Crucial T500 4TB: capacity and endurance without the Gen5 premium (2026)
The Crucial T500 4 TB pairs 7,000 MB/s PCIe 4.0 reads with a 2,400 TBW endurance rating and a DRAM cache, making it the capacity and durability flagship of the T500 line.
Controller & Memory
The Crucial T500 4 TB is the biggest and most durable member of the T500 family, a mainstream PCIe 4.0 drive that skips the Gen5 hype and instead throws capacity and endurance at the buyer who needs space more than peak speed. Inside the M.2 2280 module sit Phison's PS5025-E25 controller, Micron's 232-layer 3D TLC NAND, and a discrete 1 GB LPDDR4 DRAM cache per terabyte, which keeps the flash translation layer in dedicated memory rather than borrowing host RAM. The 4 TB is rated at 7,000 MB/s sequential reads and 6,900 MB/s writes over PCIe 4.0 x4.
That is a slightly lower peak read than the 2 TB model's 7,400 MB/s, and the trade is deliberate: the 4 TB carries a 2,400 TBW endurance rating, the largest in the range, plus the biggest SLC cache in the line, so it holds sustained writes at full speed longer than its smaller siblings. Endurance across the family runs 600 TBW on the 1 TB, 1,200 TBW on the 2 TB, and 2,400 TBW here, all under the same five-year warranty. The 4 TB ships bare or with an integrated heatsink; the heatsink version is PS5-compatible and supports TCG Opal 2.01.
Because it crams four terabytes onto one M.2 card, the 4 TB is a double-sided module in most revisions, so it may not fit ultra-thin laptops with no clearance above the slot, though it drops straight into any desktop with standard M.2 room. Against the WD Black SN850X and Samsung 990 Pro at 4 TB, the T500 matches their real-world performance for less money, and it beats them on endurance. For a video editor, a hoarder of game libraries, or anyone running a large project cache, the 4 TB T500 is a compelling mainstream pick.
Storage Comparisons:
T500 Performance & Benchmarks
On the 4 TB T500, Crucial rates sequential reads at 7,000 MB/s and writes at 6,900 MB/s over PCIe 4.0, with up to 1,050,000 random read IOPS and 1,350,000 random write IOPS. Peak read is about 400 MB/s below the 2 TB model, a deliberate trade that keeps thermals manageable across four terabytes of NAND and frees budget for the drive's real selling points: capacity and endurance.
Crucial T500 4 TB vs M.2 4.0 x 4 peers
Switch between sequential throughput and random IOPS to see how this drive stacks up against other M.2 4.0 x 4 SSDs in our database. The highlighted bar is the drive on this page — click any other bar to open that drive.
- Patriot Viper PV593 1 TB: 14,500 MB/s read, 14,000 MB/s write
- Patriot Viper PV593 2 TB: 14,500 MB/s read, 14,000 MB/s write
- Patriot Viper PV593 4 TB: 14,500 MB/s read, 14,000 MB/s write
- Patriot Viper PV573 2 TB: 14,000 MB/s read, 12,000 MB/s write
- Crucial T500 4 TB (this drive): 7,000 MB/s read, 6,900 MB/s write
For a game library the 4 TB is transformative, holding dozens of large titles on one drive, though game load times are bounded by the CPU and decompression, so the drive's 7,000 MB/s bandwidth is not the bottleneck. The payoff is in sustained creative work: 4K or 8K video editing, rendering scratch disks, and moving huge media folders all benefit from the big SLC cache, which absorbs long contiguous writes at full speed before dropping to the native TLC rate. On a drive this size that matters, because a single render or file copy can easily exceed several hundred gigabytes.
Independent reviews of the T500 family find the E25 platform delivering close to its rated numbers with well-behaved thermals. The 4 TB runs slightly warmer than the 1 and 2 TB models under heavy load simply because there is more NAND to keep in check, so a motherboard heatsink is worth fitting. Random performance stays consistent thanks to the DRAM cache, which keeps the drive responsive even when it is nearly full.
Crucial T500 vs Competitors
See how the T500 stacks up against other M.2 4.0 x 4 drives in our database:
Compare with rival drives:
Endurance, TBW & Warranty
Crucial backs the T500 4 TB with a five-year limited warranty, limited by its 2,400 TBW endurance rating, whichever comes first. That endurance is the largest in the T500 line, scaling from 600 TBW on the 1 TB through 1,200 TBW on the 2 TB. At a heavy 100 GB per day of writes, the 4 TB would need roughly 66 years to exhaust its NAND, so the flash will outlive the warranty in any realistic workload. Crucial lists MTBF at 2,000,000 hours, a population statistic rather than a promise about any single drive. The bare 4 TB ships without a heatsink, and given the extra NAND, motherboard M.2 cooling or the heatsink-bundled SKU is recommended for sustained use. Returns run through Crucial or the retailer.
Crucial T500 4 TB Specifications
| Category | Value |
|---|---|
| Capacity [?] | 4 TB |
| Interface [?] | M.2 4.0 x 4 |
| Controller [?] | Phison PS5025-E25 |
| Memory type [?] | Micron 232-L TLC |
| DRAM [?] | Yes |
| Read speed (MB/s) [?] | 7000 |
| Write speed (MB/s) [?] | 6900 |
| Read IOPS [?] | 1050000 |
| Write IOPS [?] | 1350000 |
| Endurance (TBW) [?] | 2400 |
| MTBF (million hours) [?] | 2000000 |
| Warranty (years) [?] | 5 |
Verdict: Is the T500 Worth It in 2026?
Buy the Crucial T500 4 TB for a large, durable PCIe 4.0 drive for a game library, video editing, or a project cache, with 2,400 TBW of endurance plus a DRAM cache and no Gen5 premium. Skip it when only a fast boot drive is needed, since the cheaper 1 TB or 2 TB is more than enough and the 4 TB's double-sided PCB may not fit thin laptops. The direct alternative is the WD Black SN850X 4 TB, which matches performance and costs similar money, while a DRAM-less Crucial P310 4 TB is the budget route for pure bulk storage. We rate the 4 TB T500 an excellent capacity-and-endurance mainstream drive for creators who actually use the space.
+ Pros
- 4 TB capacity on a single M.2 drive
- 2,400 TBW endurance, largest in the T500 line
- Biggest SLC cache holds sustained writes longest
- Discrete 1 GB DRAM cache per TB
- Micron 232-layer TLC NAND
- Five-year limited warranty
- Cons
- Peak read slightly below the 2 TB model
- Double-sided PCB may not fit thin laptops
- Bare version ships without a heatsink
- Overkill for a simple boot drive
Buy this or similar SSD Storage:
Video Review
The New King of Gen4 SSDs - Crucial T500 Review
