Crucial MX500 500GB SATA 2.5In SSD

Bought this replace the factory 2.5″ HDD in my PS4 as it’s old and load times were very slow. Once I got this set up with the new OS and loaded all my info onto it, I began loading up a couple games that I had recently timed in anticipation of getting this. Initial loading and in-game map-to-map loading were an instant improvement! It’s roughly a 30% gain in speed, and it does seem to have some noticeable boost in rendering in details better as well.
ex: GTA5 took 2m47sec-3m12sec before, now just takes little over a minute 35sec
If you’re a PS4 gamer, I highly highly recommend swapping your old HDD for an SSD!
I only gave it a 4-star rather a 5 because I only got/installed it a couple weeks ago. So I cannot speak to it longevity. But I imagine it’ll do fine for years to come.

It was fairly easy to install the hardware. Just opened up my desktop computer’s tower (this is not for laptops or other external connections), screwed it down in one of the drive bay trays (I had to supply my own screws) and plugged in the SATA data and power cables that I had available inside my case.

The hard part was getting my computer to recognize the drive. I had to go into Disk Management on my Windows 10 OS and format and partition the drive, then restart the PC before this was recognized. It is not as simple of a plug and play solution as a USB corded drive.

On the other hand, since it is not USB, I don’t have problems with the OS ‘forgetting’ that it is there like sometimes happens with USB devices like keyboards, mice, thumb drives etc. which periodically have to be unplugged and plugged back in.

I didn’t give it full stars for gaming because there are better performing options for storing and running computer games such as NVME SSD drives that are screwed into the motherboard. Those are faster and more reliable than a drive such as this one.

This drive is plenty adequate for storing documents, photos, videos, etc. though. A good back up drive for one that is already in your PC. I would Not recommend installing your operating system on this drive. The SATA cables do not connect to it as reliably as you need them to for a main hard drive. I have had to unplug and replug in this drive a couple of times in the past because the data cable vibrated out of place.