Visual inspection
The Crucial BX500 1TB has a simple design, with no graphical elements painted on the metal casing, apart from the Crucial by Micron emblem. The front side of the SSD has the BX letters embossed into the metal surface of the case, a subtle yet effective design element. The BX500 has the standard dimension used by the 2.5″ form factor, with a thickness of just 7mm.
The back side features a label with all the technical information regarding the SSD, starting with the serial number and ending with the capacity and all compliance of the device.
The Crucial BX500 1TB uses the SATA 6.0Gb/s interface, for connecting to the PC.
The BX500 is easy to disassemble, as the two metal parts that make the casing of the SSD are held in place by a simple clip system, and not screws. With the top case removed, we get to see just how small the PCB of the BX500 is. In addition, the metal case is used as a heatsink for passively cooling the two Micron flash chips. The thermal interface used is one thermal pad on each memory chip.
The BX500 1TB uses a Silicon Motion made controller, the SM2259XT model. The SM2259XT is known for being able to function without a DRAM cache, however the SSD uses an SLC cache instead.
The two memory flash chips used, are manufactured by Micron and are the 3D NAND flash type. Both memory chips have the model numbers 9RB2D and NX894.
