Crucial discontinues the popular MX500 SSD to make way for next-gen drives — SATA III SSD retires after seven years

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Many favored the Crucial MX500 as it provided the best performance for its price.

Crucial MX500
(Image credit: Crucial)

Users will now have fewer SATA-based SSDs since Crucial is no longer manufacturing its popular seven-year-old MX500. Users also noticed that Crucial mentioned the same when claiming a warranty and providing alternatives like the Crucial P3 NVMe drive or any remaining MX500 that can be shipped. You can still purchase Crucial MX500 via Amazon and other retailers while stocks last.

"The Crucial MX500 was certainly a great drive. We are making room in the line for new products and are looking forward to sharing what's next with you soon," a Crucial representative told German news outlet Computerbase.

It is hardly surprising that since motherboard manufacturers now provide multiple M.2 slots and with larger capacity M.2 drives available, many consumers are opting for NVMe SSDs. Nonetheless, since they're cheaper, SATA SSDs are still prevalent for secondary storage.

One of the reasons why the Crucial MX500 was favored and purchased by many users over the years is because it uses faster and more reliable TLC NAND chips over QLC, like the ones used in the Crucial BX500 DRAM-less drives. Compared to other options, its pricing was what it made to be preferred more, especially during seasonal deals. Users were also assured of a five-year warranty, providing that ease of mind. The MX500 had a good seven-year run with no complaints or flaws, except for a Buffer Overflow Attack issue reported on its M3CR046 firmware a few months ago.

Of course, phasing out its production also means getting a replacement would be tricky. So, suppose you've bought the drive recently or still have some time left in the warranty period. In that case, it's best to keep a realistic expectation that you may not get the exact replacement- storage capacity, model, or interface.

It is unclear if Crucial will stop manufacturing SATA SSDs or if it would be keen to introduce new TLC-based SATA SSDs. The manufacturer's statement only hints at new products but lacks specifics. The market for 2.5-inch SATA drives will still exist for a while, catering to a particular budget and application.

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Roshan Ashraf Shaikh
Roshan Ashraf Shaikh
Contributing Writer

Roshan Ashraf Shaikh has been in the Indian PC hardware community since the early 2000s and has been building PCs, contributing to many Indian tech forums, & blogs. He operated Hardware BBQ for 11 years and wrote news for eTeknix & TweakTown before joining Tom's Hardware team. Besides tech, he is interested in fighting games, movies, anime, and mechanical watches.

6 Comments Comment from the forums
  • bit_user
    For those wanting a TLC SATA drive, Samsung 870 EVO is still available and uses TLC. They introduced a separate QVO model that uses QLC, so I think the EVO will continue being TLC as long as it's still available. I think it's also newer than the MX500, but both drives are pretty much running at the limit of their SATA interface.

    I've bought many Crucial SATA drives, over the years. Most of them were MX-series and the ones I'm still using are still going strong. I've got an even older M500 in my PS3 and it's still working, too.

    One thing I'm not sure about is whether any TLC M.2 SATA drives are still available. If you have a laptop made in the 2016-2017 timeframe, before M.2 NVMe became ubiquitous, it's possible that it doesn't support NVMe drives in that slot, and that's where I think the MX500 will missed the most.
    Reply
  • SocDriver
    I hope the 8 drives I have in my Hyper Visor don't crap out, its been nice having them as a couple of storage arrays for my servers in my home lab. Price to performance of the MX500 was something nobody could beat. I hope there is a new TLC line Crucial makes with newer and higher density chips. Bring on the 16TB SATA SSDs!
    Reply
  • King_V
    Definitely gonna miss these. I've got a few of them. They're great for older systems, or systems with only one M.2 NVMe slot.

    A shame the M.2 SATA versions seemed to disappear some time ago. I think at least two of the machines I have are equipped with an M.2 SATA-only slot as their secondary M.2 slot.

    Admittedly, having a NAS means that huge storage on my PCs isn't as much of a need as it once might've been.
    Reply
  • TCA_ChinChin
    bit_user said:
    I've bought many Crucial SATA drives, over the years. Most of them were MX-series and the ones I'm still using are still going strong. I've got an even older M500 in my PS3 and it's still working, too.

    One thing I'm not sure about is whether any TLC M.2 SATA drives are still available. If you have a laptop made in the 2016-2017 timeframe, before M.2 NVMe became ubiquitous, it's possible that it doesn't support NVMe drives in that slot, and that's where I think the MX500 will missed the most.
    Crucial has been a solid RAM + SSD manufactorer for me. Started out on Crucial ballistix DDR3 and my first SSD was an older crucial drive. Used their BX, and MX SSDs for myself and others with very little hassle. Using their more recent P3 drives, and hope they continue with their nice NAND products.
    Reply
  • Amdlova
    Have some cheap team group ssds with old tlc chips... got one last year. Not good has the mx500 but the price is right.
    Got some inland too. Don't have time to do some test but I think these ssds will be way better than these cheap ones with out cache.
    Reply
  • froggx
    Amdlova said:
    Have some cheap team group ssds with old tlc chips... got one last year. Not good has the mx500 but the price is right.
    Got some inland too. Don't have time to do some test but I think these ssds will be way better than these cheap ones with out cache.
    Teamgroup's Vulcan Z SSDs are where it's at if you want some good cheap TLC NAND. They usually cost less than competing QLC drives like Crucial's BX500 while performing better.

    I've got an MX500 from when they first came out and used it across multiple systems over the years as a boot drive. Coincidentally, I just pulled it from a laptop that's getting a new system board a couple hours ago and threw it in a USB dock to prep it for a new project.

    The thing about the MX500 that makes it special is that DRAM cache. It just got harder to find SATA drives that still have one.
    Reply