Crucial P3 PCIe Gen3 NVMe M.2 SSD - 4TB

Bought a 1tb secondary ssd when my external hdd started to fail. Price was good and managed to save my project in time. Awdit had a better price than other places and option to pay with klarna so it's saved me alot of hassle. Came just in time to save my 6 month long project from the eHdd just before it gave up completely. Not sure if they sell sodimm ddr4 ram but that's what I'm looking for next so I'll be looking on awd it first as they're a worthy pc shop. Later I might buy a custom PC build from them too or the kit to build my own which im sure theyll even provide advice about if i tell them my needs and budget to achieve them. Decent shop would reccomend and buy from them whenever they have what I need. 5/5

Crucial SSD 1 TD

This product was purchased to install on the Satechi USB/SSD hub for MacMini/MacStudio to supplant the storage. In my case a M2 Pro MacMini. Included along with the SSD blade is a handy mini screwdriver and screw to secure the SSD in place inside the housing of hub. Though I was prompted to use the SSD as a TimeMachine backup. I instead used disk utility for use as a drive to offload files onto. I noticed that disk utility displayed the name of the SSD as being Realtech not Crucial so don’t be too alarmed. Plus, the SSD was on sale, there’s that too consider. Highly recommend!

Crucial makes it as easy as possible

If you’re looking at this review, I’ll assume you already know the advantages of SSD drives as an upgrade. With the prices and selections being somewhat close amongst vendors you’re probably looking at specs, reliability, and support to help differentiate and help you make a choice.I’ll always look around; there’s no reason not to be an educated consumer these days. But when it comes to RAM and SSD, I go with Crucial whenever possible. Their specs are usually better (or at the least, comparable) with the competition and I’ve experienced their reliability firsthand – both as a consumer and as a former IT head and consultant.But where Crucial shines even brighter is their support. From the very beginning, their site makes it easy to choose and check compatibility ... MoreIf you’re looking at this review, I’ll assume you already know the advantages of SSD drives as an upgrade. With the prices and selections being somewhat close amongst vendors you’re probably looking at specs, reliability, and support to help differentiate and help you make a choice.I’ll always look around; there’s no reason not to be an educated consumer these days. But when it comes to RAM and SSD, I go with Crucial whenever possible. Their specs are usually better (or at the least, comparable) with the competition and I’ve experienced their reliability firsthand – both as a consumer and as a former IT head and consultant.But where Crucial shines even brighter is their support. From the very beginning, their site makes it easy to choose and check compatibility BEFORE you buy. They list specs, but more importantly they EXPLAIN the specs and why they’re important.The landing page for this particular product is clearly laid out, with a compatibility checker right at the beginning of the page. In the support links, you can find links to step by step video/text tutorial section for the specific product you’re looking at to help you to install and setup your new item with truly easy to follow instructions and prep. For drive install like this one, they even offer a branded version of Acronis True Image (a product I use for my own daily backups) to allow you to clone your old drive and restore it to the new one – again, with great instructional content. This is SO important when you’re looking for ways to differentiate between different companies. You know they’ll be there to back up their product.As far as this particular drive, I was impressed with the speed and capacity as well as the listed MTTF of 1.5 million hours. MTTF is an ESTIMATE, calculated as the number of hours powered on per year divided by the annual failure rate. Assuming it’s powered on 100% of the time, this would roughly equate to a test with 1000 drives running for 6 months straight with about 3 drives ending up failing. Pretty solid for a server, let alone the average desktop! I’ve installed mine as a boot drive in a Dell Inspiron 3910 that I have set up as home lab server, running virtual machines. An SSD is a perfect choice for tasks like this, but even a desktop home office user or a gamer would benefit from this upgrade.If I had to really search for any kind of a complaint – and I mean I’m really digging here – is that the mounting screw Crucial supplies for NVMe drives never seems to work. The head of the screw isn’t quite a wide enough diameter. Not sure why this is but the 3-4 installs I’ve done have been upgrades so I simply used the screw from the original installation. But if you’re adding a new drive, you might want to check; in a lot of cases the manufacturers have a screw in the mount even if there’s not a drive installed. Maybe it’s just me, but I HAVE run into this in the past.To reiterate, that’s me reaching. Otherwise, I’d highly recommend not only this particular drive (which is running great in my server), but also Crucial’s other drives and RAM products.

Easy to install and amazing performance!

This ssd is exactly what my aging home theater PB build needed! I built my own HTPC about 7 years ago with top of the line at the time everything, Intel Extreme core I7 processor, 500 GB Solid State drive Sata 6 GBs, X99 chipset motherboard, and Nvidia 960 Graphics card. I built it to play 4k video when 4k was first coming out and there were no players or disks on the market yet. The only place you could get 4k was online. Well that PC has served me awesomely, and I'm still running it in my living room today. Only thing is it started to slow down... and the new computers and programs coming out now really show how old my used to be top of the line computer has become. So I started looking around for ways to refresh and upgrade it instead of replacing it. Well it ... MoreThis ssd is exactly what my aging home theater PB build needed! I built my own HTPC about 7 years ago with top of the line at the time everything, Intel Extreme core I7 processor, 500 GB Solid State drive Sata 6 GBs, X99 chipset motherboard, and Nvidia 960 Graphics card. I built it to play 4k video when 4k was first coming out and there were no players or disks on the market yet. The only place you could get 4k was online. Well that PC has served me awesomely, and I'm still running it in my living room today. Only thing is it started to slow down... and the new computers and programs coming out now really show how old my used to be top of the line computer has become. So I started looking around for ways to refresh and upgrade it instead of replacing it. Well it turns out that the mother board I have supports M.2 PCIE 3 so I started looking around for a nice new M.2 ssd to install and help refresh my aging PC. The Crucial P3 2TB PCIe 3.0 NVMe M.2 2280 SSD fit the bill perfectly. All I had to do was unplug my PC, open the cover, install the M.2 drive into the slot on the motherboard, tighten one mounting screw, and it was installed, just that easy. Put the cover back on, signed onto Crucials' website, and followed their instructions for how to get it set up and to clone my original hard drive and switch to the Crucial as the primary boot drive. I could tell it was fast by the fact that I was able to clone my 500 GB Solid state sata 6 drive onto the Crucial drive in less than an hour... It was actually closer to 30 minutes, but it went so fast I actually didn't notice it was done until a while after it finished. After setting my PC up to boot off of the M.2 drive, I could imediately notice programs opening and closing slightly faster, files transfer faster by a lot, I might be imagining it, but even the internet pages seem to load and respond more quickly! All from a simple hard drive upgrade. I'm super impressed! I ran some benchmarks, and the hard drive scores are off the charts, and I ran the Tomb Raider Shadow gaming benchmark, at 1080p previously the best this PC could muster was 34 FPS average on the benchmark suite, but now It's pulling 39 FPS average, and the minimum frame rates came way up, so even though it's not that much faster average, it's much smoother and less jumpy. Overall a big improvement in playability. I could go on and on singing the praises for this hard drive, I highly recommend it to anyone!

Good balance of capacity and reliable performance

I have used Crucial memory (RAM) in the past on several computers and have never had an issue. The Crucial website has also always been helpful in verifying that I am getting the right type of memory or drive (form factor/specs) that will be compatible with my computer. The Crucial P3 2TB has good performance, runs cool with an inexpensive heatsink (see my install note below) and is a good value for the capacity it offers.I have a good size collection of games. My original hard drive on my ASUS ROG M16 GUGU603HE filled up quickly and I added a 1TB drive in the second M2 slot. Recently my daughter has taken an interest in gaming and 1TB started to seem pretty small. This Crucial P3 2TB drive should give us both room to grow without having to uninstall and reinstall ... MoreI have used Crucial memory (RAM) in the past on several computers and have never had an issue. The Crucial website has also always been helpful in verifying that I am getting the right type of memory or drive (form factor/specs) that will be compatible with my computer. The Crucial P3 2TB has good performance, runs cool with an inexpensive heatsink (see my install note below) and is a good value for the capacity it offers.I have a good size collection of games. My original hard drive on my ASUS ROG M16 GUGU603HE filled up quickly and I added a 1TB drive in the second M2 slot. Recently my daughter has taken an interest in gaming and 1TB started to seem pretty small. This Crucial P3 2TB drive should give us both room to grow without having to uninstall and reinstall games just to play them again. It is an inexpensive investment given how much I have invested in my game library (both time and money).(((Installation)))This was an easy DIY project with a inexpensive electronics tool kit I purchased online. It is a nice touch that Crucial includes the hold down screw in case your computer does not have one or it gets lost. To keep the drive cool I purchased a kit made for M2 drives that includes a flat copper heat sink and gel silica (thermal) pads with a few different thicknesses. The top of the drive is not perfectly flat (there is a high spot in the middle) so I did remove a small amount of the silica pad so that the ridged copper heat sink would sit level. Since I am using this for game storage, I formatted the drive as one volume using Windows Disk management.(((Performance)))Crucial does offer software to help monitor and manage their drive, but already had CrystalDisk(Info & Mark) installed so I used it to run a few test and check temperatures. Performance is right on what is stated in the Crucial specs (max read for me was 3478MB/s and write was 3029MB/s). It is a little slower than my old 1TB drive based on the test results (about 3%), but I did not notice any difference in real world use and it is twice the size. I was really impressed with how cool it runs, which was a struggle for my old drive (with the same heat sink). At idle it stays in the mid to high 30s (C). After running 2 CrystalDiskMark 1GB tests and moving 380GB data (read and write) the drive temperature peaked out around 52C.

Good, reliable storage

I got this drive to get some extra storage for my laptop, which travels with me pretty much everywhere I go. Right away I'll make this clear: It is not built for setting benchmark records or storing every movie you've watched since 2013. And it doesn't need to be. It's a no frills, efficient upgrade.And I'm thrilled because of that.It doesn't ask too much of my laptop's battery, it doesn't kick out an uncomfortable amount of waste heat, and it didn't break the bank. And if we're honest with ourselves, that's all we really need from our computers 99% of the time. And it's especially desirable in a laptop, since the best 4th generation drives can rarely deliver their best performance in a laptop chassis and the 5th generation designs making their way out probably ... MoreI got this drive to get some extra storage for my laptop, which travels with me pretty much everywhere I go. Right away I'll make this clear: It is not built for setting benchmark records or storing every movie you've watched since 2013. And it doesn't need to be. It's a no frills, efficient upgrade.And I'm thrilled because of that.It doesn't ask too much of my laptop's battery, it doesn't kick out an uncomfortable amount of waste heat, and it didn't break the bank. And if we're honest with ourselves, that's all we really need from our computers 99% of the time. And it's especially desirable in a laptop, since the best 4th generation drives can rarely deliver their best performance in a laptop chassis and the 5th generation designs making their way out probably can't even fit anyway.Only one warning: like most NVMe drives these days, it does not come with a mounting screw. Unfortunately, these days neither do all laptops. I keep spares on hand so I was fine, but you might want to check if you need one before you order so as to avoid having to disassemble your laptop more than you'd planned!

NVME PCIE3.0 SSD 2TB of space and great speed

The crucial P3 NVME SSD is a PCIE 3.0 compatible device I have the 2 TB version. This drive is capable of 3500 mb/s read and 3000mb/s write according to crucial. The drive comes well packaged in a crucial branded box with a plastic carrier for the drive and brief instructions with links to download Acronis true image cloning software and Crucial drive executive software which allows firmware updates, over provisioning and microns own cache to speed up drive access.I used this drive in my Dell G15 running Windows 11 to replace the OEM 500gb drive. Although this laptop has 2 SSD slots I used an SSD enclosure with USB C cable to clone the drive so I could duplicate the process that people would have with only 1 slot. You should go into Windows drive manager or the ... MoreThe crucial P3 NVME SSD is a PCIE 3.0 compatible device I have the 2 TB version. This drive is capable of 3500 mb/s read and 3000mb/s write according to crucial. The drive comes well packaged in a crucial branded box with a plastic carrier for the drive and brief instructions with links to download Acronis true image cloning software and Crucial drive executive software which allows firmware updates, over provisioning and microns own cache to speed up drive access.I used this drive in my Dell G15 running Windows 11 to replace the OEM 500gb drive. Although this laptop has 2 SSD slots I used an SSD enclosure with USB C cable to clone the drive so I could duplicate the process that people would have with only 1 slot. You should go into Windows drive manager or the equivalent on a Mac and initialize the drive first so it will be recognized. I did not use the Acronis true image as I read some people had issues with it, instead I used a free third party utility to clone the drive. I also expanded the C drive partition with another utility because my drive had multiple partitions.I shut down the computer, removed the old SSD as I wanted to use it in my new USB enclosure as an external drive and installed the crucial P3 in its place. Some computers like mine have a 2230 size drive and this is a 2280 and involve moving a bracket or if you have a second SSD slot purchasing a bracket as a lot of laptops don't include these so check before if this is your plan or you will be waiting for your new bracket to arrive in the mail! On reboot the computer booted up correctly I installed the Crucial drive executive software to check if a firmware update was necessary but it was up to date. I did not over provision the drive or install the extra cache as Windows 11 is optimized to use this type of drive and these 3rd party cache applications tend to be less stable and cause problems.Drive performance was great. I have attached the images of the windows benchmarks.This was a great upgrade giving me a lot more space and improving the drive speed great for gaming and video editing as well as general computer use. This drive gives an impressive amount of space with excellent real use speed it is not the fastest but is fast enough to please most users.

The coolest running nVMe on the market.

OK so we all know there may be faster SSDs on the market but currently there's no cooler running SSD on the market then the P3 family. Go ahead and look up independent tests and they'll tell you that at idle these things barely register above room temperature and they do thermally throttle correctly, that is to say they don't go into near explosion overheated then throttle they throttle a reasonable temperature and still give good consistent performance. Now why would you care about this on a modern system? Tablets and laptops is the answer. Most tablets and laptops do not have heat sinks or very good Silicone material to wick heat away from their SSDs. Because of this you're going to be prone to SSD overheat and failure in smaller embedded devices that don't have ... MoreOK so we all know there may be faster SSDs on the market but currently there's no cooler running SSD on the market then the P3 family. Go ahead and look up independent tests and they'll tell you that at idle these things barely register above room temperature and they do thermally throttle correctly, that is to say they don't go into near explosion overheated then throttle they throttle a reasonable temperature and still give good consistent performance. Now why would you care about this on a modern system? Tablets and laptops is the answer. Most tablets and laptops do not have heat sinks or very good Silicone material to wick heat away from their SSDs. Because of this you're going to be prone to SSD overheat and failure in smaller embedded devices that don't have supplied heat sinks. The fastest performing SSD devices on the market require large active cooling solutions. This one does not. And I will personally say that from the speeds I've witnessed I don't know why any regular Person would need any faster speed for the current Windows 11 or MacOS platforms. Unless you're doing a large amount of video encoding or special gaming this SSD is going to be very fast and you will be pleased with its overall performance and reliability. The heat is the answer. These things have an incredibly low idle power consumption and as stated above they have some of the best thermal throttling on the market currently. Yes you sacrifice a little speed but I'd happily sacrifice a little speed for reliability. Also the crucial management software, well not the best, works just fine with this in a tablet and properly upgraded its firmware and was able to manage it even as the primary boot device. If you don't have an active cooling solution ready this is the chip you want. If you do have an active cooling solution go ahead and buy a faster chip and enjoy it.

Upgraded a Lenovo AIO from 500GB to 2TB

I bought a Lenovo AIO recently. Nice PC but only had a 500GB M.2 SSD. I bought this Crucial 2TB and installed it today.I used the Acronis software from Crucial to clone the smaller M.2 drive to the new 2TB SSD.It took two tries to clone successfully, but 2nd try was the charm, and the process took less than an hour.Then I removed the back panel on the computer. The photo shows the AIO opened up and ready to expose the motherboard and swap out the M.2 drive.After reassembly, the computer coughed and failed to start Windows 11, but Lenovo and Windows provided multiple options to fix the problem.After I deleted two recent Windows Updates, hurray! Success!This drive is not the fastest M.2 that Crucial makes, but the computer is basically a home workstation, ... MoreI bought a Lenovo AIO recently. Nice PC but only had a 500GB M.2 SSD. I bought this Crucial 2TB and installed it today.I used the Acronis software from Crucial to clone the smaller M.2 drive to the new 2TB SSD.It took two tries to clone successfully, but 2nd try was the charm, and the process took less than an hour.Then I removed the back panel on the computer. The photo shows the AIO opened up and ready to expose the motherboard and swap out the M.2 drive.After reassembly, the computer coughed and failed to start Windows 11, but Lenovo and Windows provided multiple options to fix the problem.After I deleted two recent Windows Updates, hurray! Success!This drive is not the fastest M.2 that Crucial makes, but the computer is basically a home workstation, not used for gaming.The price was great, too. Less than Crucial's OEM price, and the drive was in stock at BH Photo.BTW, I bought the drive through the Guest checkout process, but then I created a BH Photo account and was able to view the FedEx shipping status. Even though it was ground shipping, I got the drive in only 3 days.

Very Slow After 20% or so Written

I bought this drive in December 2022 when it was on sale, but I didn't have a computer with NVME support until April 2023. I installed this drive into my new laptop, and starting moving video footage files to it planning to edit them during a business trip. I slowed down by a lot after about 400GB or so written into the drive. I was on a tight schedule for travel so I left the file transfer (total 2TB)over night to complete.My business trip got extended when I was not in the country to 3 months. I came back to the US in late August and wanted to find out why this drive slowed down so far. I tested with CrystalDiskMark (CDM) with all default settings and I got around 3000MB/s read and write sometimes. I realized this drive is probably designed to have good result ... MoreI bought this drive in December 2022 when it was on sale, but I didn't have a computer with NVME support until April 2023. I installed this drive into my new laptop, and starting moving video footage files to it planning to edit them during a business trip. I slowed down by a lot after about 400GB or so written into the drive. I was on a tight schedule for travel so I left the file transfer (total 2TB)over night to complete.My business trip got extended when I was not in the country to 3 months. I came back to the US in late August and wanted to find out why this drive slowed down so far. I tested with CrystalDiskMark (CDM) with all default settings and I got around 3000MB/s read and write sometimes. I realized this drive is probably designed to have good result with the default 1GB file size test. So I tested with 64GB file size and only sequential to save time. I consistantly get around 80MB/s write speed, and 2000MB/s read speed. The bottleneck is around 8GB.So I backed up everything to other drives, emptied this drive, and run CDM on empty drive, I got adverstised speed. I keep copying files to the drive until it slows down, which happens around 20% capacity used, and run CDM with 64GB test, same 80MB/s write speed.I contacted Crucial support, and they claim this is how the drive should perform. I can get a replacement. But since it's not an individual issue, getting a replacement means nothing. The email chain has been going back and forth since September. Crucial told me to update firmware, perform optimizing steps, and I did all of them, yet same result.I have other QLC drives, Included test results on intel 660p and 665p. When they have more ratio of space written, I can still get faster than mechanical drive sequential write speed, around 180MB/s.If you plan to write more than 8GB of data to this drive at once at some point, do not buy this drive. It's not an unrealistic situation. Let's say you use this drive in your laptop, with OS, some software and documents. It's easily exceeding 20% of the drive capacity. Now you want to copy photos from your camera SD card to this drive, good luck. I hope you never take more than 8GB of photos.