Crucial announced the P2 and P5 NVMe SSDs at the same point of time, but we’re going to focus on our Crucial P2 SSD Review today.
The Crucial P2 is Micron’s latest entry-level NVMe SSD. These drives are currently one of the best deals if your motherboard has M.2 slots, and they’re just a bit slower than P5.
The P2 SSD has a low price due to it not having DRAM cache. Although the P1 series that was released a while ago has DRAM cache, the P1 also had a QLC NAND, which has a better life-span, but slower performance.
The P2 series switched over to TLC NAND with a DRAMless solution, the E13T from Phison. The P2 series also utilizes HMB (Host Memory Buffer) technology, similar to the Silicon Motion SM2263XT, which is the first HMB SSD.
Comparing it more to the P1 series, it only comes with a 250GB and 500GB variant, but our sample here is the 250GB. The P2 series is more of a budget buy, and storages are no exception to things where you can cheap out.
So, is this SSD worth your buy? Let’s find out as we first talk about the packaging.
Crucial P2 SSD Packaging
On this part of our Crucial P2 SSD Review, we’ll talk about the packaging. SSDs are durable and lightweight compared to their HDD counterpart, which is a massive mechanical drive that is prone to shake/vibration. Still, a premium company like Crucial has proper packaging.
Looking at the design, you get a grey rectangular box that indicates its capacity on the lower-left side. The Crucial Logo is on the upper-left portion, and at the back, you’ll get the standard installation guide, data software utilization, and available firmware on their website.
There’s a circular tape seal on top which is quite easy to remove. The inside is also simple; you get a plastic clamshell which has your standard 2280 M.2 SSD. The SSD itself will fit most motherboards easily, and it’s a single-sided module.
Crucial P2 SSD Review – Design and Functionality
In this section of our Crucial P2 SSD Review, we’re going to discuss the design/build quality and the functions.
The Crucial P2 SSD offers a reasonable price. It is a single-sided module that provides reliable performance if you’re more of an office person. Shifting from a SATA drive to an NVMe M.2 drive, you can feel the increase in snappiness, so we recommend you get at least the Crucial P2 SSD.
You’re probably going to see these SSDs on ultra-thin laptops that come at $600/$700. Most laptop buyers will focus on office work, thus benefiting them when this SSD comes with it. If you’re gaming or focusing on heavier workloads, you should get the P5 instead.
The size of the 250GB sample that we got comes at a standard 2280 M.2 size, but it applies to any capacity you get. Most motherboards will fit this SSD at ease, and would most likely support the heatsink.
As SSDs slowly replace HDDs, it is also important to note that many SSDs are cheap and have at least 250GB of storage space. If your motherboard supports M.2, you should get one.
Fortunately, the Crucial P2 SSD uses HMB Technology, and it easily replaces the SATA SSD solution. If you’re not in a rush, get the 500GB version. Otherwise, the 250GB is plenty enough to make your PC run faster and snappier.
Key Features of the Crucial P2 SSD
On this part of our Crucial P2 SSD Review, we’re going to provide more information about the features. It is essential to look at the characteristics of an SSD that you’re going to buy, depending on what your primary purpose is.
Cheap, But Fast!
The Crucial P2 SSD offers speeds that beat any SATA SSD, even without having a DRAM cache. It’s safe to say that the Crucial P2 perfectly fits the budget consumers who need fast storage without spending too much. At just $49.99, you’re getting a performance that exceeds even an expensive SATA SSD that has a DRAM.
Power-Efficient
The Crucial P2 SSD supports NVMe Autonomous Power State Transition (APST), enabling multiple power states. Pairing this SSD with a Ryzen system will lessen your electricity bill. In every dollar, this M.2 SSD beats the SATA variants.
Prestigious PCB
The Crucial P2 SSD has a matte black PCB that focuses on modern motherboards. Seeing that most motherboards today also have a matte black PCB, the Crucial P2 SSD perfectly fits it. The black PCB makes electronic parts aesthetically better, and it looks excellent on gaming rigs as well.
Ultra-Affordable NVMe SSD
The Crucial P2 SSD is a weak TLC-based consumer SSD, but it is available as an M.2 NVMe drive, so you should still see a massive improvement with speeds if you were using SATA drives. Installing your Operating System to this SSD is beneficial, and you can put some games on it as well.
Software Support
The Crucial P2 SSD supports the Crucial Storage Executive software. It comes with Crucial’s SSD Toolbox, Storage Executive, and Acronis True Image (Download). These features utilize more performance, as well as firmware updates, security features, and more. If you’re interested in what the software does to your Crucial SSD, click here.
Specifications
In this section of our Crucial P2 SSD Review, we’re going to provide more technical information about the product. Let’s start with the Interface and Form Factor.
The Crucial P2 SSD comes with an interface of PCIe Gen 3 1×4 / NVMe. The form factor is M.2 2280, which is standard on most motherboards nowadays. As of now, there are only two available capacities; 250GB and 500GB.
Digging in with the performance, the Sequential Read supports up to 2300 MB/s, with a Sequential Write of up to 940 MB/s. For data transfer, Crucial recommends you to use their Acronis True Image.
With this software, you can easily clone your drive to backup your pristine Operating System and restore it to its original state anytime.
The Life Expectancy of this Solid-State Drive could be up to 1.5 million hours, as it doesn’t have any mechanism inside. The endurance is up to 150 Total Bytes Written (TBW), which measures how much you can write into the drive throughout its lifetime.
If the item is defective or damaged, Crucial offers a 5-year limited warranty, so you don’t have to worry about its life cycle, but only the files.
Hands-on with the Crucial P2 SSD
This part of our Crucial P2 SSD review focuses on the Crucial Storage Executive software and benchmarks. If you’re curious about the storage speeds, we recommend using CrystalDiskMark.
The Crucial P2 SSD surprised us repeatedly. The read performance of this SSD reaches 2,292 MB/s write speed, with a 1,617 MB/s read speed. This really is a phenomenal performance-to-price ratio.
The Crucial P2 SSD has improved compared to the older P1 series. Moving to TLC NAND with a DRAMless Phison E13T was the right decision. Not only did it make the product cheaper and easier to produce, but it also provided greater speeds.
The Crucial P2 SSD will eliminate SATA SSDs, as the rated speeds are fantastically accurate. They will play a functional role in the market and make SATA SSD manufacturers lower their price, thanks to Crucial. At this point on our Crucial P2 SSD Review, we’re finally going to summarize everything.
Crucial P2 SSD Review Summary
Overall, we were delighted with the product, and we’re looking forward to seeing more consumer products that have low prices but perform more than what you paid.
The P2 is only one step forward from their P1 counterpart, but there’s a massive difference between the two. We’re probably going to see more M.2 SSDs that don’t have DRAMs but perform unexpectedly excellent.
Crucial might add a 1TB model soon, and it’s good to see that they’re making announcements about the capacity. This announcement means that they’re going to replace the P1 model anytime soon, and they’re working on it.
If you’re a gamer and you want fast storage on a budget, this would be a better solution if you came from using a SATA SSD or HDD. But if you have an extra budget to spend, go with the P5 series.
In conclusion, we highly recommend this to everybody that has a motherboard that supports M.2 slots.
Thank you for reading our Crucial P2 SSD Review. If you’re interested in this product, click here to enter Crucial’s official website, as they also offer free shipping.
