SSD by stefan @ 2020-09-10
The P5 SSD from Crucial is quite impressive for a mainstream drive in terms of performance and even if it integrates TLC NAND, it can sustain high transfer rates for longer versus the budget oriented P2. After exhausting the 93GB of SLC cache, the transfer rate will drop to about 285MB/s, which is still more than we have seen with mechanical drives of the same size (2.5’’).
At first we would like to thank Crucial for sending a sample of their P5 1TB PCIe M.2 2280 SSD for testing and reviewing.
“Looking for computer memory or a new storage drive? You've come to the right place!
Crucial is a global brand of Micron Technology, Inc., one of the largest memory and flash storage manufacturers in the world. We make computer memory upgrades (DRAM) and solid state drives (SSDs), and offer more than 250,000 upgrades for over 50,000 systems. For 17 years, we've sought to provide the Crucial Difference — award-winning products, outstanding support, and a team of memory and storage experts who explain complex lingo in everyday terms. We're here to help improve the performance of your system.
Crucial memory and SSDs have been qualified and approved by major original equipment manufacturers, and every single module that leaves our doors has been rigorously tested at the component and module level. That's a big deal in the memory industry, but it's not all. When it comes to our SSDs, each drive undergoes over a thousand hours of prerelease validation testing and hundreds of qualification tests to ensure optimal reliability and performance.
To find upgrades in just a few clicks, our award-winning Crucial System Scanner or Crucial Memory Advisor™ tool will identify compatible upgrades for your system, and if you order on Crucial.com, we guarantee compatibility — or your money back. With fast and free shipping, outstanding tech support, and an exhaustive library of articles, videos, and install guides, we make it easy to find and install the right upgrade for your system.
Let us be your memory and storage experts.”
Seamless Performance
With the P5, operating systems and apps open quickly, and games load as soon as you’re ready to spawn.
Conquer Expectations
The Crucial P5 combines 3D NAND and cutting-edge controller technology for fierce read/write speeds up to 3400/3000MB/s, pushing the limits of PCIe® Gen 3 NVMe™.
Security
Capable of enhancing data security and management with rapid, full-drive encryption, helping protect your data without performance degradation.
Life Cycle - New
Brand - Crucial
SSD series - P5
Warranty - Manufacturer's 5 Year Limited
Form factor - m2_2280
Sequential Read - 3400 MB/s
Capacity - 1TB
Sequential Write - 3000 MB/s
Interface - PCIe G3 1x4 / NVMe
Specs - 1TB M.2 SSD • PCIe NVMe Gen 3 • 3400 MB/s Read, 3000 MB/s Write
In this article we will concentrate our look at the Crucial P5 NVMe SSD, which is based on Micron’s in-house controller and utilizes the PCI-E x4 3.0 interface. This is no longer a DRAMless design and ai aimed to deliver more performance versus the P1 and P2 series we have reviewed previously. The extra cache besides the SLC does help the drive to keep sustained write speeds for longer and given the higher rated speeds, the P5 is no longer a part of the entry-level offerings but can be considered as a mainstream product.
The product is shipped inside a very compact cardboard enclosure, with the usual color scheme we have seen from Crucial in the past as well:
In the back, the manufacturer highlights that the product arrives with a five-year warranty, but also shows some link for various online resources:
Inside the box, we will find the main product, protected inside a transparent plastic mold but also the installation leaflet:
The mentioned leaflet is written in multiple languages and does guide us to access web resources instead:
The frontal area of the PCB does feature a large sticker with the company brand name, but also the product name and form factor:
On the back area we won’t find other components, but only a sticker that highlights the total storage capacity of the drive, the compatible bus, the power rating, the internal code name, currently flashed firmware and more!
By removing the top sticker, we will reveal the two NAND packages, the DRAM cache but also the main controller:
The NAND packages are 96-layer 3D TLC, made by Micron and have a capacity of 512GB:
The included RAM chip is rated DDR4-4266 and has a total capacity of 1GB; the fast memory helps by storing the mapping tables:
The included controller has a pre-installed HSF and is a Micron proprietary design; this one does have eight channels and does support TLC and SLC caching:
CPU: Intel I5 9700K Retail
CPU Cooler: Deepcool Captain 240 EX RGB AIO
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z370 AORUS Ultra Gaming
RAM: Patriot Memory Viper RGB Series DDR4
Video: KFA2 GeForce GTX 1060 OC 6GB
Power Supply: Cooler Master 850W
SSD: OCZ Vector 150
Case: Cooler Master ATCS 840
The drive has arrived unformatted:
For testing purposes, we have formatted it NTFS; here is the total remaining free space afterwards:
With the help of AIDA64, we could extract more information regarding the drive:
Blank SSD
Blank SSD
Blank SSD
Blank SSD
Blank SSD
Blank SSD
Blank SSD
Filled SSD
Filled SSD
Filled SSD
Filled SSD
Filled SSD
Filled SSD
Filled SSD
The P5 SSD from Crucial is quite impressive for a mainstream drive in terms of performance and even if it integrates TLC NAND, it can sustain high transfer rates for longer versus the budget oriented P2. After exhausting the 93GB of SLC cache, the transfer rate will drop to about 285MB/s, which is still more than we have seen with mechanical drives of the same size (2.5’’).
In order to illustrate the write speed behavior, we have erased the partition from the drive and ran a full instance of the HD Tune Pro utility and the results are as follows:
While the 1TB drive can be found online for about 140 Euros, in case we need more storage space we can also aim for the 2TB model, which can be had for about 300 Euros. At the time of the review, the 1TB model has a better price per GB.
We would like to thank again to Crucial for making this review possible!