Crucial P1 500GB NVMe SSD Review

Review: Crucial P1 500GB NVMe SSD

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Reviewed by: J.Reynolds

Provided by:  Crucial

Firmware:  P3CR010

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Introduction

Welcome to Myce’s review of the Crucial P1 500GB NVMe SSD.

The Crucial P1 is the first drive myce.wiki has reviewed that
uses Micron's QLC (Quad Level Cell) NAND – please see ‘NAND Basics’ below to
appreciate the difference between QLC NAND and its preceding SLC, MLC and TLC
NAND forms. Micron was the first NAND manufacturer to launch a QLC based
product.

Pictures

Here are some pictures of the Crucial P1 that I tested, and
its retail packaging -

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Market Positioning and Specification

This is how Crucial positions the P1 –

Here is Crucial’s specification for the P1 –

NAND Basics

This picture shows a visual representation of the difference
between SLC, MLC, TLC. and the new QLC NAND.  Essentially, each QLC cell can
hold four times as much data as SLC, TLC (Three Level Cell NAND) can hold three
times as much data as SLC, and MLC (Two Level Cell NAND) can gold two times as
much data as SLC.  Please note that MLC actually stands for Multi Level Cell
but I assume that when MLC NAND was named no one imagined the advent of TLC and
QLC.

On the face of it QLC sounds much better than the other
forms but managing its use is not without some significant challenges which are
explained by Micron as follows –

So, the bottom line is.

QLC offers an opportunity to provide larger capacity
solutions because of its greater density.

QLC does not offer the same level of endurance (the quantity
of data that can be written) as SLC, MLC, and TLC, because of the increased
level of insulator wear when writing data.

QLC may not be as fast as other forms of NAND.

QLC should offer the potential for a reduction in
manufacturing costs which could in turn see a significant reduction in price per
gigabyte reduction for buyers.


Now let's head to the next page, to look at my approach
to testing Client SSDs.....

 

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