Reviews Crucial M500 960GB SATA 2.5-Inch 7mm (with 9.5mm adapter/spacer) Internal Solid State Drive CT960M500SSD1

If there is one thing you need to revamp your computer's speed and performance, it's a solid-state hard drive. This is about as inexpensive as they come, with measured vast improvements. Moreover, it's easy to install. Just google "replace HDD with SSD", and you'll find several excellent, step-by-step guides to help!

This review is for the 960GB version of the M500. This Crucial M500 960GB SATA 2.5-Inch 7mm drive represents a great combination of capacity, speed and cost, by far the best combination if you need the 1TB size as I do.

• Transformative performance: dramatically faster than a hard drive
• Nearly instantaneous boot times
• Ample storage: available in capacities up to terabyte-class
• Includes top-level hardware encryption technology
• Advanced controller technology and Micron custom firmware

Just enabled an ATA hard drive password to take advantage of the Self Encrypting Drive and AES256 Hardware Encryption security features of the M500 to provide additional data protection should the laptop be lost or stolen. Worked flawlessly on my laptop, the HP2760p with latest BIOS. Now my data is considerably safer.

Crucial M500 960GB SATA 2.5-Inch 7mm (with 9.5mm adapter/spacer) Internal Solid State Drive CT960M500SSD1  Pro's

• Only "affordable" TB class SSD. Outstanding value given size and speed!
• Fast in the absolute, and faster than expected for size.
• 7mm thickness means fits in many more current laptops
• General reputation for reliability from Crucial and the Micron/Intel joint venture that produces the NAND chips used as storage in Crucial drives.
• 960 GB SSD configuration is an optimum size for the Marvel controller, meaning this size drive (and perhaps the 480GB) will provide the highest speeds within the M500 series of drives.
• Encryption and ATA Password security features work well.

Crucial M500 960GB SATA 2.5-Inch 7mm (with 9.5mm adapter/spacer) Internal Solid State Drive CT960M500SSD1  Con's

• Lower write cycle life for 20nm NAND chips. This generation of SSD NAND chips is from 20nm fab process, meaning *rated* write cycles are down vs. older,

Features like hardware encryption, and capacitors built into the drive to prevent data loss on power outage are noteworthy (note disabling write-cache buffer flush didn't appear to change performance significantly). This is my third SSD, and I couldn't be happier. Good value ($/Gbyte), great capacity, fantastic performance, excellent finish quality.

Crucial M500 960GB SATA 2.5-Inch 7mm (with 9.5mm adapter/spacer) Internal Solid State Drive CT960M500SSD1 exceeded every expectation. My 3-year old MacBook Pro is faster than ever. Installation, although not difficult, requires some skill and care.