Crucial P1 SSD Review: Nimble NVMe Storage For Pennies Per Gig

Performance Summary: The Crucial P1 was a mid-range performer throughout most of our testing, but had a few stand-out results. The drive’s sequential transfers fall about in the middle of the pack – it couldn’t keep pace with higher-end drives like the Samsung 970 EVO Plus or XPG 8200 Pro, but it typically outran the Intel SSD 760P and original XPG 8200. 4K transfers at low queue depths, however, which is where the vast majority of consumer workloads reside, were competitive with the P1 and it offered some of the best latency characteristics of the bunch.

The Crucial P1 can currently be found for about $69 and $125 for the 500GB and 1TB models, respectively (or about $0.12 - $0.13 per GiB). At those prices, the Crucial P1 is among the most affordable NVMe-based SSDs on the market. The P1, however, has been featured in many promotions as of late and has been available for under $0.10 per GiB on occasion. In those instances, the drive is a steal in the current SSD landscape. It may not be the best performing SSD across the board, but the Crucial P1 is clearly superior to any SATA-based offering, it’s competitive where it counts most with higher-end (more expensive ) NVMe-based drives, it is priced aggressively, and offers a good warranty. The Crucial P1’s endurance rating may not be quite as high as drives based on TLC or MLC NAND, but it still should be plenty durable for mainstream, consumer workloads.

The bottom line is that the Crucial P1 is a solid SSD being sold at affordable prices and it is worthy of consideration if you’re shopping for a budget-friendly solid state drive.

Aggressive Pricing Low Latency Competitive 4K QD1 Transfers 5 Year Warranty	Middling Sequential Transfers Relatively Low Endurance Rating