Crucial T500 4TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe Gaming PS5

Only the specifications this product actually carries.

NVMe

NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) is the protocol modern SSDs use to talk to the system over PCIe, replacing the older AHCI protocol designed for spinning disks. NVMe drives, almost always in the M.2 form factor, are several times faster than SATA SSDs in sequential transfers and much faster at handling many simultaneous requests. NVMe has become the default for new builds, and its price per gigabyte now overlaps with SATA on many capacities.

PCIe generation (Gen3, Gen4, Gen5)

The PCIe generation of an NVMe drive sets its maximum bandwidth: roughly 3.5 GB/s for Gen3, 7 GB/s for Gen4, and 14 GB/s for Gen5 on four lanes. A drive runs at the lower of its own generation and the slot's. Gen4 covers gaming and general use with no perceptible difference for most people; Gen5 carries a price premium and runs hot enough to usually need a heatsink. Buying a generation beyond what the workload uses is a common way to overpay for storage.

TLC

TLC (triple-level cell) flash stores three bits per memory cell and is the mainstream NAND type in performance SSDs. TLC balances cost, speed, and endurance, and it holds sustained write speed better than QLC once a drive's fast cache fills. Two drives with the same capacity and interface can differ in price mainly because one is TLC and the other QLC.

Sequential read and write speeds

The headline speeds on an SSD listing, such as 7,450 MB/s read, describe large sequential transfers under ideal conditions. They are the numbers that separate PCIe generations, and they are the least representative of everyday use, where small random reads dominate and most modern drives feel similar. Two drives with different headline speeds but the same generation and NAND type usually perform indistinguishably for gaming and desktop work.

Heatsink

Some NVMe drives ship with an attached heatsink to keep the controller from throttling under sustained load; others ship bare. Most motherboards include their own M.2 heatsinks, and a drive with a built-in heatsink may not fit under them or in a laptop. Gen5 drives are the ones that most often need cooling. The heatsink version of a drive is a separate product with its own price, which is why MemRadar lists it on its own page.