Samsung EVO series and Crucial MX series have always been in huge competition with each other. There’s immense confusion when it comes to the affair of choosing the right drive that fits your requirement perfectly. Especially when there’s a great rivalry among the drives presented by different companies.
As for the case of Samsung 870 Evo and Crucial mx500, both drives share a lot of things in common along with some differences.
The very prominent thing between both these SSDs is their SATA protocol with an estimated speed of 600MB/s and not more than that. So, there’s no point in expecting more out of them.
This article deals with the outcome of both devices under a series of tests.
Table of Contents
Looks & Interface:
Both SSDs rely on the same backward SATA 6 GB/s for the connection to the host(the system you insert the drive in). Moreover, both companies use the 3-bit TLC flash memory in the drives. So, this keeps stability in the performance, cost, and reliability of the SSDs.
But there’s one thing in the contrast between them, the Samsung 870 Evo comes with only a 2.5-inch format while the Crucial mx500 comes with two formats of 2.5-inches and an M.2 SSD plug-in card.
M.2 comes in the form of a small chip that is easily inserted into the computer and covers relatively less space. But there are limited storage ranges available in this format of Crucial mx500. We’ll discuss them further.
Capacity of these drives (what to know?)
Both SSDs also vary in capacity. The start point is the same 250 GB of storage in both drives. The Samsung 870 Evo goes up to 4Tb of total capacity while the Crucial mx500 comes with a 2.5-inch drive of 2 Tb, and M.2 format with up to 1Tb storage.
When it comes to the warranty, both drives have 5 years of warranty by the belonging companies while the Samsung 870 Evo is even better in TBW which is 600 than the Crucial mx500 drive with 360 TBW (Terabyte Written- total terabyte data that an SSD can write in its lifetime).
Well, there’s one advantage of buying the Crucial mx500, the drive has a piece of equipment in the form of a spacer ranging from 7.0 to 9.5 millimeters for compatibility in bigger bays in the 2.5 inches drive.
Also, the mounting screws in the plug-in cards add a plus point to the Crucial mx500 SSD.
Which Drive is Faster?
Reading speed:
Both drives share a matching sequential reading speed of 560 MB/s. So, there’s very little or no difference found between both drives’ reading speeds.
It also varies from system to system. After a series of experiments on both the drive’s reading speeds, a huge difference was seen in both drives that keep on varying with each practice.
For instance, on the 1st try with the same file size, the Samsung drive came out with a read speed of 407.0 MB/s while the other drive came out with a read speed of 397.9 MB/s. This clearly shows that Samsung’s drive is faster than the Crucial’s one.
But when the test was repeated, the results were different as this time the 870 Evo gave slower results than the mx500.
In case of the random read, the Samsung’s drive has 98k of the random read speed which is far better than the mx500’s random read of 95k.
Write speed:
The Crucial mx500 is inserted with 510 MB/s of sequential write speed while the Samsung 870 Evo stands out with 530 MB/s of write speed.
In this respect, the Samsung 870 Evo is proven to be functioning well in case of copying or saving a file. Depending on the speed, the time duration varies and so a difference between the time taken by both drives to save a file is prominent with a series of tests.
The Crucial mx500 took more time to save a file than the Samsung 870 Evo. So, the Samsung 870 Evo with its higher sequential write speed wins in this aspect.
But the case is different when it comes to the random write speed of 88k in the Samsung’s drive marks as 2k lesser than 90k in the Crucial’s drive.
Overall Performance:
A good level for the corresponding storage is achieved on both drives. If both the Samsung 870 Evo and the Crucial mx500 are kept at the same speed of 560 MB/s of reading, the former manages around 20 MB/s more in write speed. The Samsung 870 Evo came out with excellent results.
However, the Crucial mx500 also performed well. The difference between the speeds of both drives can hardly be seen in everyday use. So, there’s no big issue if you have nothing huge to deal with in your daily life.
But it matters when it comes to the work on larger extents where the speed can slow down in the Crucial mx500 than the Samsung 870 Evo.
Hence it’s safe to say the Samsung 870 Evo performed slightly better than the Crucial mx500.
Price ranging:
Price is one of the major factors that affect your decision. So the product needs to be worth buying.
In price, the Crucial mx500 is way cheaper than the Samsung 870 Evo. So, if you are looking for the most affordable yet good SSD, you can confidently go for the Crucial mx500 drive as it offers most of the alike features to the 870 Evo.
Also, there’s not a big change in the 870 Evo than its predecessor 860 Evo except for a little addition in the read speed and some other minor factors.
If you want to go for Samsung’s drive for daily use, you can better go for their 860 Evo which is relatively cheaper than the 870 Evo.
Reliability:
As far as reliability is concerned, both drives came up with long-lasting results.
There are least or no drive failures noticed for both drives.
Which Drive Should You Buy?
Well, the decision is totally yours. All the essential factors including write speed, read speed, performance, capacity, interface, and form considerably matters before making a choice.
For instance, if you are looking for a particularly large SSD with almost 4 TB of speed, Samsung 870 Evo is made for you.
But if your requirement doesn’t stand around this point, you can go for the Crucial mx500 drive instead. The same thing goes for the other factors as well.