In this article we will concentrate our look at the Crucial P5 NVMe SSD, which is based on Micron’s in-house controller and utilizes the PCI-E x4 3.0 interface. This is no longer a DRAMless design and ai aimed to deliver more performance versus the P1 and P2 series we have reviewed previously. The extra cache besides the SLC does help the drive to keep sustained write speeds for longer and given the higher rated speeds, the P5 is no longer a part of the entry-level offerings but can be considered as a mainstream product.

The product is shipped inside a very compact cardboard enclosure, with the usual color scheme we have seen from Crucial in the past as well:

In the back, the manufacturer highlights that the product arrives with a five-year warranty, but also shows some link for various online resources:

Inside the box, we will find the main product, protected inside a transparent plastic mold but also the installation leaflet:

The mentioned leaflet is written in multiple languages and does guide us to access web resources instead:

The frontal area of the PCB does feature a large sticker with the company brand name, but also the product name and form factor:

On the back area we won’t find other components, but only a sticker that highlights the total storage capacity of the drive, the compatible bus, the power rating, the internal code name, currently flashed firmware and more!

By removing the top sticker, we will reveal the two NAND packages, the DRAM cache but also the main controller:

The NAND packages are 96-layer 3D TLC, made by Micron and have a capacity of 512GB:

The included RAM chip is rated DDR4-4266 and has a total capacity of 1GB; the fast memory helps by storing the mapping tables:

The included controller has a pre-installed HSF and is a Micron proprietary design; this one does have eight channels and does support TLC and SLC caching: