Crucial P2 500GB NVMe M.2 SSD Review

In this review we took a look at the new Crucial P2 NVMe SSD.  This drive is intended to be a mainstream option for users wishing to upgrade an existing system or for those budget minded folks looking to build a new rig.  The drive is available in two sizes from 250GB up to 500GB, when the drive launched there was talk about a 1TB version of the Crucial P2 so we will have to keep an eye out for that drive when it is released.

Performance was as you would expect for a drive in this segment of the market and was slightly different from what was advertised.  In most benchmarks read performance was spot on however we found that write performance was actually double the advertised speed.  We suspect that there might be a misprint on the Crucial website so, don’t be surprised if that changes.

Our benchmarks showed a good performance cross section with the Crucial P2 sitting right where you would expect.  Read performance was hovering around 2500 to 2600MB/s while writes were at 1800MB/s.  Of course the ATTO benchmark reported considerably higher results so, for this review we will just set them aside as a fluke despite being a 5x repeatable fluke.

When it came to real world performance the Crucial P2 did not disappoint and was able to post comparable numbers to the reference drives.  Sadly, the PCMark and SYSMark performance was lower than expected but still within the range where we cannot call foul.

Overall I really liked this drive.  The price is right and performance is there to back it up.  During the benchmarking runs we gave the drive the “touch test” and was surprised to feel that it wasn’t warm.  Sure you could tell it was working but it wasn’t hot enough to require a heatspreader making this drive a good candidate for small form factor machines where airflow is limited.  These would be your run of the mill laptops and even older desktop systems that may, or may not, have integrated M.2 heatspreaders.   

If you are looking to pick up an inexpensive NVMe drive check out the Crucial P2 on crucial.com.

Great Performance
Small Form Factor
Cool Running
Single Sided @ 500GB

Waiting for the 1TB version