Woah! The Crucial P310 is small but mighty

2230 isn’t just the postcode of Gänserndorf in Lower Austria. It’s also M.2 SSDs’ memory card form factor. The «30» stands for the length in millimetres. So, at three centimetres, the new Crucial P310 fits into handhelds such as the Steam Deck. The SSD impresses with its performance, even when it’s almost full.

Features and specs

Crucial has used Phison’s E27T controller with four memory channels for the P310. There’s no room for a DRAM cache, so you’ll have to live without one. Instead, it uses the NVMe host memory buffer (HMB) feature. HMB utilises part of the host computer’s working memory as cache memory. The SSD’s connected via PCIe 4.0.

According to the manufacturer, the sequential read speed can reach up to 7,100 megabytes per second (MB/s). Meanwhile, the sequential write speed is 6,000 MB/s. This makes it the fastest SSD in the 2230 form factor in terms of read speed – at least if the manufacturer’s to be believed.

For the NAND memory, Crucial uses parent company Micron’s QLC, with 4 bits per memory cell. NAND, by the way, is a non-volatile memory technology that doesn’t require power to store data. The P310’s QLC is new-generation with 232 layers. Micron promises it boasts 24 per cent better read performance and 31 per cent better write performance than its 176-layer predecessor. It also says the access time’s better.

My two-terabyte (TB) device, which Crucial gave me to review, contains a NAND memory module. The SSD’s warranty lasts five years or up to a set write limit. This varies depending on the SSD’s storage capacity. In my case, it’s 440 TB of write data.

Gaming: good performance for QLC

In the 3DMark gaming benchmark, the P310 performs 25 per cent worse than the top-of-the-line model with TLC memory. This seems significant at first, but it’s put into perspective when you consider that QLC SSDs bring lower performance to the table as a consequence of their design. It’s only eleven per cent behind the runner-up. As for the other models, it only comes in less than five per cent behind. So, it’s fair to say the P310 fares pretty well. At 80 per cent full, the SSD loses around six per cent of its performance. Despite this decrease, it’s still a decent result.

Work: fares well in the office

When it comes to office use, the P310 ranks somewhere in the middle, keeping pace with the two top TLC models. Even when 80 per cent full, it completes the test with impressive results.

Read: can go toe-to-toe with the big guns

I measure the read speed with the CrystalDiskMark program. It reveals that the differences between the SSDs in sequential read are minor. Set against its more powerful competitor with TLC memory, DRAM and a larger form factor, the P310 puts in a pretty respectable performance.

The first set of figures for the SSDs in the chart refer to sequential read. Meanwhile, the second refers to random read and write. If you work with large files, the first figure will be more important to you. Those who work with small files, however, will be more interested in the second.

Write: further behind TLC models, but the results are still remarkable

The differences between the P310 and other SSDs are more considerable when it comes to write speed, but that’s already evident in the specs. The most considerable difference is measurable during random write. Even so, the P310 does an amazing job, even achieving a better result than promised by the manufacturer. Excellent for a QLC SSD.

To see how the SSD fares in practice, I copy a 10-gigabyte file from a RAM disk to the SSDs. The RAM disk ensures the SSD is the bottleneck, as the disk achieves a much higher write and read rate. Again, Crucial’s SSD gives a great performance. It even beats some TLC SSDs.

To test how the SSD behaves when writing data continuously, I repeatedly write the 10-gigabyte test file from the RAM disk to the SSD using a batch command. This way, I can see when it starts to throttle down. After around 400 GB of written data, the speed drops to 300 MB/s – good performance for a QLC SSD.

If I write continuously at 80 per cent full, the maximum speed is only enough for around two GB of written data. This is because the SLC mode is smaller when the SDD is fuller. After that, the speed hits almost 1,500 MB/s for around seven GB of data before dropping back to 300 MB/s.

File transfer: the P310’s weak spot

When transferring files, i.e. reading and writing to the SSD simultaneously, I copy the 10-gigabyte file onto the drive. This time, the P310 falls well behind its TLC rivals. At 80 per cent full, it struggles considerably more.