I’ve been reading a lot about the short lifetimes of these drives without the latest firmware upgrade from Crucial. Mine came with the the M3CR043 firmware. The most recent listed on the Crucial site for Macs is 045.A key problem in making the update is that it must be done from a working internal Superdrive (with _no_ USB external drive option from Crucial).This means that an older laptop (such as the unibody MacBook Pro) has to have a still-working internal Superdrive. Many (most?) don’t.The Crucial guide says to download the correct update, burn it to a CD, and then run it according to instructions. Contacting Crucial customer support indicates that _there is no other option_ for Mac users.Had I known this, I would not have purchased the Crucial SSD ... MoreI’ve been reading a lot about the short lifetimes of these drives without the latest firmware upgrade from Crucial. Mine came with the the M3CR043 firmware. The most recent listed on the Crucial site for Macs is 045.A key problem in making the update is that it must be done from a working internal Superdrive (with _no_ USB external drive option from Crucial).This means that an older laptop (such as the unibody MacBook Pro) has to have a still-working internal Superdrive. Many (most?) don’t.The Crucial guide says to download the correct update, burn it to a CD, and then run it according to instructions. Contacting Crucial customer support indicates that _there is no other option_ for Mac users.Had I known this, I would not have purchased the Crucial SSD (CT1000MX500SSD1). If only iFixit (who I generally trust) offered an alternative.——A second concern is an inability to enable TRIM for this SSD. I’ve encountered conflicting information about this issue, some saying TRIM is crucial (har, har), and some saying the OS takes care of it even for non-Apple drives.

Absolutely incredible

I have a laptop that has given me problems since nearly the beginning. It was slow to to get to the log in screen and start up was a nightmare! Once I logged in I would step away for five to ten minutes before trying to do anything because it would be unresponsive. I’ve lost projects due to the computer freezing and not becoming responsive again. I always called it up to being a cheap computer, even tho it has an i5 processor and plenty of RAM. I decided to give an SSD a try and seeing this one has a fair price tag, figured it wouldn’t hurt, I could always use an extra 2TB somewhere else. After coming my old drive using the software download from the manufacturers website and installing it, I was blown away. Immediate start up. Apps opened with no lag. I finally get ... MoreI have a laptop that has given me problems since nearly the beginning. It was slow to to get to the log in screen and start up was a nightmare! Once I logged in I would step away for five to ten minutes before trying to do anything because it would be unresponsive. I’ve lost projects due to the computer freezing and not becoming responsive again. I always called it up to being a cheap computer, even tho it has an i5 processor and plenty of RAM. I decided to give an SSD a try and seeing this one has a fair price tag, figured it wouldn’t hurt, I could always use an extra 2TB somewhere else. After coming my old drive using the software download from the manufacturers website and installing it, I was blown away. Immediate start up. Apps opened with no lag. I finally get to see the computer function according to its design. I feel stupid for not having done this way sooner!

Firmware upgrade failure

Bought two of these SSDs when they were on sales.Before put into use, I perform firmware upgrade via Storage Executive 9.09.092023.03. But both SSDs failed the upgrade with automatic and manual method. Manual firmware upgrade via the ISO (burn to USB) also failed.Spent sometime with Customer Service about the firmware upgrade: their response is ...no firmware update is relevant for this drives. The firmware update offered in crucial storage executive is simply a bug ... Sounds like the Storage Executive is buggy.Drive performace is inconsistent across the two SSDs.Storage Executive also failed on the following operations: Sanitize Drive, Format Drive and PSID Revert with message: No Drives Found Supporting Format, No Drives Found Supporting PSID Revert Operation.

Great upgrade for my old laptop

I bought it for my laptop to replace the old spinning drive, which has held up for a long time. I purchased a Dell in 2018, and this drive has made Windows run noticeably faster. I love Crucial products, and they and Kingston keep my computers going. I have purchased several drives, which still work after two years.My Dell now has two of them and an M.2 drive. I Run Windows 11 on the Mx500 1T and Fedora Linux on the M.2. Windows updates faster and operates smoother. This and RAM upgrades will do wonders for an older computer. I host the Zoom meetings at work, and that means an external screen, a table microphone, and an external camera. It all runs well.Best Buy hasreasonabled prices and sometimes beats Amazon. The service is good, and if I want, I can pay to have ... MoreI bought it for my laptop to replace the old spinning drive, which has held up for a long time. I purchased a Dell in 2018, and this drive has made Windows run noticeably faster. I love Crucial products, and they and Kingston keep my computers going. I have purchased several drives, which still work after two years.My Dell now has two of them and an M.2 drive. I Run Windows 11 on the Mx500 1T and Fedora Linux on the M.2. Windows updates faster and operates smoother. This and RAM upgrades will do wonders for an older computer. I host the Zoom meetings at work, and that means an external screen, a table microphone, and an external camera. It all runs well.Best Buy hasreasonabled prices and sometimes beats Amazon. The service is good, and if I want, I can pay to have them install it if I have other things to do.Worth every penny!

Had to apply "edge case" firmware M3CR046, to fix.

I ordered this drive and received it in late July 2023. It was shipped directly to my home from Best Buy because it was on sale for an unusually low price.I couldn't resist as I had wanted to use my old Mac Mini 2012 server machine (MacMini 6,2) as a network Time Machine capsule for my various Apple computers in my home.Since I have 802 11AC and 2.5 Gb ethernet I figured performance would be more than acceptable instead of using external drives, but external drives are still faster due to MacOS throttling..So this was installed as the secondary drive of two drives in an apple Mac Mini (not the boot volume) upon startup, it was detected just fine and I tried to format it. The format basically checked out and then errored after about 12 minutes and the drive ... MoreI ordered this drive and received it in late July 2023. It was shipped directly to my home from Best Buy because it was on sale for an unusually low price.I couldn't resist as I had wanted to use my old Mac Mini 2012 server machine (MacMini 6,2) as a network Time Machine capsule for my various Apple computers in my home.Since I have 802 11AC and 2.5 Gb ethernet I figured performance would be more than acceptable instead of using external drives, but external drives are still faster due to MacOS throttling..So this was installed as the secondary drive of two drives in an apple Mac Mini (not the boot volume) upon startup, it was detected just fine and I tried to format it. The format basically checked out and then errored after about 12 minutes and the drive disappeared entirely. Rebooting did not allow the drive to come back. Performing a shut down and then powering back up caused the drive to once again reappear.I then tried a different file system format and that got farther, so I went ahead and set it up as a remote time machine volume share under Catalina and started using it.Within 40 GB of transfer the drive once again disconnected internally and disappeared entirely. This was obviously very disconcerting. Doing a shutdown and startup allowed to drive to come back up and I checked the firmware on the system information. The firmware was technically the latest on the crucial website, M3CR045.Thinking that I had unfortunately gotten a bad drive and just spent the past 35 minutes in delicately installing it into a mini I was disheartened until I quickly looked up the symptom only to find multiple online sources claiming that this was a well-known symptom that crucial considers to be an edge case.It certainly wasn't an edge case to me because you wouldn't even be able to load it OS on this drive before it might disconnect, the edge case claimed that you had to write a lot of data at once to the drive for it to disconnect. I don't know what a lot of data is but to me 40GB to 50GB of data at once is not a lot of data for 4TB drive. Instead of removing it from the mini I went ahead and used Boot Camp to install Windows 10 because to get the experimental firmware M3CR046 you have to run the crucial executive storage software.The update isn't available outside of that. I was forced to install in bios mode instead of UEFI mode because of the way Boot Camp laid out the hybrid partitioning scheme. But even so crucial executive storage ran successfully, detected the drive correctly, offered the new firmware (M3CR046), and I just had applied and immediately worked. Some rumors are saying you have to keep the drive active with some sort of data read as you're applying firmware. I do not have to do this as the drive was already Mac formatted and didn't appear as a data volume in Windows 10 but did appear on the device list. After the new firmware was applied all the symptoms went away and I was even able to run a long extended self test using the crucial software and it passed just fine.I have since saved about 1.5 TB of backups to this drive via the scheme of Time Machine volume sharing and it has worked just fine without disconnecting.But I had the symptoms immediately out of the box on a brand new Drive that confirmed that it was 100% healthy, ready for work. So I am writing this to let others know that if you receive the product with this firmware revision M3CR045, and you're having random disconnects and it disappears where only a power on and power off get it to reappear before you return the drive and remove it from your machine and all that please just load the crucial software and try your hardest to apply the new firmware.I honestly don't know, if this is your booting Drive, how you'd be able to apply the firmware before it disconnected. So you may have to use it as a secondary drive to get the firmware to successfully apply. It's been at least 17 hours with the new firmware on my drive and there's been no disconnects whereas I experienced a disconnect at least every 10 minutes before. So with the problem solved I am ecstatic about the drive and the price I paid. But for the average person this would be several hoops to jump through to get a successfully working drive.Please be aware and be prepared to update the firmware, if you have symptoms like these.

Lackluster performance

I purchased this Crucial, model MX500, 4 TB SSD, based on reviews of top performance for a SATA based, 2.5" SSD.The write speed is less than 200 MB/s, and that is while it has faster NAND flash cells (cache) available.I wrote a 461 GB file to it, directly from a Samsung 980 Pro NVMe drive, and it dropped to under 100 MB/s, after filling its cache.This drive should be flirting with SATA's performance design limit. Or at least 300+ MB/s "sustained" write speeds.But under 200 MB/s writes, and then dropping to under 100 MB/s, is poor performance for a drive model from a company like Crucial.Perhaps Crucial changed the NAND fabric in the 4 TB model, accounting for it being a slug, compared to the lower capacity MX500 models that get excellent reviews?If I had ... MoreI purchased this Crucial, model MX500, 4 TB SSD, based on reviews of top performance for a SATA based, 2.5" SSD.The write speed is less than 200 MB/s, and that is while it has faster NAND flash cells (cache) available.I wrote a 461 GB file to it, directly from a Samsung 980 Pro NVMe drive, and it dropped to under 100 MB/s, after filling its cache.This drive should be flirting with SATA's performance design limit. Or at least 300+ MB/s "sustained" write speeds.But under 200 MB/s writes, and then dropping to under 100 MB/s, is poor performance for a drive model from a company like Crucial.Perhaps Crucial changed the NAND fabric in the 4 TB model, accounting for it being a slug, compared to the lower capacity MX500 models that get excellent reviews?If I had purchased this on some auction site, I would have suspected it to be a knockoff (counterfeit). But from Best Buy, it is the genuine article. Crucial just dropped the ball on this 4 TB model.I regret missing my return window.For general use, it is fine. For anything requiring large transfers (large write operations), look elsewhere.This one has 4 TB capacity. I verified it, by actually copying 4 TB worth of files to it, and verifying that all data was good (no corrupted data). But it is like having a swimming pool and using a garden hose to fill it.

Microns Crucial is minimalist and I like it

I’ve owned mechanical hard drives and solid state drives from various manufacturers including Toshiba, Samsung, and Micron. I’m a hobbyist computer tech and have recovered data from malfunctioning external enclosures. I like Micron’s hardware interface because it complies to the SATA standard and doesn’t build proprietary connectors into the product. I also like Micron because the software configuration is relatively minimalist and doesn’t force proprietary software to be installed on the operating system.For this specific purchase, I had to ask a technically savvy housemate to format a partition using Windows Device Manager because the product would not be recognized by my motherboard out of the box.Overall, I like the product and will be using Micron’s Crucial ... MoreI’ve owned mechanical hard drives and solid state drives from various manufacturers including Toshiba, Samsung, and Micron. I’m a hobbyist computer tech and have recovered data from malfunctioning external enclosures. I like Micron’s hardware interface because it complies to the SATA standard and doesn’t build proprietary connectors into the product. I also like Micron because the software configuration is relatively minimalist and doesn’t force proprietary software to be installed on the operating system.For this specific purchase, I had to ask a technically savvy housemate to format a partition using Windows Device Manager because the product would not be recognized by my motherboard out of the box.Overall, I like the product and will be using Micron’s Crucial for my data storage needs in the future.

New SSD transformed my aging PC

8 yr old PC with original hard drive had become very slow Not noisy, but took 10 mins to boot up. Was considering buying a new PC but researched possibility that an SSD may make a noticeable difference. Also much cheaper. SSD took a week to arrive. Had to buy mounting box for PC and USB-SSD cable to install clone software. Physical installation was well explained in Crucial notes provided. Clone software required a program from Crucial support to recognise my HDD. Clone software took a couple of hours to run, but corrupted boot sequence on both drives preventing either from starting: got trapped in a sequence of a blue screen requiring keyboard selection, followed by recovery options as Windows not located. Only option that worked was to enter dos. Needed several ... More8 yr old PC with original hard drive had become very slow Not noisy, but took 10 mins to boot up. Was considering buying a new PC but researched possibility that an SSD may make a noticeable difference. Also much cheaper. SSD took a week to arrive. Had to buy mounting box for PC and USB-SSD cable to install clone software. Physical installation was well explained in Crucial notes provided. Clone software required a program from Crucial support to recognise my HDD. Clone software took a couple of hours to run, but corrupted boot sequence on both drives preventing either from starting: got trapped in a sequence of a blue screen requiring keyboard selection, followed by recovery options as Windows not located. Only option that worked was to enter dos. Needed several hours research to find a sequence of commands to be able to boot from SSD but in process also had to reinstall Windows. Fortunately had made a full back up of data on external hard drive before starting clone process so not stressed about losing files. Original HDD still doesn't boot, but not needed now. Performance of PCC now superior to when new. Starts up in 10 secs. Programs open in seconds. Can play games in real time that were previously unplayable. The installation was simple, the clone software was a headache, but product is fantastic.

Replacement drive for PS4 Pro

Always prefer this type of drive to NVME. Cloned the failing HDD using Rescuezilla to the CrucialMX-500. I thought it would work straight away being a clone but the way PS4 Pro is configured still needed the system file to be installed. I hadn't realised that the USB I had prepared with the system file beeds to go in the front right USB port until after using the rear USB port proved fruitless. Once installed it was back to normal. Needed the included padding frame to lign up the drive with the removable HD cradle, but once screwed in, removed the padding. The old drive kept doing Data storage checks on each boot and trying to resolve the issue following various online tips proved fruitless. The old drive had 65 bad sectors and when using Rescuezilla I instructed it ... MoreAlways prefer this type of drive to NVME. Cloned the failing HDD using Rescuezilla to the CrucialMX-500. I thought it would work straight away being a clone but the way PS4 Pro is configured still needed the system file to be installed. I hadn't realised that the USB I had prepared with the system file beeds to go in the front right USB port until after using the rear USB port proved fruitless. Once installed it was back to normal. Needed the included padding frame to lign up the drive with the removable HD cradle, but once screwed in, removed the padding. The old drive kept doing Data storage checks on each boot and trying to resolve the issue following various online tips proved fruitless. The old drive had 65 bad sectors and when using Rescuezilla I instructed it to exclude bad sectors. Now the PS4 Pro is back in full working order. I only use Scan and one other supplier and on this occasion, it offered the best value and price.

Review of Crucial MX500 250GB SSD

Have only had this SSD for a few days, so no idea regards reliability. Installation - was OK, but a few steps missed in the installation guide, but fairly easy to work out. Warning for those who intend to use this on a desktop PC, don't select SSD optimisation as it really warrants battery backup - as found on laptops. I was replacing a WD black 256Gbyte HDD with the MX500 250Gbyte SSD, so capacity was just as I requested. Performance - my current (old) desktop PC is based around a Pentium G4400 CPU with 8Gbytes RAM. With the WD black HDD, running a full Mcafee virus check typically takes about 100 minutes, with new SDD same operation is now about 12 minutes. Boot time is down from 4 minutes or so to around 15 seconds.