The test system used in this review is equipped with an Intel Core i7-6700K CPU, GIGABYTE GA-Z170X-UD3 motherboard, 32GB (16GB x 2) of Crucial Ballistix Sport LT DDR4 memory, Samsung 960 PRO 512GB SSD and a GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1060 WINDFORCE OC 6G graphics card. For the operating system, I installed a fresh copy of Windows 10 Enterprise.
To test the performance of Crucial's P2 SSD, I ran a series of benchmarks using CrystalDiskMark, HD Tach RW, ATTO Disk Benchmark, AS SSD, HD Tune Pro, Anvil's Storage Utilities, Iometer and PCMark. For comparison, I've also included test results from the SK hynix Gold P31, Crucial P5, ADATA SWORDFISH, ADATA FALCON, Lexar NM610, Silicon Power P34A60, Patriot P300, Plextor M9PG Plus, Plextor M9PY Plus, ADATA XPG SX6000 Pro, Western Digital WD Black SN750, Samsung 970 EVO Plus, ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro, Crucial P1, ADATA XPG SX8200, Western Digital WD Black NVMe, Samsung 970 EVO, Samsung 970 PRO, Plextor M9Pe, Plextor M8Se, Patriot Hellfire, ADATA XPG SX8000, Samsung 960 PRO, Toshiba OCZ RD400, Samsung 950 PRO, Samsung 870 QVO, Silicon Power P60, SK hynix Gold S31, ADATA Ultimate SU750, Samsung 860 QVO, Samsung 860 PRO, Crucial MX500, Plextor M8V, Samsung T5, Crucial BX300 and ADATA Ultimate SU900.
As I mentioned earlier, the P2 uses Phison's PS5013-E13T controller chip. Looking at the screenshot above, you can see that there is a considerable performance difference when reading incompressible (0%) and compressible (100%) data.
CrystalDiskMark 5.1.2:
First, I ran a few quick tests using CrystalDiskMark. This benchmark tool measures the performance of a storage device by testing its sequential read and write speeds as well as its random read and write speeds using blocks 512K and 4K in size.
 Crucial P2 500GB |
 Lexar NM610 1TB |
According to Crucial, the 500GB version of the P2 is capable of reading at 2,300 MB/s and writing at 940 MB/s. Looking at the screenshots above, you can see that the drive exceeded these numbers by a considerable margin in CrystalDiskMark's sequential read and write speed tests.
 Crucial P2 500GB - All 0x00, 0Fill |
 Lexar NM610 1TB - All 0x00, 0Fill |
The P2's performance was better for the most part when using highly compressible 0x00 (0 Fill) data. This time around, the drive was able to read at 3,313 MB/s and write at 3,207 MB/s.
HD Tach RW 3.0.4.0:
Next, I used HD Tach to test the P2's read, write and burst speeds as well as its seek times and CPU usage.
Looking at the screenshot above, you can see that the P2 had average read and write speeds of 1222.8 MB/s and 1658.4 MB/s respectively, as well as a burst speed of 1036.1 MB/s.
ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46:
I also used ATTO Disk Benchmark to test the P2's sequential read and write speeds. The tests are run using blocks ranging in size from 0.5KB to 8192KB and the total length set to 256MB.
 Crucial P2 500GB |
 Lexar NM610 1TB |
When tested with ATTO, the P2's read speeds topped out at about 3,296 MB/s and its write speeds at 3,221 MB/s.
