SSD by stefan @ 2022-10-18
The P3 2TB SSD from Crucial does perform as advertised and presents itself with good performance figures for an entry-level PCIe 3.0 drive. We are getting here a cost-effective solution with a DRAMless design, the drive using pseudo-SLC inside the packages for caching and we can write on it for quite a bit until the cache runs out but at the same time the temperatures of the flash and controller will raise significantly.
At first we would like to thank Crucial for sending a sample of their P3 2TB PCIe M.2 2280 PCIe 3.0 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.”
Affordable performance
Upgrade your PC with the performance it needs at a price you want. The Crucial P3 NVMe™ SSD delivers load times and data transfers that are 6x faster than SATA drives and 22x faster than HDDs.
Generous storage
With generous capacities up to 4TB3, the Crucial P3 can hold massive amounts of files, documents, photos, videos, games, and apps, with room to spare.
High-quality innovation
Crucial P3 NVMe SSDs are built with high-quality Micron® Advanced 3D NAND, tested and validated to the exacting standards you’ve come to expect from one of the world’s largest manufacturers of flash memory. Want proof? Go check out our award-winning line of SSDs.
Optimized security
SSD management software for performance optimization and firmware updates give the Crucial P3 everything you need for security and peace of mind.
SSD series - P3
Interface - NVMe (PCIe Gen 3 x4)
Capacity - 2 TB
Form factor - M.2 (2280)
Sequential Read - 3500 MB/s
Sequential Write - 3000 MB/s
SSD Endurance (TBW) - 440 Terabytes
Warranty - Limited 5-year
After checking out the P1, P2 and P5 series, it is now time to take a closer look at the P3 series of SSD drives from Crucial. The P3 drive is marketed as an entry-level to mainstream PCIe 3.0 SSD, with capacities starting from 500GB and up to a whopping 4TB and an affordable pricing scheme.
Our 2TB sample has been shipped inside a standard Crucial packaging model, which means that we are dealing with a cardboard enclosure on the outside and a transparent plastic layer on the inside. The top layer also comes with a sealing sticker that incorporates the rated read speeds of the 2TB SKU:
On the back side, we will note the fact that the SSD is backed up with a data transfer software (Acronis), a written instruction guide, but the product also allows firmware updates. The product is also backed up by a limited 5-year warranty given that we do not break the mentioned TBW rating:
As mentioned before, inside the box we will find a transparent protective plastic mold:
Here we will get the guide, the main product but also a fixing screw:
The guide redirects the user to online resources:
Crucial is the only manufacturer we have seen which offers M.2 SSD mounting screws in the box:
The P3 SSD comes with the frontal area of the PCB completely covered by a sticker, carrying the Crucial logo, but also the product logo:
On the back side we will note a lack of extra components, but only two stickers which include the product code name, its serial number, but also its power rating:
After removing the frontal sticker, we did note four NAND ICs, a central controller, and no DRAM cache:
The packages have the 2LC2D NY161 inscription on each of them and these are Micron 3D QLC NAND (176-layer N48R FortisFlash) with 512GB capacity:
For the controller, we do have a Phison PS5021-E21T, which incorporates an ARM 32-bit Cortex-R5 architecture with a single CPU. For caching purposes, it does use HMB (Host Memory Buffer):
The test system did incorporate a Ryzen 5 5600X 6-core CPU, two Trident Z RGB 3200MHz 8GB memory modules with 16-18-18-38 XMP 2.0 timings, a PowerColor Red Dragon Radeon RX 5700 video card but also a Patriot Memory Viper VP4100 PCIe 4.0 SSD ; all these were connected to the BIOSTAR B550GTA motherboard. As a power supply we have chosen a Cooler Master 850W non-modular and the system was running the latest Windows 11 OS build as well.
The drive has arrived unformatted, but for testing purposes, we have formatted it NTFS:
With the help of AIDA64, we could extract more information regarding the drive:
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Before starting the second stage of the tests (over 50% of the drive filled), we have monitored the drive behavior while writing continuously onto it. In IDLE mode, the drive presented itself with two separate temperature sensors, one showing 43 degrees Celsius, while the other 53 degrees Celsius; actually, we are reading the temperature of the NAND Flash (smaller value), while the higher temp is the controller:
The drive write speed started optimally:
After writing about 92 GB of data, we noted Flash at 48 degrees, while the controller jumped to 68 degrees C:
The temperatures increased even further after writing about 177GB, while the transfer rates remained steady:
The controller temp went to about 83 degrees Celsius when having written about 244GB of data, which tells us that in this situation a SSD heatsink is pretty much recommended:
With the stock cooling solution, the controller has reached 89 degrees Celsius, after writing about 418GB of data, while the write speeds remained unchanged!
When reaching 90 degrees Celsius, the drive hit a wall in terms of performance, the write speed dropping significantly, after writing about 491GB of data:
The drive remained in this throttling state and the NAND temp has reached about 71 degrees, while the controller has reached a temp as high as 93 degrees Celsius!
For the test of the test, the temperatures have reached a maximum of 72 degrees for the NAND, while the controller has reached a max of 94 degrees Celsius:
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The P3 2TB SSD from Crucial does perform as advertised and presents itself with good performance figures for an entry-level PCIe 3.0 drive. We are getting here a cost-effective solution with a DRAMless design, the drive using pseudo-SLC inside the packages for caching and we can write on it for quite a bit until the cache runs out but at the same time the temperatures of the flash and controller will raise significantly.
With the drive more than 50% full, the performance is lower, as expected from a QLC-based SKU; this is why we do recommend the P3 as a secondary (storage drive) and not exactly as a boot drive, where you can have a 3D TLC solution, preferably paired with DRAM caching and on a PCIe 4.0 bus.
The HD Tune Pro write workload can show how the write speed can vary, when still having a healthy amount of pseudo SLC available:
The only negative aspect we can remind about this drive is that it tends to be quite hot, so we really recommend using it in a well-ventilated enclosure, and most preferably with an extra heatsink on top, the kind most motherboard manufacturers do use nowadays. With this aspect resolved, we really think that the drive can function well over the advertised TBW, because the risk of having the controller de-soldered after a while (if used frequently for continuous writing of hundreds of GB) is completely eliminated. In regular use scenarios though, the P3 can cool itself quite quickly even with no heatsink attached.
The P3 2TB drive can be now found online for as low as 169 Euros, which a good price for what we are getting.
We would like to thank again to Crucial for making this review possible!
