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The T500 comes in a slim-line box with a good clear image of the drive on the front. To the right of this image is a longish sticker that displays the drive's capacity, maximum Sequential read speed (7,400MB/s) and a logo stating the 5-year warranty. The rear of the box is home to some multi-lingual notes about the drive's speed and backward compatibility.
Crucial's 2TB T500 is built on a single-sided M.2 2280 format.
As the 2TB T500 is a single-sided design, all the components are built on one side of the PCB. Next to the M.2 interface is the Phison PS5025-E25 controller, next is a 2GB Micron LPDDR4 DRAM IC (the T500 uses 1GB per 1TB of NAND flash) and finally two 1TB packages of Micron 232-layer (B58R) 3D TLC NAND.
At the time of writing this review, information about the Phison PS5025-E25 controller is a bit sketchy, to say the least. What is known is that the controller is designed to handle transfer speeds of up to 7,200MB/s, which is 200MB/s faster than the current Phison E18 controller.
Micron's 232-layer NAND has a few world firsts to its name. For starters, it is the world's first NAND to market sporting that many layers and is also the first TLC production NAND to use six-planes, the most planes per die of any TLC NAND. The NAND uses a 1.5mm x 13.5mm package making it the smallest high-density NAND available (at the time of writing).
Crucial’s Storage Executive is a pretty comprehensive SSD toolkit. With it, you can check the drive’s S.M.A.R.T data, update the firmware, see how the drive’s capacity is being used, monitor the drive’s operating temperature and overall health as well as adjust the Over Provisioning. There are a few more options as well that aren't supported by this particular drive.
