By: Jonathan Kwan
September 17, 2021
Earlier this year, I was chatting with my friend who was looking to get his car tinted. He had a car a few years ago that came tinted all around by the previous owner, and he really appreciated everything about it -- the looks, its ability to keep the sun out, heat rejection in the summer, and the privacy it gives. He got another car since then and has been itching to get it tinted for a while, but could not decide whether to go with a lighter 35% tint or a darker 20% tint. My friend wanted to get all his windows, sans windshield, tinted, so my advice was to go for the darker 20% tint. "Both are illegal anyway," I explained. "You might as well go darker so you can enjoy everything you like about tint." He took my advice, got it 20% tinted all around and was completely satisfied in every way, not to mention he has not run into any trouble with the police so far. My thought process is illegal tint is illegal tint, no matter the percentage where we live, so you might as well. Recently, I got my hands on the Crucial P5 Plus 1TB, which is a PCIe 4.0-based NVMe solid state drive. Unlike the Western Digital WD_BLACK SN850 NVMe SSD 1TB and XPG Gammix S70 Blade 1TB I recently reviewed, this is a budget rather than a more performance-oriented model. But like the whole 35% versus 20% illegal tint debate, a PCIe 4.0-based drive is a PCIe 4.0-based drive even if it is made to be lighter on your wallet. Will the Crucial P5 Plus take budget speed to a whole new level, or is it just fluff over PCIe 3.0-based drives? Read on to find out!
Our review unit of the Crucial P5 Plus 1TB arrived in a UPS-branded corrugated cardboard box from Brownsville, Texas, USA. This is not the first time a Crucial product came from Brownsville, which is nowhere near any Micron offices. However, this is where Avant Technology is located, which Micron partners with. Using the UPS Saver service, everything arrived in excellent condition to us here in Calgary, Alberta, Canada for our review today.
Crucial's retail package designs have always been about business, and the P5 Plus is no different. The simple, environmentally friendly box is the same shape and size as everything we have seen before. It uses a relatively compact, thin square box to deliver the SSD into the hands of the consumers with miscellaneous information printed on the back. As you can see in our photo above, the box art evokes a strong business feel. The navy blue background is plain for the easily distracted with no photos. At the top, you will find Crucial's logo and slogan. Near the bottom, you will find the P5 Plus model name. The white strip at the bottom has the product description, PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 Solid State Drive, and a sticker indicating its capacity.
Before we move on, let us take a look at the specifications of the Crucial P5 Plus 1TB, as obtained from the manufacturer's website:
Reliability (MTTF): 2 million hours
Endurance: 1TB: 600 total bytes written (TBW)
Data Transfer Software: Acronis True Image for Crucial cloning software
Operating Temperature: 0 °C to 70 °C
Compliance: UKCA, CE, FCC, VCCI, KC, RCM, ICES, Morocco, BSMI, Ukraine, UL, TUV, China RoHS, WEEE, Halogen Free
Advanced Features:
- Dynamic write acceleration
- Redundant array of independent NAND (RAIN)
- Multistep data integrity algorithms
- Adaptive thermal protection
- Integrated power loss immunity
- Active garbage collection
- TRIM support
- NVMe standard self-monitoring and reporting technology (SMART)
- Error correction code (ECC)
- NVMe autonomous power state transition (APST) support
- Device sleep support
- Full-drive encryption capable (TCG OPAL 2.0)
Warranty: Limited five-year warranty
Opening the box reveals the Crucial P5 Plus 1TB itself and a screw 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 Tach 3.0.1.0
7. Benchmark: HD Tune Pro 5.70
8. Benchmark: PassMark PerformanceTest 10
9. Benchmark: PCMark 10
10. Conclusion
