By: Jonathan Kwan
October 4, 2024
How do automotive manufacturers determine what to sell in their portfolio? Beyond the obvious of understanding what the market wants, I wonder how granular one needs to make it. Appealing to niches at a higher resolution will improve sales, and building similar models do not increase development costs significantly, but what is the optimal point between market appeal and product redundancy? It often fascinates me to look at BMW's lineup. Back in the days, the bread-and-butter 3-series came in the form of a 4-door sedan and 2-door coupe. At some point, the company decided to split the lineup, where the 3-series remains for the sedan, while the 4-series becomes the coupe. Now, things became weird when the 4-series Gran Coupé came out. Essentially, the Gran Coupé is a 4-door liftback version of the 2-door coupe version of the 4-door sedan. I get some people may start going up in arms and say the Gran Coupé is really a "5-door" considering the liftback, but semantics aside, all the 4-series Gran Coupé is just a 3-series sedan with a more slanted rear. So what is in a lineup? In the last little while, Crucial carried a solid lineup of NVMe SSDs, filling in the market from massive capacity budget units like the P3 Plus 4TB to performance models like the T500 2TB. A couple of weeks ago, I looked at the P310 2230 2TB, which is a mainstream unit in the M.2 2230 form factor. But you know what is missing? A mainstream PCIe 4.0-based NVMe SSD in the M.2 2280 form factor. So fear not, today, we have the Crucial P310 2280 1TB, which is a M.2 2280 version of the P310 2230. Is this a necessary addition to Crucial's portfolio, and how will it compare against other mainstream solid state drives? Read on to find out!
Our review unit of the Crucial P310 2280 1TB arrived in a medium-sized brown corrugated cardboard box from Brownsville, Texas, which is nowhere near any Micron offices. However, this is where Avant Technology is located, which Micron partners with. Using the FedEx International Priority service, everything arrived in excellent condition to us here in Calgary, Alberta, Canada for our review today.
After opening another box inside the shipping box, the P310 2280 1TB's retail box is revealed. Crucial's retail package designs have always been about business, and the P310 2280 1TB is no different. The simple, environmentally friendly box features the latest design thematically consistent with the Crucial T500 2TB I reviewed last year, and of course, the Crucial P310 2230 2TB. This relatively compact hanging box delivers the SSD into the hands of consumers with miscellaneous information printed on the back. As you can see in our photo above, the box art evokes a strong business feel. A photo of the Crucial P310 2280 NVMe SSD is shown in front of a white background. At the top, you will find Crucial's logo. Across the center inside a blue band, you will find the P310 model name. Its product description, PCIe Gen4 NVMe 2280 M.2 SSD, and a sticker indicating its speed and capacity are located in various areas. The 2280 version of the P310 also comes with a 1-month Adobe Creative Cloud subscription.
Before we move on, let us take a look at the specifications of the Crucial P310 2280 1TB, as obtained from the manufacturer's website:
General tech specs
Interface: NVMe (PCIe Gen 4 x4)
SSD Endurance (TBW): 220 TBW
Form factor: M.2 (2280)
SSD series: P310
Capacity: 1TB
Speed & timings
Sequential Read: 7100 MB/s
Sequential Write: 6000 MB/s
Warranty & returns
Warranty: Limited 5-year
Opening the box reveals the Crucial P310 2280 1TB itself placed on a clear plastic tray. There is also a multi-language quick start guide that points you to the company's website. This is it -- out of the box, you will get nothing more than what you need. Not that we need them anyway, of course.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. A Closer Look, Test System
3. Benchmark: AIDA64 Disk Benchmark
4. Benchmark: ATTO Disk Benchmark
5. Benchmark: Crystal Disk Mark 8.0
6. Benchmark: HD Tune Pro 5.70
7. Benchmark: PassMark PerformanceTest 10
8. Benchmark: PCMark 10
9. Benchmark: 3DMark
10. Conclusion
