Crucial P5 SSD (1TB)

The P5 was impressive in the 48GB read/ write tests too, though again, the contest was very tight.

Where reality struck home was in the 450GB write test. Obviously the P5 ran out of SLC cache, though it was so far into the process (about 300GB) that we can think of few real-world scenarios where you’d actually see the slowdown.

It’s not alone in this behavior, as you can see. Of the midrange 1TB drives we’ve tested, only the Kingston KC2500 ( go.pcworld.com/ knkc) shown here doesn’t slow down. Note that as an SSD fills up, there’s less NAND available for cache, so long writes will slow down. We test with the drive empty, so this is best-case performance.

Regardless of when a slowdown happens, it does happen with most midrange drives— so there’s still a reason to go for a pro-level drive. Unless of course you consider Kingston’s midrange KC2500: Its synthetic benchmark tests aren’t as impressive as those of other drives, but it rocks in long transfers.

Testing is performed on Windows 10 64-bit running on a Core i7-5820k/asus X99 Deluxe system with four 16GB Kingston 2666MHZ DDR4 modules, a Zotac (Nvidia) GT 710 1GB x2 PCIE graphics card, and an Asmedia ASM2142 USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10Gbps) card. Also on board are a Gigabyte Gc-alpine Thunderbolt 3 card and Softperfect’s Ramdisk 3.4.6, which is used for the 48GB transfer tests.

BOTTOM LINE

The P5 is an excellent midrange SSD that can run with the big drives in everyday performance, and even in all but the most demanding long transfers. It’s a short-lister for sure. Nice job, Crucial.

PROS

• Excellent everyday performance. • Great bang for buck.

CONS

• Will slow down during very long writes.

BOTTOM LINE

99.99 percent of the time the P5 will perform competitively with NVME SSDS costing far more. An excellent midpriced product from Crucial.

$150