INTRODUCTION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   2.5 inch SATA III SSDs (solid state drives) may still hold the highest sales number (as mentioned many times before in our reviews this is largely due to their compatibility with older systems) but thanks to the NVMe breakthrough roughly two years ago M.2 drives may turn that around sooner than we had initially thought. This is not a surprise of course since the consumer market is slowly but steadily getting flooded with M.2 NVMe models by virtually every storage manufacturer regardless of size and market share. Of course at the same time NAND controller and NAND flash manufacturers frequently launch new products in order to keep up with demand for high-performance, durability and low-cost SSD lines. Crucial was pretty much the last large manufacturer to enter the consumer NVMe market with their recently released P1 model and so today we're testing the 1TB variant.

   Crucial.com is a leading online retailer specializing in computer memory (RAM) and solid state drives (SSD), and is operated by a subsidiary of Micron Technology, Inc., one of the world's leading manufacturers of computer memory products. Crucial.com offers more than 250,000 compatible products for nearly every computer system: home and business, old and new, PC and Mac® computers. Utilizing a suite of easy-to-use, free online tools, including the Crucial® System Scanner and the Crucial Memory Advisor™ tool, crucial.com makes it easy to find a compatible upgrade to improve computer performance and restore system reliability.

   The P1 is the very first consumer oriented M.2 NVMe model released by Crucial (currently available in 500GB/1TB/2TB capacities) and uses the SM2263EN quad channel high-performance PCIe Gen3 x4 controller (NVMe v1.3 protocol) by Silicon Motion along with Micron's 64-layer 3D QLC NAND flash and 1GB LPDDR3 RAM again by Micron. The Silicon Motion SM2263EN quad channel controller may not be their fastest one to date (the SM2262EN holds that spot currently) but it still offers sequential read and write numbers of up to 2400-1700 MB/s and random read and write IOPS of up to 300-250K (the P1 1TB however is advertised with read/write performance numbers of up to 2000-1700MB/s and read/write IOPS of 170-240k). The SM2263EN also supports several technologies including NANDXtend (error-correcting with data protection), end to end data protection with SRAM ECC, S.M.A.R.T, TRIM, NCQ, thermal-throttling, active garbage collection, DevSleep (device sleep), SLC write acceleration (algorithms for optimal sustained performance - depending on free space up to 100GB is used as SLC cache), AES-256bit hardware encryption and TCG Opal. Crucial also reports an MTTF of 1.5 million hours and write endurance numbers of 100TBW for the 500GB model, 200TBW for the 1TB model and 400TBW for the 2TB model (all models are covered by a 5 year limited warranty).

 

 

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We received the P1 1TB inside the usual blue and white box Crucial has also been using for their 2.5” SSDs so just the capacity, company logo and drive name are printed at the front.

 

 

Some of the bonuses of having a Crucial drive are printed at the rear of the box right over the 5 year warranty logo.

 

 

Along with the P1 NVMe M.2 SSD you'll also receive a quick start guide.

 

 

THE P1 1TB

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The P1 1TB is a single side NVMe M.2 2280 SSD model so all of the modules are located on the top side.

 

 

Once again a large sticker (unfortunately not a copper one) placed at the top contains information like the drive capacity, serial and part numbers, barcodes, electrical requirements and several certifications.

 

 

Since this is a single side model no modules are placed on the opposite side (this side is occupied by NAND flash and DRAM modules on the 2TB variant).

 

 

Removing the sticker reveals 2 Micron 64-layer 3D QLC NAND flash modules (each 512GB in capacity), the Silicon Motion SM2263EN quad channel controller and a 1GB LPDDR3 RAM module.

 

 

TEST BED

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TESTING METHODOLOGY

   After almost 10 years of testing solid state drives we’ve concluded that it's almost impossible for any single benchmark suite to accurately measure their performance and that's why in certain benchmark suites we see amazing read/write performance numbers with some drives while in others things are quite different. The reason behind this is that some benchmarking suites are configured to read and write random chunks of data while others read and write constant (sequential) ones. So that's why i always use a very wide selection of benchmarking suites including AIDA64, HD Tach RW, HD Tune Pro, Crystal Disk Mark, Sisoftware Sandra Pro, AS SSD, IOmeter and ATTO. To get the most accurate results each test gets repeated a total of 6 times with the average performance numbers recorded into our charts*. Also as of February 25th 2015 our results will also include the Storage Networking Industry Association’s (SNIA) IOMeter tests. These tests include a 12 Hour write test used to “simulate” performance degradation over time and a mixed workload test which basically shows what you can expect when using an SSD continuously for roughly two hours. Unfortunately due to the time required for these tests we repeat them a total of 3 times and not 6 as the above.

   Many people have made inquiries about our charts in the past so once again please do keep in mind that the Charts have the average performance numbers of each drive recorded and not the peak (highest) ones. Also although every single one of these programs can help potential buyers choose the right drive for their needs you should also remember that from any kind of benchmark up to real world usage the gap is not small (and usually most differences will go unnoticed by most people). All tests were performed in a fresh Windows 10 Pro x64 installation with every update installed up to December 6th 2018.

* Since November 2018 our SSD comparison charts have been divided to 2.5” and M.2 ones to reduce their growing size.

 

 

 

TEST RESULTS - AIDA64 / ATTO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TEST RESULTS - HD TACH RW / HD TUNE PRO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TEST RESULTS - SISOFTWARE SANDRA PRO / CRYSTAL DISK MARK X64

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TEST RESULTS – AS SSD / IOMETER

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TEST RESULTS – IOMETER SNIA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   The P1 SSD by Crucial may be their very first consumer oriented M.2 NVMe model to hit the market but they were actually planning to release another model last year which let’s just say that it didn’t live up to their expectations (performance-wise) so they decided to skip on that and go full throttle for the P1 instead. Of course as you can all see from our charts the P1 is far from the fastest M.2 NVMe model in the market today (surprisingly enough thermal throttling was not much of an issue with the P1) but thanks to its SLC cache algorithms and SM2263EN controller it’s quite faster compared to for example the A1000 by Kingston. That being said the SLC cache algorithms Crucial has used with the P1 are a double edged sword since its performance numbers decrease the more you fill the drive with data so although when empty up to 100GB can be used by those SLC algorithms that number can get down to 13GB. That being said even when full the drive is still just as fast as the A1000 by Kingston and much faster than the MX500 again by Crucial so things are quite balanced. On top of that add its 5 year limited warranty, 1.8 million hours MTTF and 200TBW endurance number and the P1 1TB M.2 NVMe could be the ideal choice for non-demanding consumers.

   Whether or not the P1 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD by Crucial is a good choice for non-demanding consumers however also largely depends on cost and with a current price tag set at USD169.99 inside the USA (Amazon) and 177.10Euros inside the EU (Amazon DE) we fell it is. Granted it may not be able to match the performance of other higher-end models like the MP510 by CORSAIR (not many can currently) but it offers a very good price/capacity/performance ratio and for that the P1 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD by Crucial gets our Golden Award.

PROS

- Very Good Overall Performance
- Endurance Numbers (200TBW / 1.5 Million Hours MTTF)
- Crucial Storage Executive Software
- 5 Years Limited Warranty
- Available In 2TB
- Price (For Some)

CONS

- Thermal Throttling (Although Not Very Evident In Our Review)
- SLC Cache Algorithms (Performance Largely Dependant On Free Space)