS5 to extend the storage, although, you'd want to get the heatsink version for better thermal performance.