Crucial P310 2TB NVMe SSD review

It may not be the ’90s anymore (for Gen Z, it’s the behind schedule 20th century), but that doesn’t mean console gaming is done and dusted, no sir. Over the last few years we’ve seen the emergence of a whole range of portable gaming PCs, and with that comes a positive augment in people looking to expand their storage on these brave little devices too. After all, what’s the point of buying a portable gaming PC if you can’t, you know, play all your favorite games on it while you’re on the go.

It’s a bit of a complicated mess, considering that the number of M.2 2230-capable pocket computers is enormous, and yet with an armada of PCIe drives available, all touting various hardware configurations in the smallest form factors, finding the right drive is, well, a challenge. However, the Crucial P310 2 TB breaks the mold a bit in this case. Not only is this device incredibly affordable at just $220 for a 2TB capacity, but it also delivers phenomenal performance regardless of the PCIe spec it’s connected to. Although with some rather earnest reservations.

On the surface, the P310 is quite an intriguing prospect. It’s a single-sided M.2 2230 PCIe 4.0 drive (this form factor is required to be compatible with everything from Steam Deck OLED to Asus ROG Ally to even the largest gaming PCs, as long as you have a heatsink enabled on your mobo). It’s paired with a Phison E27T controller and an array of 232-layer QLC NAND Micron Flash to back it all up.

This last part is an intriguing addition. While dramatically cheaper and typically available in higher densities and capacities, QLC does not typically provide the same caliber of performance as TLC NAND. In my experience, manufacturers often combine QLC memory with a significant on-disk DRAM cache to improve sequential and random performance at 4K, but once the cache becomes full, performance typically drops. This cache is missing in the P310 controller, so it has no “security” so to speak.

Still, I just don’t see this performance drop. Running through our benchmark suite, it quite comfortably achieves read and write speeds in sequential tests, up to 7 and 6 GB/s respectively. Step up to 4K random performance (typically more equivalent to PC game loading) and data remains consistent throughout, reaching 76MB/s read and 315MB/s write respectively. Compare it to WD’s SN770M (also PCIe 4.0 and M.2 2230), and it sends it to post in both sequential and random 4K recordings.

Now it’s worth mentioning that I’m testing this on one of the Asus ROG Strix X870E-E Gaming Wifi motherboards, with the latest AMD Ryzen 9 9900X processor, which comes with a fairly solid heatsink to keep temperatures in check (another factor that can affect long-term performance ), not the Asus ROG Ally or one of the many other portable gaming PCs on the market. Still, it gives us a clear picture of how the drives perform in more aggressive testing scenarios than just loading into Siege on a Friday night.

However, it’s not all roses and quick loading times. Interestingly, Crucial’s P310 didn’t quite cope with the Shadowbringer benchmark in Final Fantasy XIV. In my testing, it achieved a fairly average total load time of 8.101 seconds. That’s slightly faster than the WD Black SN770M 1TB drive (clocked at 8.389), but compared to a customary full-size M.2 drive like Silicon Power’s XS70, which similarly runs on a Gen 4 platform and delivers nearly identical sequential read and read speeds record. this one went below that 8 second mark in just 7.729 seconds.

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But the thing is, I’m really pulling my hair out. Relatively, it’s a nanosecond between them. Will you notice a difference in the game loading time from 8.1 to 7.7 seconds? Probably not, and if the alternative is no extra memory, well, I’d definitely choose the former. Overall, this seems to be a limitation of these smaller drives, they just don’t have enough charging power compared to their full-size brethren.

The battle between the two M.2 2230 drives continues, especially in 3D Mark’s storage test, where the 1TB WD drive scored an index of 3056 compared to the P310’s 3075. Yes, that’s so close. The throughput between the two was 525.69 vs. 532.12 MB/s, and the average access time in both cases was exactly 59 nano seconds. It’s just crazy, especially considering how different the setups are between them. To make this happen, WD uses a specially designed Sandisk controller combined with the much less dense 112-layer TLC Kioxia chip, and yet the 232-layer QLC controller and greater capacity are not enough to break out in terms of overall performance at least if it’s about 3DMark.

Therefore. Key P310. Good offer? The best SSD? Hmm, a little. It’s a bit on the edge at the moment, although sequential performance is incredibly high in the benchmarks, it’s not quite equivalent to the performance you’d expect in this utilize case. The fact is that this is a drive designed with portable gaming PCs in mind, and most of the time it will be used will load random files and game assets rather than sequential reads and writes. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, it certainly is $215/220 lbs/300 Australian dollars it finally provides a 2TB expansion for your mobile device, but you’re just gaining capacity here. If you can live with that and don’t need all that extra storage, I highly recommend saving your money, ditching the 2TB and buying the 1TB version instead.