Crucial P310 2 TB (2280) NVMe SSD Review

While PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSDs are setting new storage performance benchmarks, the real-life and application benefits of getting those drives are still not worth the price you are paying for them. It’s still very much an early adopter product for now and while we appreciate the speed-up, we would love to see the performance transition from synthetic benchmarks to actual use cases.

And you know what’s still considered to be quite fast without breaking your wallet? The current-gen PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSDs. Gen 4 SSDs are now available at very affordable price rates and offer great performance. We recently tested the Crucial P310 SSD which comes in a 2230 form factor, offering great performance for gaming handhelds. Now, Crucial has released its fuller variant in the form of the P310 2280 drive.

Today, I will be testing the Crucial P310 PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD. This is a high-end SSD that targets the handheld market and we have the 2 TB variant in our hands which retails for $189.99 US right now.

Crucial P310 2 TB (2280) PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD

The Crucial P310 is the latest addition to the Crucial SSD portfolio powered by Micron. We have tested loads of Crucial SSDs including their high-end Gen5 and Gen4 products. For the P310, the company offers a high-end storage solution based on Gen4 architecture. The Crucial P310 SSDs are based on the NVMe SSD form factor and feature QLC-based 3D NAND flash, offering up to 2 TB of capacity, better performance, and slightly lower power input.

The SSDs are based on the Phison E27t “PS5027” controller which is PCIe 4.0 compliant. The chip is based on TSMC’s 12nm process node and features a Single-CPU architecture with a 32-bit microcontroller. Being a cheaper alternative to faster Gen4 drives, the SSD comes without a DRAM cache & only features an onboard HMB (Host Memory Buffer) but does support Phison’s 5th Gen LDPEC, ECC & RAID ECC. The controller has a maximum voltage of 1.2V and supports both 3D TLC & QLC NAND with 4 channels and flash rates of up to 3600 MT/s. The SSD also features Micron 232-layer QLC NAND Flash.

As for the performance aspects, the Micron P310 2 TB SSD is rated at 7100 MB/s Read, 6000 MB/s Write, and an endurance of 440 TBW.

Crucial P310 2 TB (2280) PCIe Gen4 SSD  – Unboxing and Closer Look

The Crucial P310 2 TB SSD comes in a standard package. The package is colored white/blue and it features a picture of the SSD. The front lists the 2 TB capacity and the 5-year warranty. The drive is also compatible with the PlayStation 5.

The back of the package lists some specifications of the SSD and some performance figures which we will get to in a bit.

The Crucial P310 SSD package includes a manual and the SSD itself which is protected under a clamshell plastic case. There’s no heatsink in the package since it can pretty much sustain max load without any thermal bottlenecks like the Gen5 drives.

The front of the SSD has the standard sticker. This is the standard NVMe 1.4 standard & measures 80 x 22 x 2.3mm (LxWxH).

The front of the SSD has a sticker which also features a thin sticker but this is not a thermal pad. Given that most motherboards today come with a pre-installed M.2 heatsink, you can pretty much run the SSD as it is or put it under one of those cooling solutions to ensure better stability.

There is a single NAND Flash chip and the Phison E27T Gen4 controller situated on the front. These NAND Flash chips are the “4FD2D-NY325” spec.

The non-heatsink drive will perfectly fit inside a laptop and Mini PC, where there’s not enough room to accommodate a large heatsink.

Test Setup

Our test platform for this review consisted of an Intel Core i9-13900K processor which ran at stock clocks on the MSI Z790 ACE motherboard. The platform was coupled with 32 GB of DDR5 memory from G.Skill (Trident Z5/ 16 GB x 2) and the MSI MEG Ai1300P PSU. For graphics, I used the MSI GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM X. This rounds up as a high-end platform for tests with modern-day SSDs.

Wccftech SSD Test Setup 2023

Crucial P310 2 TB (2280) PCIe Gen4 SSD Performance Benchmarks

First up, we have the official performance stats for these drives as listed by their manufacturers. You can compare these stats with the rest of the drives I tested in the following chart:

AS SSD Benchmark

AS SSD Benchmark download is a Windows 10 utility software program that tests the performance of solid-state drives. With its help, you can find out the speed of all installed SSDs and take care of any issues that the tests may reveal. The free app performs three separate tests to provide you with conclusive evidence of your driver’s general behavior while it copies, reads, and writes data.  The app determines the access time of an SSD, along with its speed and performance capabilities

ATTO 3.05 Disk Benchmark

As the industry’s leading provider of high-performance storage & network connectivity products, ATTO has created a widely-accepted Disk Benchmark freeware software to help measure storage system performance. As one of the top tools utilized in the industry, Disk Benchmark identifies performance in hard drives, solid-state drives, RAID arrays as well as the host connection to attached storage. Top drive manufacturers, like Hitachi, build and test every drive using the ATTO Disk Benchmark.

The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturer’s RAID controllers, storage controllers, host bus adapters (HBAs), hard drives, and SSD drives, and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage.

Crystal Disk Mark 7.0.0 x64

CrystalDiskMark is a disk benchmark software. It measures sequential reads/writes speed, random 512KB, 4KB, 4KB (Queue Depth=32) reads/writes speed, selects test data (Random, 0Fill, 1Fill),

File Transfer Speeds (100 GB File Size)

To test the maximum average transfer speeds of the drives, I used a 100 GB file to test the limits.

PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

The PCMark 10 Storage benchmark is designed to test the performance of SSDs, HDDs, and hybrid drives with traces recorded from Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office, and a selection of popular games. You can test the system drive or any other recognized storage device, including local external drives. Unlike synthetic storage tests, the PCMark 10 Storage benchmark highlights real-world performance differences between storage devices.

Forspoken DirectStorage Benchmark

Conclusion – Crucial Brings Top Performance To Handheld & Portable Gamers

Crucial’s P310 2280 SSD is built upon the foundation of the P310 2230 SSD. It features a very similar design and spec, only accommodated for mainstream PCs and consoles such as the PlayStation 5. The memory performs just as well as the P310 2230 with similar or slightly better performance and that’s about it.

The only downside of the Crucial P310 2280 which is also a big one is the pricing. At $189.99 US, the P310 is very expensive and there are a lot of other options in the 2 TB capacity category that offer better specs with DRAM cache and come bundled with heatsinks. While the price tag made sense for the 2230 market which doesn’t have a whole lot of options, in the 2280 segment, the P310 SSD finds itself in a difficult position and it will be up to price cuts to make it a recommendation. Even the higher-rated 990 PRO from Samsung is available for $164.99 US and the WD SN850X series is around $150 US for the same capacity.