CONCLUSION

   When we received the RC500 specifications sheet a while back i can’t say that we were impressed with the advertised performance numbers (we were with the numbers of the upcoming RD500 model however – review soon) so we were somewhat sceptical about what our tests would show. However, as you can see by our charts the numbers given by Toshiba/KIOXIA don’t accurately reflect the performance you should expect from the RC500 500GB model (sustained performance was also very good for a mid-end model). Unfortunately, we don’t have much information in regards to the NAND flash controller used by Toshiba/KIOXIA but with an MTTF of 1.5 million hours, endurance of 200TBW and a 5-year limited warranty the RC500 500GB is more than enough for both casual and gaming desktop systems.

   We were told by Toshiba/KIOXIA that one of the strongest selling points of the RC500 500GB M.2 NVMe SSD is its cost but with a current retail price set at 76Euros inside the EU (Amazon.de) we do think that there’s a slight room for improvement (as for the US market we were unable to find this model there at the time of this review). Overall, we’re very satisfied with the RC500 500GB, it may be far from the fastest M.2 NVMe model in the market today but it does combine surprisingly good performance with good endurance numbers and a relatively good price tag which is why it gets our Golden Award.

PROS

- Very Good Overall & Sustained Performance
- Endurance Numbers (1.500.000 Hours MTTF)
- 5 Years Limited Warranty
- Price (For Some)

CONS

- Slight Thermal Throttling (Evident In Our SNIA Tests)
- Current Availability