When Crucial first launched the M500 last year, it was a pretty big deal. It was the first time Crucial (Micron) had begun shipping their latest high density 128Gb 20nm synchronous MLC NAND, and with that included the ability to not only ship higher capacity SSDs, but also the possibility of more competitive pricing.

While Crucial was ultimately able to deliver both higher capacity drives and competitive pricing with the M500, by using higher density NAND on lower capacity drives, they weren't able to take full advantage of the high performance eight channel SSD controller, which meant slower write performance on lower capacity drives.

Despite this however, the Crucial M500 is still one of the most feature filled, most inexpensive, and most reliable SSDs on the market today although admittedly, it's a difficult sell considering most of the latest SSDs, especially those in the more popular 128GB/256GB capacities, are rated for higher performance.