Crucial P5 1TB 3D NAND NVMe internal SSD up to 3400 MB/s – CT1000P5SSD8 review

Crucial P5 1TB 3D NAND NVMe internal SSD up to 3400 MB/s – CT1000P5SSD8 review

Does it have faster data transfer rate to support gaming? Whether you’re at your desk, in the studio, or in game, the P5 delivers the quality and superior support you’ve come to expect from Crucial. The Crucial P5 SSD delivers impressive speed and fierce data protection with sequential reads up to 3400MB/s. The P5 includes advanced features like dynamic write acceleration, full hardware-based encryption capability, and adaptive thermal protection to help keep your data safe. Find details in Crucial P5 1TB 3D NAND NVMe internal SSD up to 3400 MB/s – CT1000P5SSD8 review.

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Pros & Cons

Pros

  • Micron’s latest 176-layer TLC NAND memory
  • Hardware-based AES 256-bit encryption
  • Available in capacities up to 2TB
  • In-house eight-channel PCIe 4.0 controller
  • Respectable write-durability rating
  • Top-notch results across multiple benchmarks, including speedy sequential throughput
  • Software suite

AGAINST

  • Mediocre 4K random access performance
  • Anomalous 4K write speeds in Crystal DiskMark tests
  • Runs hot and lacks heat spreader

Specs

  • NAND Type TLC
  • Controller Maker Micron
  • Internal or External Internal
  • Rated Maximum Sequential Read 3400 MBps
  • Rated Maximum Sequential Write 3000 MBps
  • Interface (Computer Side) M.2 Type-2280
  • Internal Form Factor M.2 Type-2280
  • Capacity (Tested) 1 TB
  • Bus Type PCI Express 3.0 x4
  • NVMe Support Yes
  • Terabytes Written (TBW) Rating 600 TBW
  • Warranty Length 5 years

Price

The Crucial P5 (starts at $54.99 for the 250GB model, $149.99 for the 1TB as tested) is a new internal PCI Express (PCIe) NVMe M.2 solid-state drive from memory maker Micron Technology. 

The Crucial P5 can be bought directly from Crucial at £51.59 ($54.99), £74.39 ($79.99), £139.19 ($149.99) and £315.59 ($339.99) for the 250GB, 500GB, 1TB and 2TB models, respectively.

Compare Crucial P5 1TB 3D NAND NVMe internal SSD up to 3400 MB/s – CT1000P5SSD8

ProductP5 1TBP5 2TB
Pricing$149.95$339.95
Capacity (User / Raw)1000GB / 1024GB2000GB / 2048GB
Form FactorM.2 2280M.2 2280
Interface / ProtocolPCIe 3.0 x4 / NVMe 1.3PCIe 3.0 x4 / NVMe 1.3
ControllerCrucial NVMe ArchitectureCrucial NVMe Architecture
DRAMLPDDR4LPDDR4
MemoryMicron 96L TLCMicron 96L TLC
Sequential Read3,400 MBps3,400 MBps
Sequential Write3,000 MBps3,000 MBps
Random Read430,000 IOPS
Random Write500,000 IOPS500,000 IOPS
SecurityTCG Opal 2.0, IEEE 1667, eDriveTCG Opal 2.0, IEEE 1667, eDrive
Endurance (TBW)600 TB1,200 TB
Part NumberCT1000P5SSD8CT2000P5SSD8
Warranty5-Years5-Years

Crucial P5 1TB 3D NAND NVMe internal SSD up to 3400 MB/s – CT1000P5SSD8 review

Design

measures 17x17mm, which is quite large compared to Phison’s E12 and especially the E12S, measuring 16x16mm and 12x12mm, respectively. The reasoning for the size becomes apparent when we dig down deeper into the architecture. 

Components

Crucial’s P5 comes in an M.2 2280 single-sided form factor at all capacities. With all components on a single side of the PCB, the P5 is compatible with almost any mobile device that fits an M.2 2280 NVMe SSD. The finish quality on the P5’s black PCB is very good too.

DRAM

Crucial outfits the 1TB P5 with a 1GB Micron LPDDR4 2,133 MHz DRAM chip to buffer FTL mapping tables and ensure consistent performance. The company also throws in Micron’s latest 96L TLC flash; however, this is only on the 1TB and 2TB models. 

Read & write speed in Crucial P5 1TB 3D NAND NVMe internal SSD up to 3400 MB/s – CT1000P5SSD8

Crucial’s P5 comes in capacities of 250GB up to 2TB, and current street prices range from $0.15-$0.22 per GB. Crucial says the P5 delivers sequential performance of up to 3.4 /3 GBps read/write as well as up to 430,000 / 500,000 random read/write IOPS when hammered to the max.  All capacities can hit the read spec, but write performance degrades as capacity decreases. At the 500GB capacity point, write performance is rated for up to 1.4 GBps. 

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with our own custom blocks of data. Our 50GB data set includes 31,227 files of various types, like pictures, PDFs, and videos. Our 100GB includes 22,579 files, with 50GB of them being large movies. We copy the data sets to new folders and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly written 6.5GB zip file and 15GB movie file.

Data encryption

Crucial’s P5 comes with AES 256-bit hardware encryption supporting the TCG Opal 2.0 and IEEE 1667 feature set and is also configurable with Windows BitLocker since it is eDrive-compliant. 

Game

Next up is a game-launching trace set, which simulates how quickly a drive can read shallow-depth small random 4K packages. Note: 4K is one of the more commonly used file-block sizes for game installations, though that file-block-size tendency does depend on the title you’re playing. That said, 4K small random read is the most accurate block-size metric relevant to these three popular FPS titles: Battlefield 5, Overwatch, and Call of Duty: Black Ops 4.

Crucial P5 1TB 3D NAND NVMe internal SSD up to 3400 MB/s – CT1000P5SSD8 customer review

Speedy little drive

I used the Crucial P5 to replace a slower NVME drive in my laptop. I don’t think my system is allowing it to use its full bandwidth, but it’s about twice as fast regardless.

Installation was a bit of a bear. I have only one NVME slot in my laptop, and so I had to use an external USB enclosure to clone my data. Crucial offers a free version of Arconis TrueImage (as a download from their website) that’s designed to work with their drives, but it only appears to detect drives connected directly to a computer’s NVME slot, so if you’re trying to transfer from an old NVME drive using an external connector, you may have to seek out a different solution.

Once I got the drive cloned and installed, everything went smooth. My benchmarks don’t put it quite at what the specified claims are (and I never expected they would) it’s still very fast and significantly faster than the drive it replaced. Windows 10 cold-boots in about six seconds now.

This comes very close to the speed of a top-end competitor, and I highly recommend it. Just be aware of potential issues when trying to clone data using an external enclosure and the provided software.

By Cryos at Best Buy

Alternate of Crucial P5 1TB 3D NAND NVMe internal SSD up to 3400 MB/s – CT1000P5SSD8

 Crucial MX500

Specs

Capacity: 250GB, 500GB, 1TB, 2TBController: Silicon Motion SM2258Memory: Micron TLCInterface: SATA 6GbpsSeq. read: 560 MB/sSeq. write: 510 MB/s

Pros

+One of the fastest SATA drives+Competitive price per GB

Cons

-Low endurance rating for heavy data writes-Slow compared to any NMVe SSD

It seems strange that the Crucial MX500 is the only SATA drive left on our list of the best SSDs for gaming, but when the price delta between PCIe and SATA is so small, it’s difficult to make an argument for the far slower technology. But, as there is a hard limit on the number of M.2 slots on your motherboard, there is still a place for SATA SSDs as secondary storage.

It will happily function as a boot drive on systems with no M.2 sockets, or at least no bootable M.2 sockets anyway. You will still be missing out on the zippy response of your operating system running on the SSD-specific NVMe protocol, but if that’s not an option anyway, this drive will see you right. 

And the Crucial MX500 is one of the best. With SATA’s maximum theoretical bandwidth limit of 600MB/s, it’s nearly as quick as you’ll get, and Crucial’s drives have long been among the best-value options available too. This is the most affordable 1TB SATA drive you can pick up and make a great second home for your Steam and Epic libraries.

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