Crucial, a subsidiary of Micron Technology, have been a fixture in the consumer SSD market for as long as its been viable on the desktop platform, releasing model after model of affordable SATA SSDs that pushed the limits of the interface. As part of memory manufacturer Micron they've also been on the cutting edge of NAND technology, innovating to push the boundaries of capacity and affordability. Today their range broadens to incorporate Micron QLC NAND and the high-speed NVMe PCIe interface as they introduce the Crucial P1 SSD.

Read our launch-day review of the 1TB Crucial P1 SSD here

A major rationale behind leveraging the NVMe I/O standard is the performance it offers, and such is the case with the Crucial P1. With read/write speeds up to 2,000/1,700 MB/s it has over three times the bandwidth available to conventional SATA SSDs, all within a diminutive footprint afforded by an M.2 drive form factor, making it well suited to compact high-performance systems. Crucial are confident that the P1 outperforms similar drives within the same price category while also undercutting premium/prosumer M.2 drives.

QLC NAND increases storage density to four bits per cell, improving the affordability of high-capacity storage. Micron began shipping QLC-based solutions to the enterprise market in May, but this is the technology's first outing in the consumer market under the Crucial brand. To mitigate the performance impact of moving to QLC NAND the P1 utilises a high-speed SLC cache, and the drive offers a MTTF of 1.8 million hours and endurance up to 200TB.

At launch the P1 is available in 500GB and 1TB capacities, while a 2TB model will be forthcoming at a later date. As is typical on SSDs performance increases with storage capacity: the 500GB model is rated at sequential read/write speeds of up to 1900/750 MB/s respectively; and the 1TB model is a markedly speedier 2000/1700 MB/s. Large capacities and high performance characteristics make them well suited to both accelerating game boot times and workhorse applications such as rendering, where available storage bandwidth can be a bottleneck.

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Pricing guidance for the Crucial P1 SSD is as follows:



For more information on the Crucial P1 and other SSD storage solutions visit Crucial.com.