Marketing pdf
Full datasheet
DRAM cache.
TLC flash.
My understanding is that these and the Samsung SATA drives are the ones to get.
I messaged seller and they sent me a lower offer.
I bought 5.
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Marketing pdf
Full datasheet
DRAM cache.
TLC flash.
My understanding is that these and the Samsung SATA drives are the ones to get.
I messaged seller and they sent me a lower offer.
I bought 5.
I don't know if the price is that good or not. I bought Samsung SM863A enterprise 1TB drives (960GB actually) for $43. from this source. They all arrived with 90%+ life left in them. He lists them for $49 but accepted an offer of $43. I think I would rather have these as they have a 6,160 TBW rating of the enterprise drive as opposed to the 360TBW for the MX500
Note that PlusDrives is just the HDD/SSD section of UnixSurplus, which has a pretty solid reputation.
The link you provided was quite literally for a "whatever we have on hand" 1TB drive, not specifically one of the "good" ones.
Also note that the SM863 drives are at least 1 generation older than the MX500 drives.
SM863 was made from 2014-2018
MX500 was made from 2018-2025+
The MX500 drives pictured shipped with the x.45 firmware, which seems to indicate they are from at least 2021.
*Shrug
This isn't a flaming-hot deal.
And they are consumer drives, not enterprise ones.
But these drives are still being sold, and cost ~$95 new.
It doesn't feel like a Good Deal at all (IMHO) 
.
1 Year ago these in Europe were around 60-70 EUR new for 1TB Version, just look at the Price Chart in the Top Right Corner:
www.idealo.de
Since then Price went up, I believe simply because they are ramping down Production or maybe stopped it altogether, trying to prioritize their NVMe Business instead maybe.
I have a bunch of Crucial MX500 Drives and have been using them for a Long Time. Overall Good for the Price. And Firmware can be freely downloaded from Crucial (no Paywall as in Samsung/Oracle/etc).
However:
- Consumer Drives
- Partial only, i.e. AT REST ONLY, Power Loss Protection (PLP)
- **VERY SMALL** DRAM Cache (even on their 4TB Model !), Drive will get VERY SLOW very quickly
If you use these with Proxmox VE for VM Storage you are going to see very High IOWAIT %, Disks are VERY SLOW to respond e.g. if you do multiple Guest VM File I/O or even Debian Packages Upgrade and so on.
Besides of course the Endurance in Terms of TBW that is not very good for such a use Case.
.1 Year ago these in Europe were around 60-70 EUR new for 1TB Version, just look at the Price Chart in the Top Right Corner:
Crucial MX500 1TB 2.5 ab 110,29 € (Mai 2025 Preise) | Preisvergleich bei idealo.de
Bereits ab 110,29 € ✓ Große Shopvielfalt ✓ Testberichte & Meinungen ✓ | Jetzt Crucial MX500 1TB 2.5 günstig kaufen bei idealo.de
Since then Price went up, I believe simply because they are ramping down Production or maybe stopped it altogether, trying to prioritize their NVMe Business instead maybe.
I have a bunch of Crucial MX500 Drives and have been using them for a Long Time. Overall Good for the Price. And Firmware can be freely downloaded from Crucial
(no Paywall as in Samsung/Oracle/etc).However:
- Consumer Drives
- Partial only, i.e. AT REST ONLY, Power Loss Protection (PLP)
- **VERY SMALL** DRAM Cache (even on their 4TB Model !), Drive will get VERY SLOW very quickly
If you use these with Proxmox VE for VM Storage you are going to see very High IOWAIT %, Disks are VERY SLOW to respond e.g. if you do multiple Guest VM File I/O or even Debian Packages Upgrade and so on.
Besides of course the Endurance in Terms of TBW that is not very good for such a use Case.
These have standard 1TB NAND -> 1GB DRAM.
That said, DRAM doesn't cache your user data, it is just for the NAND metadata, and always has been for SSDs.
Having IOWAIT problems is usually due to hammering consumer drives, which are typically not tuned for deeper queue depths.
And the endurance of these isn't really THAT bad.
It's like 200GB/day (0.2 DWPD).
These will be system drives for some m710q machines, and a mirror for my Proxmox root.
For me, they are replacing some Silicon Power A55 drives. And also a "Definitely not a counterfeit Samsung" drive that I was given, which surprisingly has the full capacity. These MX500 cost less than a new A55 anyway, and should survive a lot longer.
I could have gotten some 1TB U.2 drives, maybe even for the same price, but I didn't want to waste the PCIe lanes, the +15w power budget, or have to deal with expensive cables for them.
These are a deal IMO.
Not a GREAT deal.
But in 2025 when prices are going up, getting 90% health used drives for ~40% of new ones is a deal.
Is this not consumer ssds without PLP? That means SQLite does 100 iops instead of 5000 iops.
There are plenty of enterprise sata ssds between 1.6tb and 1.92tb available for 50-60 usd. Maybe not right now, but they are regulary available in Ebay for that price range.
There are plenty of enterprise sata ssds between 1.6tb and 1.92tb available for 50-60 usd. Maybe not right now, but they are regulary available in Ebay for that price range.
Proxmox VE Root + VM Storage WILL hammer those Drives. Both in Terms of TBW and IOWAIT.
For TBW, make sure to disable
atime for ZFS (HOST) and ALSO in Guest VMs (ext4, xfs, or whatever you use) !I am using the Crucial MX500 on many Systems, that is why I am telling you.
Is it a Problem unless if you are doing 10 simultaneous Updates or restoring/cloning a VM? Probably not. But something to keep in Mind
.Not bad.
On a System I have in use with Proxmox VE I have a couple of these 1TB and they have 13'400 Hours ~ 1.5 Years and 160 TBW (average 12GB / Hour) ...
On another System I have in use with Proxmox VE I have a couple of these 1TB and they have 25'357 Hours ~ 2.9 Years and 177 TBW (average 7GB / Hour) ...
Only Time will tell. If it's only for Proxmox VE Root it's one Thing, but if you also use them for VM Storage, then I don't think they will last that long.
Depends everything on your workload. And, besides setting
atime on HOST & Guest VMs, another Thing to watch out for is to Logging. Systemd Journal can create a ***** of Logs and TBW. Pretty sure that alone accounts for 10-20 GB / Day at least.I agree with you there. I also would like NVMe but the Power Consumption, even at Idle, is just not worth it in most applications IMHO.
That being said I got a few Samsung 960GB PM983 for like 50 EUR / Piece including Shipping & Import Duties to Denmark. Those shouldn't be too bad in Terms of Power Usage, although there is better for Notebook-like Level of Power Consumption, come with much higher Endurance and also PLP.
In 2025 it seems to me that Flash Prices are going up indeed, but I'm personally not sure I would buy more of these Crucial MX500.
20 EUR / Piece for 1 TB ? In that Case I might think about it.
But like other People said, at 50 USD, I think you have many other alternatives available.
I know that blazing hot is the $30/TB I paid for the (8) 4TB MX500's I bought 6 months ago so I don't know if I could call this warm @ $50/TB
But it's not 6 months ago anymore.
A LOT of stuff has happened in the last 6 months...
These 1TB drives are going for $99 new. Or 110 euro is the lowest I can see.
The lowest price I can find on a used 1TB Silicon Power A55 is $40+ shipping, with no mention of %used, and the A55 drives are basically the cheapest "reliable" drives you are going to find. Getting cheaper than that requires going with a sketchy Chinese supplier.
(I'm ALL ABOUT sketchy hardware. It can be super interesting. It's just an incredibly bad idea to get sketchy DRIVES.)
An MX500 is going to destroy an A55 in performance and longevity.
I know this doesn't FEEL like a great deal.
I personally got several 4TB Micron/Intel/HGST drives in 2024 for under $100 each INCLUDING shipping and taxes.
$25/TB was a great time.
But in May of 2025...that isn't what we are paying.
I want one extra 4TB U.2 drive as a spare.
(I had 1 failure 44 days after purchase, which sucks. So I have no spares right now.)
Right now I cannot get any sellers to accept offers of $180, let alone the $90 that I paid for the SAME drives, from the SAME seller last year.
Heck, 2 years ago I bought my 12TB HDDs for $72 each.
(5-year warranty from a supplier with a good track record. I won't even consider less with how my used HDDs seem to fail.)
Those same drives, from the same supplier, are $140 today.
It isn't 2024 anymore.
Some of the stuff we have been buying cheap is DOUBLE the price it was last year.
Also: I did say I negotiated with this seller.
I did not pay the $45 for 3-or-more price.
I sent them a message, and had them send me an offer for a lower price.
Selfish or not, I buy what I want BEFORE posting to STH. =)
Then I make sure it at least ships if I'm worried it might be too good a deal before posting here.
This isn't a wildly good deal. But it IS the cheapest you are going to get these kind of drives today, by 15%-20%.
I suspect the only reason these didn't get gobbled up in the first few hours is because we all have this old idea of what these should cost, and that idea just doesn't track with reality anymore.
I'll happily buy more drives at $25/TB when they appear.
But those don't exist right now.
Apples and Oranges.
If you need a decent SATA SSD as a system drive, that big fat NVMe drive doesn't help.
This isn't for building out a NAS.
I wouldn't use these as bulk flash media.
If you have $40 and need a SATA SSD to refurb a computer, or need 2 drives to throw in a mirror for booting, you can either get these used drives or some much less performant DRAMless ones that won't last nearly as long.
*shrug
They are a deal for what they are, and what they are for.
Not a blazing hot deal. But still a deal.
I bought 5 because they fit my needs, and at this price they were a much better choice than more A55s.
No regrets here.
If there are better deals out there...post them please?
We are all addicted to SSDs. Do our wallets a favor and find us lower prices.
Yes there are better deals like these:
1.6TB SATA
PLP, at least 100 times faster sync writes
1 DWPD
1.6TB SATA
PLP, at least 100 times faster sync writes
1 DWPD
They are sold as read intensive drives, yet they have much improved endurance compared to 3500 and 3510 series.
I might be remembering wrong, but the 5100 series had a major firmware bug right?
Make sure to do some research on it, and get an updated firmware if necessary before trusting those drives.