Crucial P5 NVMe SSD Review (1TB) – PCIe 3.0′ Late Entry to the Ball – The SSD Review

This report examines the Crucial P5 NVMe SSD which has just been released in the past month or so.  It is a bit of an odd duck as we are seeing PCIe 3 SSDs settle with the latest and greatest in PCIe 4.0 entering the market. Historically, Crucial has been known to sit in the weeds with their SSD releases, and perhaps they have such a great reputation for quality and reliability because of such.  Their reputation is one of the best in the business.  Having said that, the Crucial P5 NVMe is Micron/Crucial’s entry ‘top tier’ SSD into the consumer flash storage space.
The Crucial P5 is a M.2 2280 (80mm) form factor SSD that is PCIe 3.0 x4 (four lane) and uses the latest NVMe 1.3 protocol. It is available in capacities of 250GB, 500GB, 1TB and 2TB and we are testing the 1TB version today.  Performance is variable with all capacities reaching 3400MB/s read throughput, however the 250GB version write throughput drops to 1400MB/s while the others sit at 3000MB/s.  As well, the P5’s lifespan starts at 150 TBW (Terabytes Written) which doubles for every capacity jump.
Crucial documentation states that the P5 has dynamic write acceleration, full hardware-based protection, adaptive thermal protection, and a 5-year limited warranty.  MSRP pricing is set at $62.99 (250GB), $86.99 (500GB), $179,99 (1TB) and $399.99 (2TB)
Taking a look at components, it is very encouraging to see that Crucial has developed and gone with an in-house NVMe controller, branded DM01B2; this is there first and it is an 8-channel NVME chip.
There are also two Micron 96-Layer TLC NAND chips, each being 512GB RAW size and a 1GB Micron LPDDR4 DRAM chip.  In short, this SSD is all Micron/Crucial, something we have only ever seen from Samsung in the past.
As a Crucial/Micron SSD client, you are also entitled to two free software packages which are the Crucial Storage Executive (as shown above) and Acronis True Image migration software.
Checking Amazon pricing, we see that at least some of the capacities are available and very close to listed MSRP.

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