Today, we are looking at the Crucial P310 2TB NVMe SSD. This is the first 2TB M.2 2230 I have reviewed in my coverage of the 2230 market. All previous entries into this series are 1TB in capacity. Additionally, the P310 is the newest drive I have covered, having just been released. 2230-sized (30mm) drives are typically used in devices such as small laptops and mobile game devices like the Steam Deck and ROG Ally, which is exactly the market that Crucial is targeting the P310 at, to the point of even putting a little ‘handheld compatible’ logo on the box. Compared to the previous drives I have reviewed, the P310 stands out in several ways, so I am excited to look at it.
Crucial P310 2TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD
The Crucial P310 2TB comes in a small, single-sided M.2 2230 (30mm) form factor.
While some Crucial offerings have been fully vertically integrated in the past, the P310 is based on the Phison PS5027-E27T controller. This is a recent DRAM-less controller that aims for 7000 MB/s interface saturation on a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface. Also making the P310 unique compared to the previous drives I have reviewed is the use of Micron’s 232-layer QLC NAND. While QLC is sometimes seen as a bit of a disadvantage in the SSD space, in reality, the capacity needs and read-intensive workload of something like gaming are well suited to the performance characteristics of QLC NAND, so it is not a bad fit for a drive like the P310. We are also talking about a 30mm 2TB drive.
The backside of the Crucial P310 only features a label, which is standard.
Crucial P310 1TB SSD Specs
The Crucial P310 is offered in 1TB and 2TB capacities.
The 2TB variant boasts read speeds of 7100 MB/s and sequential write speeds of 6000 MB/s. This is the first 2230-sized drive I’ve reviewed that aims for the 7 GB/s performance tier. Previous models have targeted 5 GB/s. Hence, I have high expectations regarding its performance. However, endurance is rated at 220 TBW per TB of capacity, which is somewhat low, especially compared to TLC drives. This is somewhat unsurprising given the use of QLC NAND. That said, given the P310’s intended market for gaming and handheld devices, the rated endurance should be sufficient. The specs are rounded out with a typical industry 5-year warranty.
CrystalDiskInfo provides us with essential details about the SSD, confirming that it operates at PCIe 4.0 x4 speeds using NVMe 1.4.
Test System Configuration
The configuration used for this test includes:
- Motherboard: MSI MAG X670E Tomahawk
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7900X (12C/24T)
- RAM: 2x 16GB DDR5-6000 UDIMMs
Our testing uses the Crucial P310 2TB as the boot drive for the system, installed in the M.2_1 slot on the motherboard. This slot supports up to PCIe Gen 5 x4. The drive is filled to 85% capacity with data, and then some is deleted, leaving around 60% used space on the volume. Special note: the M.2_1 slot on this board does not natively support -sized drives, so I just rigged it into place. It does not affect my testing, but it was worth noting.
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