Crucial P3 Plus PCIe Gen4 NVMe M.2 SSD - 2TB

This will be my 3rd M.2 Crucial SSD Drive and as ALL of my past Micron/Crucial components rangin from RAM to SSDs to M.2s, the P3 does not disappoint. With games and programs and digital camera pictures/videos inflating almost as fast as our economy, the older 500gb HDDs are no longer cutting it. Some newer FPS will eat up almost 200GBs alone. Downloading them even over a Gig fiber connection is a PAIN, but the 2TB P3 is giving me ample space as a storage/game drive as it is a companion drive to a 1TB WD Black M.2 SSD (for the OS drive).The P3 is packaged like most other M.2 SSDs and Crucial, like always, include that tiny philips head screw. The black PCB matches my motherboard and if there wasn't any Crucial branding on it you wouldn't even notice it nestled in ... MoreThis will be my 3rd M.2 Crucial SSD Drive and as ALL of my past Micron/Crucial components rangin from RAM to SSDs to M.2s, the P3 does not disappoint. With games and programs and digital camera pictures/videos inflating almost as fast as our economy, the older 500gb HDDs are no longer cutting it. Some newer FPS will eat up almost 200GBs alone. Downloading them even over a Gig fiber connection is a PAIN, but the 2TB P3 is giving me ample space as a storage/game drive as it is a companion drive to a 1TB WD Black M.2 SSD (for the OS drive).The P3 is packaged like most other M.2 SSDs and Crucial, like always, include that tiny philips head screw. The black PCB matches my motherboard and if there wasn't any Crucial branding on it you wouldn't even notice it nestled in place.Playing games like Forza 5 or COD off this drive have no discernable impact on speed. It never ceases to amaze me that this much storage can be packed something about the size of stick of gum (especially when you consider that there are 4TB monsters out there) and with the speeds they offer at that. Transferring about 500GBs from a external 1TB SSD drive took just under 40mins. Although it could've been a little faster as it was in the background while I was doing some other work on the computer and did not actually see when the transfer was complete. I have mentioned that cell phone pictures and videos have become ridiculous in size?... especially when you have an active kid and both parents always snapping pictures of... I'm glad to have the space. I would PAIN me to see how long it would take to off load that drive onto a platter disk ... on an older windows machine.Somewhere in the not too distant future, 2TB will as inconsequential as 2GB drive is today and maybe then that will be the base storage size for Apple/Samsung phones. But for now my home media server which is 12TB in a RAID 1 across HDDs is where a large portion of that 500GB will eventually migrate to (thankfully in the background). But 3TB of SSD on my primary machine gives me LOTS of breathing room for the time being. Seeing these small numbers like 1 and 2 TBs make me think of when 128MB HDDs were considered MASSIVE and "No one needs that much disk space". I'll think the same when petabytes come along.

As storage solutions continue to evolve, and as PCIe 4.0 compatible drives continue to increase in prevalence, there will always be a necessity for drives to satisfy both performance and budget aspects. Ironically, despite PCIe 4.0 drives being fairly popular, some laptops are still shipping with PCIe 3.0 drives that do not fully take advantage of the hardware. As such, I was excited to try out the latest edition to Crucial’s SSD family: the P3 Plus. Following the launch of last year’s ever popular P5 Plus, the P3 Plus attempts to provide the benefit of PCIe 4.0 at a slightly lower price range. Thus, I was curious to see how the new drive performs as an upgrade option to replace a slower PCIe 3.0 drive.Upon preparing your laptop or desktop for the upgrade, the ... MoreAs storage solutions continue to evolve, and as PCIe 4.0 compatible drives continue to increase in prevalence, there will always be a necessity for drives to satisfy both performance and budget aspects. Ironically, despite PCIe 4.0 drives being fairly popular, some laptops are still shipping with PCIe 3.0 drives that do not fully take advantage of the hardware. As such, I was excited to try out the latest edition to Crucial’s SSD family: the P3 Plus. Following the launch of last year’s ever popular P5 Plus, the P3 Plus attempts to provide the benefit of PCIe 4.0 at a slightly lower price range. Thus, I was curious to see how the new drive performs as an upgrade option to replace a slower PCIe 3.0 drive.Upon preparing your laptop or desktop for the upgrade, the process should be fairly straightforward. The P3 Plus ships with a screw just in case your device does not have one. Moving on to my benchmarks, I decided to use my Dell XPS 9305 13’’ laptop that shipped with a KIOXIA 512 GB M2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 drive (Model: KXG60ZNV512G). It is also noteworthy that the 2 TB version of the P3 Plus is a single sided PCB. For monitoring, I used a combination of software including CrystalDisk 8.0.4b, HW Monitor 1.46, and HW Info 7.26. In addition, I also transferred several types of data sizes to reflect the varying degree of the SSD. As such, I used my WD My Passport 1 TB external SSD as the source drive (Model: WDBAGF0010BBL-WESN). Lastly, I do want to mention that the data presented here may differ slightly to what you will experience due to the wide range of variables that naturally occurs with chipsets.Once the OS was finished installing, I immediately ran CrystalMark 8.0.4b and noted the following results:Sequential Read Q8T1: 5,005.97 MB/s / Sequential Write Q8T1: 4,339.29 MB/sSequential Read 4K Q1T1: 59.18 MB/s / Sequential Write 4K Q1T: 195.09 MB/sAs you can see, the P3 Plus was impressive at the start, easily reaching the advertised speeds of 5000 MB/s read and 4200 MB/s write. Now compare this to the KIOXIA drive that shipped with the laptop:Sequential Read Q8T1: 3,257.72 MB/s / Sequential Write Q8T1: 2,848.19 MB/sSequential Read 4K Q1T1: 55.05 MB/s / Sequential Write 4K Q1T: 154.22 MB/sMoving on to my first transfer to the P3, I sent my large 32.6 GB music folder that houses 5,783 files and 1,244 folders. While this isn’t an overly aggressive transfer, it does give a general idea of what to expect with regards to the 4K write performance as noted above. Once I began the transfer, the speed gradually increased. After a few seconds, the rate exploded upwards to 650 MB/s and then eventually settled around the 560-590 MB/s range. There was a slight dip to around 530, but it quickly rebounded and settled in the 563-570 MB/s range for rest of the duration. The transfer finished at a blistering 63 seconds! Connectively, this same transfer on the KIOXIA drive slowly climbed to 630 MB/s and held there for a few seconds before settling back to the 500-530 MB/s range. Furthermore, I noticed some occasional spikes between 540-550 MB/s range. When the transfer was close to finishing, there were periods where it dropped to around 470 MB/s. As such, there seemed to be less consistency with the KIOXIA drive. The transfer finished in 70 seconds.On my second transfer, I sent a 28 GB M2TS movie file to the desktop. Immediately, the transfer began at an insane 835 MB/s and steadily worked its way down to around 805 MB/s. There was a slight dip to around 780-795 MB/s. The huge transfer was finished in a mere 36 seconds! Next, I copied the same movie file but this time included another 40 GB movie file for a total of 68 GB. Interestingly, the rate started around 850 MB/s and held consistently for a bit until it decreased slightly to 810-830 MB/s; eventually it settled to 780-800 MB/s. The transfer finished in 86 seconds. Switching to KIOXIA drive, for both movie files, the drive started around 830 MB/s. It slightly increased to 840-850 MB/s and finished in 87 seconds. For the single 28 GB file, the KIOXIA mimicked the P3 Plus give or take and finished at 37 seconds. Both drives were fairly close to each other with both movie transfers. With these results, however, I do want to caution you that upon several repeated transfers and restarts, the behavior of both drives did vary to a degree. Occasionally, both drives would clear their cache at random points during the transfers causing dips to around 400-500 MB/s depending on where this would occur. Specifically, on the P3 Plus, I tried to pinpoint at what size this would happen but I could not locate it; at some instances it would dip after 95 GB had copied and other times I noted it well after 150 GB. Additionally, the speed at which it dips also varied: one time I noted 400 MB/s and another time it was less severe at 533 MB/s. Naturally, this is not a disadvantage by any means, as many other drives exhibit this same cache flushing behavior once it fills. Nonetheless, this was necessary to mention as at some point you will likely notice this at one time or another. In any event, the P3 Plus was quite impressive during the transfers.One of the drawbacks to PCIe 4.0 drives, while extremely fast, was the operating temperatures. Thus, it is no secret that some of the top performing drives now include models with pre-attached heatsinks. For laptops, however, the downside is that some heatsinks may not fit given the lack of space. Accordingly, it may also explain why some laptops still ship with PCIe 3.0 drives as typically they will operate cooler; aside from the obvious cost saving benefits. Naturally, though I was curious to see exactly how the P3 Plus will handle a thermally restricted environment. I should note, however, that upon opening my Dell XPS 9305 laptop, the SSD sits under a bracket with a thermal pad. As such, this will improve heat dissipation giving it an advantage that others may not have since all laptops vary. Thus, I decided to test the drive with both scenarios: with the bracket installed and without it. For this test, the laptop was turned off completely and left to cool overnight. Additionally, the laptop was connected with its AC adapter. Immediately on first boot, the P3 Plus was at a chilly 26 degrees Celsius. After sitting for 5 minutes, the drive had risen to 31 Celsius, but decreased back down to 28 degrees. As I browsed the internet, the drive warmed up slightly to around 41-44 Celsius. Once I closed my browser, the drive cooled to 34 Celsius after sitting idle for 3 minutes. During the Crystalmark test, the P3 Plus increased to an astounding 59 Celsius. Once finished, it rapidly cooled to 49. This was absolutely amazing as most drives will swelter to at least 70 degrees or higher during this test. Next, while transferring the two movie files, I noticed the drive held firmly around 54 Celsius. Lastly, during the music folder test, the P3 plus managed to touch 57 Celsius during the transfer. It eventually cooled to 36 Celsius after roughly 3 minutes. Overall, I was extremely impressed as not only are you getting really faster transfers, but there wasn’t a single thermal issue.My last test was to see if there was any noticeable difference with the SSD bracket removed. I went ahead and let the machine cool off for two hours. Similar to before, I saw 26 Celsius as soon as the computer finished booting. After a few seconds, the P3 warmed slightly to 29 degrees. Next, I proceed with another pass with CrystalMark. As before, the temperature increased gradually; contrary to what you would expect. As the read portion of the test ended, the P3 plus was still at 49 Celsius. Once the write portion began, the P3 plus then quickly increased to 53 degrees Celsius then eventually it touched 59 Celsius. A few seconds later it inched up to 62 degrees Celsius. Considering the limited space and airflow, this was exceptional. Before transferring my music folder, I waited until the drive throttled down to 39 degrees. Once again, the increase in temperature was slow; by the time the transfer was done, the P3 Plus was at a paltry 52 degrees. Lastly, I transferred my two movie files before the drive could throttle. It warmed slightly to 56 degrees before it finished. To conclude, the bracket that came with my laptop seemed to help minimally; at most, roughly 2-3 degrees depending upon the task or transfer. Surprisingly, even with the bracket off, the P3 Plus still cooled to 36 degrees Celsius as it did with the bracket installed. Overall, the P3 Plus has the best thermals I have personally seen on a PCIe 4.0 express rated drive!In conclusion, the P3 Plus SSD is a fabulous storage solution that deserves some worthwhile attention before your next upgrade. The P3 Plus was able to slightly exceed both its rated read and write speeds as well as provide some impressive transfers. However, despite the cache fluctuation I noticed on one of my transfers, the P3 Plus quickly rebounded and increased back to its normal speed. Additionally, the P3 Plus exhibited some of the best thermal readings I have ever seen for any drive that I have tested; never once did the P3 exceed 62 degrees Celsius! As such, this would be a perfect storage upgrade for any laptop or desktop, provided that you are content its limitations beforehand. While the P3 Plus does not break any performance records, it should still be highly considered: it is still faster than any PCIe 3.0 drive and it does so without the extreme temperatures. Thus, the P3 Plus comes highly recommended.

I’m using this as a game storage drive in my laptop. More and more laptops are ditching the SATA connection in favor of ultra fast NVMe storage. Being able to populate those slots with higher capacity drives lets you spend less time installing games and more time playing them. When transferring my game files over I just used windows copy/paste. The transfer peaked around 791 MB/s and maintained around 760 MB/s until it hit smaller files, where it fluctuated all over the place. CrystalDiskMark showed read speeds of 5,025 MB/s and write speeds at 3744 MB/s.Installation was easy. The drive is keyed so you can’t install it in the wrong slot. Crucial includes an extra if needed to hold it down to the board. Once installed I used windows disk partition to format the ... MoreI’m using this as a game storage drive in my laptop. More and more laptops are ditching the SATA connection in favor of ultra fast NVMe storage. Being able to populate those slots with higher capacity drives lets you spend less time installing games and more time playing them. When transferring my game files over I just used windows copy/paste. The transfer peaked around 791 MB/s and maintained around 760 MB/s until it hit smaller files, where it fluctuated all over the place. CrystalDiskMark showed read speeds of 5,025 MB/s and write speeds at 3744 MB/s.Installation was easy. The drive is keyed so you can’t install it in the wrong slot. Crucial includes an extra if needed to hold it down to the board. Once installed I used windows disk partition to format the drive using GPT partition and NTFS file system. Assign it a letter and hit the go button. If you’re replacing a drive I would recommend matching the drive letter to the previous drive (provided it’s already been removed) so any installed programs or games don’t have to be redirected.As for perceived performance, games loaded without a hitch. Steam installations go about as fast as my internet connection will allow it so I know I’m not bottle necked by the SSD. This is my first Crucial drive and so far I’m impressed with the speed and ease of use. They include a 5-year warranty and they’re one of the largest memory and storage manufacturers in the world so I would imagine you don’t get that big without being reliable.