Crucial MX500

[Marauder2003]

Bought one based on comments here.

Windows reports an error on the drive. SMART indicates this:

Unused Reserved NAND Blocks.
The count shows 0. I assume those are in case the drive finds a bad block and assigns an alternate.

I partitioned it and formatted. Then used a utility to clone my boot drive to it.

My concern is the Crucial special software does not see the drive.

I worry that I can trust the drive.

[Robotron2k84]

The reserved block issue is a red herring.

See (PP 12):

https://media-www.micron.com/-/media/client/global/documents/products/technical-note/solid-state-storage/tnfd22_client_ssd_smart_attributes.pdf?rev=8f6869552c154bb181f39166b7481067

SMART ID 180 (B4h):

Unused Reserve (Spare) NAND Blocks
Current Value
Worst Value
Raw Data

This value is hard-coded to zero (00h). [Current Value]
This value is hard-coded to zero (00h). [Worst Value]

This value is calculated as: [Raw Data]
URBC = BT - BG
Where:
URBC = Total unused reserved block count.
BT = Total number of spare blocks when the drive left the factory. The spare block count represents the number of grown bad blocks the drive can handle in the field before it enters write protect.
BG = Total number of grown bad blocks.

Windows may be throwing a fit due to the value, but it’s a normal value for this drive. To get the actual number, you need to parse the raw data and convert from Hex to decimal.

As for why the software can’t see the SSD, you have to describe how your drive and system are configured. But note that AHCI needs to be enabled in the PCs firmware, and in Windows. Windows will not automatically load AHCI drivers if the system didn’t detect an AHCI drive or firmware setting at install-time, and may need the AHCI driver loaded, in addition to the firmware setting.

You might also have transient and resolvable disk errors when a special ATA command is sent to the drive, e.g. encrypt, fast format, secure wipe, etc.

[Marauder2003]

I used the free version of AOMEI Partition Assistant to clone my boot drive to the new drive. Looking it over the new drive looks fine.

When I boot from it I get a text message from the product saying I need to install the product. Seems the product did not make the drive properly bootable.

[Robotron2k84]

Was your old drive 512B sectors? Cloning software has a hard time going from 512B to 4096B. Additionally, it doesn’t look like the free version of AOMEI does the sector realignment (only in Pro version).

You may want to create a snapshot to another disk as a disk image, reinstall on the new drive and then restore the image.

ETA:

There is a specific option for moving Win10 from HDD to SSD in AOMEI

https://www.diskpart.com/help/clone-hard-disk.html

You need to select “Migrate OS to SSD”

Not sure if that’s the answer, but worth a try.

ETA2:

It also appears that there is some issue with converting back and forth from MBR to GPT partition formats on the disk with the AOMEI software. It looks like it only supports cloning for MBR partition maps and GPT is unsupported. This may be an issue if your original drive was GPT.

.

[mike452]

[Marauder2003]

I have successfully cloned my old boot drive to the MX500. I have done multiple boots with the MX500. I have scanned the drive with 2 bootable CD antivirus apps.

I have no operational problems with the drive.

The Crucial program finds the drive but has problems with some functions. There are 2 ways to get the SMART data. One way says no data available. The other does not show an entry for the Unused NAND entry.

I think I am the victim of 2 different flaky apps.

I can now use my old boot drive to do a Win 11 upgrade on and see if it will work on a non-TPA machine.

[Robotron2k84]

Did you enable AHCI? The controller needs to be in AHCI mode to execute some functions.

[Marauder2003]

This machine has been running with 5 Samsung SSD for years. I am sure they all are in ACHI mode.

Did you enable AHCI? The controller needs to be in AHCI mode to execute some functions.

[Robotron2k84]

Not necessarily.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/how-to-enable-ahci-for-ssd-in-windows-10/18ee0b43-47a9-4344-b0c8-1e8546be2c82

[Cowboy T]

Crucial MX500 drives are very good. I have a couple running GNU/Linux (one Slackware, one Debian), and the computer sees the drives just fine.

Since this is Microsoft Windows, I would call up Crucial and consult with them about this one.