CES 2013 - Micron and Crucial are ready to unleash terabyte class SSDs using advanced 20nm MLC flash. The Tera Era begins with the new M500 SSD that ships in February and for a price much lower than we expected. Early estimates lead us to believe the new Crucial M500 960GB model will tip up at Newegg and other online e-tailers for just under 600 Dollars.

There are a number of specifications released in the official press release (see below) but we're just going to skim over a few here. The capacity sizes are 120GB, 240GB, 480GB and the big bad wolf model that we will all drool over, 960GB. The M500 brings over provisioning to the Crucial SSD product line, a technique that decreases user capacity in exchange for increases performance stability and product life.

The new drives will also sport hardware-based encryption, data protection against unexpected power loss as well as an adaptive thermal monitoring system. They'll arrive in 2.5-inch form factor as well as M.2 form factors for normal PCs and notebooks as well as next-generation ultra-thin devices.