INTRODUCTION

   Due to their impressive read & write performance (always compared to mechanical drives and SATA based SSDs), small form factor and several price reductions in 2020 PCIe M.2 NVMe drives currently lead the market in terms of storage media sales. Just like in the past with 2.5" SATA models however entry to mid-level DRAM-less PCIe M.2 NVMe SSDs are clearly outperforming their faster brothers when it comes to sales numbers (higher price/performance ratio, at least for "basic" consumer use) so it's no surprise really that manufacturers have been focusing quite a bit in the release of such models. One such model is the P2 by Crucial released in late 2020 and today with me i have the 2TB capacity model.

   Crucial is a global brand of Micron Technology, Inc. Crucial solid-state drives (SSDs) and memory (DRAM) upgrades are compatible with over 100,000 new and old desktops, laptops, workstations and servers. Crucial Ballistix gaming memory delivers a performance edge to gamers and enthusiasts and enhances the overall PC gaming experience. Available worldwide at leading retail and e-tail stores, commercial resellers and system integrators, Crucial products enhance system performance and user productivity. Learn more at www.crucial.com.

   The P2 model was released by Crucial last year with a single goal in mind, to surpass their very popular P1 model (review here) at pretty much the same price point. To that end Crucial has equipped the entire P2 line of M.2 NVMe SSDs (currently available in 250GB/500GB/1TB/2TB capacities) with the DRAM-less E13T (PS5013-E13) NAND flash controller by Phison together with 96-layer 3D TLC NAND flash by Micron. The E13T is a 4-channel, single core NAND flash controller which supports various technologies including dynamic write acceleration (SLC pseudo-cache), host memory buffer (HMB), end-to-end data path protection, smartECC (RAID ECC), redundant array of independent NAND (RAIN), thermal monitoring, TRIM, integrated power loss immunity, active garbage collection, AES-256 encryption and TCG Pyrite/OPAL support (Toggle 3.0 and ONFi 4.0 are also supported). Crucial covers the entire like with a 5-year limited warranty and reports an MTBF of 1.5 million hours across all models along with a TBW of 150 for the 250/500GB models, 300 for the 1TB model and 600 for the 2TB model. Needless to say, i don't expect the P2 model to reach the performance numbers recorded by the P5 model so the only question that remains is what kind of performance can one expect.