I recently acquired a used 2TB Crucial BX500 SSD and I'm concerned because it's showing only 75% health despite having written just 4TB. The drive has been powered on for 902 hours and has gone through 4845 power cycles, which seems excessive. I've noticed similar concerns from others regarding this model's low health indicator without clear explanations. Could this be attributed to a firmware issue with how it reports S.M.A.R.T. data? Previously, I had a 500GB MX500 that showed 4% health but after a firmware update, it reported a much healthier state. However, I can't find any updates for the BX500. The Crucial Storage Executive software confirms it has the latest firmware (M6CR061), although I see some users mentioning they have newer versions, possibly factory-specific. After discussing with Crucial support, it seems the issue may be related to the drive's erase cycles—230 cycles used out of a rated 1000, leaving around 77% potential. I'm puzzled about how it has so many cycles with such low usage.
1 Answer
It sounds like a bit of a strange situation. Having 4845 power cycles is quite unusual for an SSD, suggesting it might have been powered on and off frequently. Try using GSmartControl for a thorough self-test, as it can help diagnose the SSD’s condition better than the Crucial tool. Just be aware it may have trouble working with USB adapters based on user reports.
I had issues with GSmartControl on my USB adapter too! I switched to CrystalDiskInfo, which seemed to work better for me. You might want to give it a shot.