The Crucial P1 1TB SSD Review: The Other Consumer QLC SSD
by Billy Tallis on November 8, 2018 9:00 AM ESTAnandTech Storage Bench - The Destroyer
The Destroyer is an extremely long test replicating the access patterns of very IO-intensive desktop usage. A detailed breakdown can be found in this article. Like real-world usage, the drives do get the occasional break that allows for some background garbage collection and flushing caches, but those idle times are limited to 25ms so that it doesn't take all week to run the test. These AnandTech Storage Bench (ATSB) tests do not involve running the actual applications that generated the workloads, so the scores are relatively insensitive to changes in CPU performance and RAM from our new testbed, but the jump to a newer version of Windows and the newer storage drivers can have an impact.
We quantify performance on this test by reporting the drive's average data throughput, the average latency of the I/O operations, and the total energy used by the drive over the course of the test.
The average data rate from the Crucial P1 on The Destroyer is comparable to other entry-level NVMe drives like the Phison E8-based Kingston A1000 and the Intel 660p. The P1 also roughly matches the average data rate of the Crucial MX500 SATA SSD, while several high-end NVMe drives deliver more than twice the performance.
While the average data rate from the Crucial P1 may have been similar to the MX500, the average latency is about twice that of the MX500, and slightly higher than the Intel 660p. The situation is better for the 99th percentile latency, where the Crucial P1 comes close to the MX500 and shows half the 99th percentile latency of the Intel 660p.
The average read and write latencies for the Crucial P1 on The Destroyer are both slightly worse than what the Intel 660p provides, and the Crucial MX500 provides a much better average write latency.
The 99th percentile read latency from the Crucial P1 is very good, competitive with several high-end NVMe SSDs. However, the 99th percentile write latency is quite poor compared to almost any other NVMe SSD or mainstream SATA SSD. This is a huge difference in behavior compared to the Intel 660p. The Crucial P1 is optimized much more for reliable read latency, at significant cost to worst-case write latency under heavy workloads.
The Crucial P1 requires significantly more energy to complete The Destroyer than the Intel 660p, despite the near-identical hardware and very similar overall performance numbers. The Crucial P1's relatively poor efficiency on this test isn't a serious issue given that the drive is intended for less demanding use cases, but combined with the high 99th percentile write latency this points to the P1 possibly experiencing higher write amplification on The Destroyer than the Intel 660p experiences.
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Billy Tallis - Thursday, November 8, 2018 - link
A.) Samsung didn't send me a 970 PRO. B.) The 970 PRO is pretty far outside the range of what could be considered competition for an entry-level NVMe SSD. It's a drive you buy for bragging rights, not for real-world performance benefits. The Optane SSD is in that same category, and I don't think the graphs for this kind of review need to be cluttered up with too many of those. ReplyPeachNCream - Thursday, November 8, 2018 - link
Not to be obtuse, but by price the 970 PRO is well within the range of competition for the P1 given that the 1TB 970 retails for $228 on Amazon right now and the MSRP for the 1TB P1 $220. Buyers looking for a product will most certainly consider the $8 difference and factor that into their decision to move up from an entry-level product to a "bragging rights" option given the insignificant difference in cost. Your first point is valid. I would have stopped there since its reasonable to say, "Physically impossible, don't have one there pal." ReplyBilly Tallis - Thursday, November 8, 2018 - link
I think you were looking at the price for the 1TB 970 EVO. The 1TB 970 PRO is currently $392.99 on Amazon, closer to twice the price of the Crucial P1. I think it is occasionally reasonable to get something like the 970 EVO for a high-end system. Going past that to a 970 PRO isn't reasonable. ReplyPeachNCream - Thursday, November 8, 2018 - link
Whoops, you're correct! Please accept my apologies for that one. ReplyDigitalFreak - Friday, November 9, 2018 - link
Even then, the 970 EVO wipes the floor with the P1. ReplyDeath666Angel - Thursday, November 8, 2018 - link
Who wants QLC NVME drives as the first widely available consumer QLC tech? Not me I tell you! :DI am fine with 3D TLC for my performance needs both from a performance and price point at the moment. 500GB is enough for many casual enthusiasts and 1TB isn't too expensive either. I'd really like 2.5" SATA and M.2 SATA QLC for my casual media storage needs. Reply
Lolimaster - Friday, November 9, 2018 - link
QLC is such useless product except for manufactures, they give you a WORST product for basically the same price or more than a TLC.MX500/860 EVO 1TB for $160-180. Reply
Lolimaster - Friday, November 9, 2018 - link
*Edit 155-160. Replypiroroadkill - Friday, November 9, 2018 - link
QLC doesn't seem to make any sense in an M.2 PCIe NVMe format - it's just really slow compared to even a good SATA 6Gbps SSD. QLC seems to make sense in a 2.5" SATA format, with an enormous capacity. 1TB makes no sense for this shitty performance level. It needs to be there to replace larger drives. Actually, even that makes no sense for a home user - where long term retention is more important, and a hard disk is therefore more useful. QLC drives will probably come into their own at the ~4TB mark in Enterprise storage arrays as a mid-tier storage solution, with hard disks under, and MLC NAND above. Replynpz - Friday, November 9, 2018 - link
Why are these QLC drives with all their downsides still expensive?On Amazon
Samsung 970 EVO 1TB = $227
Crucial P1 1TB = $219
Are you kidding me? Why would I ever choose a P1? Reply