Crucial T500 PRO 4 TB Gen4 SSD Review

While PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSDs are setting new storage performance benchmarks, the real-life and application benefits of getting those drives are still not worth the price you are paying for them. It’s still very much an early adopter product for now and while we appreciate the speed-up, we would love to see the performance transition from synthetic benchmarks to actual use cases.

And you know what’s still considered to be quite fast without breaking your wallet? The current-gen PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSDs. Gen 4 SSDs are now available at very affordable price rates and offer great performance. We recently tested the Crucial T500 Gen4 SSD which offered great high-end speeds & offered a good value.

For today’s review, we will be taking a look at Crucial’s T500 PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD in its 4 TB PRO flavor powered by the Phison E25 controller.

Crucial T500 PRO 4 TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD

The Crucial T500 Gen5 SSD is also part of the new Pro series lineup. The Crucial T500 Gen4 SSDs are based on the NVMe SSD form factor and feature the latest Micron 232-layer 3D TLC NAND flash which offers larger capacities of up to 4 TB, twice the performance of Gen3 drives, & full compliance with Microsoft’s DirectStorage API with Phison’s I/O+ technology. The Crucial T500 SSDs are based on the high-end Phison PS5025-E25 SSD controller which peaks out the Gen4 speeds beyond 7 GB/s.

FEATURES

• Sequential read/write speeds up to 7,000/6,900MB/s2
• Random read/write speeds up to 1.18/1.44M IOPs2
• PCIe 4.0 NVMe 2280 M.2 SSD
• Built with Micron 232-layer 3D TLC NAND
• Available with and without a low-profile integrated heatsink, perfect for PS5 console upgrades
• Spacious capacity options: 500GB, 1TB, 2TB. 4TB
• Micron LPDDR4 DRAM, 1GB per 1TB of NAND flash (4 GB on 4 TB model)
• Phison PS5025-E25 Controller
• Microsoft DirectStorage optimized with Phison I/O+ technology
• Works with laptops, desktops, and PS5 consoles
• Backward compatible with PCIe 3.0
• 5-year limited warranty10

As for the specs, the Crucial T500 Gen4 NVMe SSDs will come with the standard NVMe 2.0 PCIe Gen 5 x4 interface in the M.2 2280 form factor. It will feature 1 TB, 2 TB, and up to 4 TB capacities with a rated speed of up to  7.4 GB/s (Sequential Read) and 7.0 GB/s (Sequential Write). The Phison E25 ‘PS5025-E25’ SSD controller is designed to offer external DRAM and a maximum transfer speed of up to 7.2 GB/s+. That’s a 200 MB/s increase over the existing Phison E18 controllers & also features thermal & power management updates.

Note – The 4 TB model that we tested had a peak sequential read speed of 7,000 & a write speed of 6,900 MB/s. The Random Reads and Writes IOPS were rated at 1180K/1440K IOPS & endurance was rated at 2400 TBW.

The SSD comes in both heatsink and heatsink-less variants with the heatsink being a super-slim design with a thickness of 9.7mm. That’s about as much as three T500 SSDs stacked on top of each other. The heatsink SKUs are also fully compatible with the PlayStation 5 console. The prices are as follows:

• T500 0.5 TB No Heatsink – $67.99 US
• T500 1.0 TB No Heatsink – $89.99 US
• T500 2.0 TB No Heatsink – $154.99 US
• T500 4.0 TB No Heatsink – $291.99 US
• T500 1.0 TB W/ Heatsink – $92.99 US
• T500 2.0 TB W/ Heatsink – $163.99 US
• T500 4.0 TB W/ Heatsink – $319.99 US

Crucial T500 Gen4 SSD Lineup Specifications:

General tech specs
Interface	NVMe (PCIe Gen 4 x4)
SSD Endurance (TBW)	2400TB
Form factor	M.2 (2280)
SSD series	T500
Capacity	4TB

Speed & Timing
Sequential Read	7000
Sequential Write	6900

Warranty & returns
Warranty	Limited 5-year

Crucial T500 PRO 4 TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD – Unboxing and Closer Look

The Crucial T500 PRO comes in a fairly standard and small package with a blue and white-color scheme. The labels do a great job at telling what SSD you are getting since the capacities, speeds, and warranty are mentioned along with a picture of the device itself which makes sure you know if you are getting the heatsink and the non-heatsink SSD.

The Crucial PRO SSD series box includes a warranty booklet and the SSD itself. All drives are held within a plastic shell container.

Out of the package, all Crucial Pro series SSDs come in the standard M.2 2280 form factor and feature a black PCB which is great since some mainstream drives come with blue-colored PCBs.

The front of the heatsink drives comes with the Crucial and model label while the heatsink-les variant has the same labels mentioned over a sticker.

In terms of sizes, the drives measure:

• Crucial T500 with heatsink: 80x23x9.7mm
• Crucial T500 no heatsink: 80x22x2.3mm

The Crucial T500 features the Phison E25 Gen4 SSD controller. There are two DRAM and four NAND Flash modules with the backside also loaded with the chips.

Test Setup

Our test platform for this review consisted of an Intel Core i9-13900K processor which ran at stock clocks on the MSI Z790 ACE motherboard. The platform was coupled with 32 GB of DDR5 memory from G.Skill (Trident Z5/ 16 GB x 2) and the MSI MEG Ai1300P PSU. For graphics, I used the MSI GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM X. This rounds up as a high-end platform for tests with modern-day SSDs. The MSI Z790 ACE specifically houses a single Gen 5.0 x4 NVMe slot that sources its lanes from the Raptor Lake CPU.

Wccftech Gen4 SSD Test Setup 2024

Crucial T500 PRO 4 TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD Performance Benchmarks

First up, we have the official performance stats for these drives as listed by their manufacturers. You can compare these stats with the rest of the drives I tested in the following chart:

AS SSD Benchmark

AS SSD Benchmark download is a Windows 10 utility software program that tests the performance of solid-state drives. With its help, you can find out the speed of all installed SSDs and take care of any issues that the tests may reveal. The free app performs three separate tests to provide you with conclusive evidence of your driver’s general behavior while it copies, reads, and writes data.  The app determines the access time of an SSD, along with its speed and performance capabilities

ATTO 3.05 Disk Benchmark

As the industry’s leading provider of high-performance storage & network connectivity products, ATTO has created a widely-accepted Disk Benchmark freeware software to help measure storage system performance. As one of the top tools utilized in the industry, Disk Benchmark identifies performance in hard drives, solid-state drives, RAID arrays as well as the host connection to attached storage. Top drive manufacturers, like Hitachi, build and test every drive using the ATTO Disk Benchmark.

The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturer’s RAID controllers, storage controllers, host bus adapters (HBAs), hard drives, and SSD drives, and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage.

Crystal Disk Mark 7.0.0 x64

CrystalDiskMark is a disk benchmark software. It measures sequential reads/writes speed, random 512KB, 4KB, 4KB (Queue Depth=32) reads/writes speed, selects test data (Random, 0Fill, 1Fill),

File Transfer Speeds (100 GB File Size)

To test the maximum average transfer speeds of the drives, I used a 100 GB file to test the limits.

PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

The PCMark 10 Storage benchmark is designed to test the performance of SSDs, HDDs, and hybrid drives with traces recorded from Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office, and a selection of popular games. You can test the system drive or any other recognized storage device, including local external drives. Unlike synthetic storage tests, the PCMark 10 Storage benchmark highlights real-world performance differences between storage devices.

Forspoken DirectStorage Benchmark

Conclusion – Big Capacity, Grand Performance

The T500 PRO is one of the fastest Gen4 drives that I have tested and offers a blistering fast NVMe performance which you’d expect from it given its high-end pricing. The drive sits right there at the top of our Gen4 SSD performance charts and you can expect exceptionally good storage speeds & big capacities. The good thing is that these drives come with software and encryption support and the heatsink provides very decent temperatures.

In terms of pricing, the 4 TB model costs $291 for the heatsink-less and $319 for the heatsink variant. This puts the pricing on par with the Samsung 990 PRO 4 TB model, making it a very competitive solution for high-end users who want bigger capacities. The heatsink version also allows compatibility with the PS5 which is a plus. Overall, Crucial continues to extend its SSD footprint in the high-end space with T500 PRO solutions, making it one of the best Gen4 drives that we have tested so far and we can’t wait to see mainstream Gen5 SSDs from them in the future.

Crucial’s PRO series with the T700 & T500 tackle the high-end Gen5 and Gen4 segments and win with strong and competitive performance versus the competition. The pricing may see adjustment as faster products are rolled out later down the road but if you are looking for a speedy drive, then Crucial has the products to power your PCs!

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