Crucial P1 1TB, brutally slow and hot

Just my anecdotal experience, this nvme drive can't perform with moderate use.

It may be throttling, seems to hit a heat envelope way too quickly. A minute or less and write speed drops from around 500 MBps then steady fluctuation between 50 - 100 MBps.

hwinfo temps are 96 C max, 86 - 96 C during write.

If you exceed the the SLC cache it will be quite slow - QLC folding speeds around 80 MB/s usually. That temperature does look way too high, though, as SSD controllers start throttling at 70C, and that seems to be happening here. The SM2263 controller is not known for getting hot so I have to wonder where you have this drive placed? Be aware that full-drive heatsinks can be detrimental.

Like I said, it's just my experience and a data point for others to consider.

It's sitting in an m2 slot with 8 fans in a full tower Lian li pc-a71f and no obstructions.

If I had known it's an 80 MBps drive I wouldn't have bought it. 200 - 300 MBps minimum been would havemy guess, but it's basically a cheap flash drive with cache.

My Samsung nvme completed the same task in about 20 minutes at around 67C. crucial was several hours.

My old 3tb wd green drive sustained 120+ at 32C. I haven't tested my old Samsung and crucial SSD drives, but I'm certain they'll crush the crucial p1.

QLC will drop to 80 MB/s (folding) or 160 MB/s (direct-to-QLC on 2TB+ 860 QVO). That's just sequentials although it will suffer overall performance there, too. But this is only outside the generous SLC cache. FWIW, TLC drives can also slow down quite a bit outside SLC. But in this case I think you're overheating so it's a moot point, although I've never seen a SM2263 drive throttle like that.

And yes if you do large writes the QLC will absolutely drop to terrible speeds...if you bought the drive without understanding that, then I can see why you'd be surprised/upset. Many good SATA SSDs are faster than this, even much faster, since they're TLC-based. The P1/660p are for everyday use, not transferring large files.

Maxx said:

QLC will drop to 80 MB/s (folding) or 160 MB/s (direct-to-QLC on 2TB+ 860 QVO). That's just sequentials although it will suffer overall performance there, too. But this is only outside the generous SLC cache. FWIW, TLC drives can also slow down quite a bit outside SLC. But in this case I think you're overheating so it's a moot point, although I've never seen a SM2263 drive throttle like that.

And yes if you do large writes the QLC will absolutely drop to terrible speeds...if you bought the drive without understanding that, then I can see why you'd be surprised/upset. Many good SATA SSDs are faster than this, even much faster, since they're TLC-based. The P1/660p are for everyday use, not transferring large files.

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Are these differences between SLC and QLC true for all SSDs or just this particular Crucial model?

IOW, if I want to buy a new NVMe PCIe-based SSD, which type of "LC" should I be looking for if I want to use this SSD for a boot drive?

x509

x509 said:

Are these differences between SLC and QLC true for all SSDs or just this particular Crucial model?

IOW, if I want to buy a new NVMe PCIe-based SSD, which type of "LC" should I be looking for if I want to use this SSD for a boot drive?

x509

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You won't find SLC or MLC drives in the consumer space anymore. There are only a few exceptions, like the 970 Pro (which I would ignore for the TLC-based 970 EVO Plus) and SM961 (OEM 960 Pro that has been on sale a lot lately, I have a thread here if you're curious). TLC by far and large will always offer superior performance to QLC. TLC (triple-level) is 3-bit, 8-voltage state vs. 4-bit, 16-state QLC (quad-level). SLC caching as described on these drives is not real SLC, it's just the native NAND running in pseudo-SLC (single-bit) mode. It's temporary as it acts as a write cache - data is later moved to the native part of the drive - and further takes up more capacity (3x with TLC, 4x with QLC). Dynamic SLC cache in particular has to shrink as the drive is utilized for this reason, as on the 660p (which also has a static SLC portion), which means conversion from SLC to TLC/QLC. All of this juggling by the controller can impact latencies and sequential performance.

Therefore, the type of drive you should seek depends on your needs/workloads. If you're doing a lot of sustained writes at higher speeds (e.g. from another NVMe) then a drive like the WD Black SN750 is a good choice as it doesn't rely on SLC (only a small static case, and it has an in-line controller design which means the NAND packages are equidistant from the controller for maximum sustained writes). Although there are plenty of drives that will do well there - anything in my Prosumer/Prosumer & Consumer categories. Although I would stick to the E12 drives over the SM2262EN ones if you are worried about consistency (the latter rely heavily on a large dynamic SLC cache). I have basic resources and guides available here if you want to learn more - the list variant of my guide has a glossary for terms while the spreadsheet lets you compare hardware directly. Although I should say this is not the whole story as even drives with the same hardware may act differently - a larger SLC cache means a bigger buffer of fast speed, but usually slower speeds thereafter since it has to move & convert from SLC in the background, for example. I certainly suggest watching the linked LTT video in my guide thread to see why the 660p acts the way it does.

Hi, folks,

I had similar experiences with the P1 when I first bought it. I was quite frustrated with its performance. I use very large virtual images -- up to 250 GB in size -- and I was shocked with the inability of the P1 to either copy those images to another drive effectively or have one copied to it. I was very disappointed that I had purchased a drive that choked after less than 30 seconds of relatively high-speed data transfer.

What made all the difference for me was installing the Crucial Storage Executive software and using it to apply a firmware update to the drive. With that update in place, I've been able to reliably copy my images to the P1 at a sustained rate of around 500 MB/sec. I realize that's a lot less than the theoretical speed of the drive's interface, but it's a heck of a lot better than I was getting with the pre-updated drive. Further, the drive appears to stay cooler than was the previous case. The Storage Executive software also enabled me to set up a 4GB RAM-based cache for the drive (what Crucial calls their "Momentum Cache") and to over-provision the drive easily. I'd be interested in seeing what type of results others might get, using the Storage Executive software as I've described. BTW, I have a 1 TB P1.

TDunnavant said:

Hi, folks,

I had similar experiences with the P1 when I first bought it. I was quite frustrated with its performance. I use very large virtual images -- up to 250 GB in size -- and I was shocked with the inability of the P1 to either copy those images to another drive effectively or have one copied to it. I was very disappointed that I had purchased a drive that choked after less than 30 seconds of relatively high-speed data transfer.

What made all the difference for me was installing the Crucial Storage Executive software and using it to apply a firmware update to the drive. With that update in place, I've been able to reliably copy my images to the P1 at a sustained rate of around 500 MB/sec. I realize that's a lot less than the theoretical speed of the drive's interface, but it's a heck of a lot better than I was getting with the pre-updated drive. Further, the drive appears to stay cooler than was the previous case. The Storage Executive software also enabled me to set up a 4GB RAM-based cache for the drive (what Crucial calls their "Momentum Cache") and to over-provision the drive easily. I'd be interested in seeing what type of results others might get, using the Storage Executive software as I've described. BTW, I have a 1 TB P1.

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30 seconds of high-speed data transfer can be a lot: that's up to 60GB at maximum speeds (2 GB/s). The P1's SLC cache varies in size based on capacity, but for the 1TB SKU it's 140GB at its maximum and 12GB at its minimum. Once this cache is exhausted you will hit QLC folding speeds which are only 80 MB/s. If you were looking to transfer files as large as 250GB from fast sources (e.g. another NVMe) then you absolutely got the wrong drive. QLC is awful specifically at sequential and sustained writes.

What you're doing in software is no different than Samsung's RAPID Mode which uses system RAM/memory to cache transfers. This is entirely a gimmick as your system already caches, it just adds an extra layer of software overhead. If you write at slower speeds the drive can maintain its speed longer because A) the drive will be emptying the SLC cache in the background and you can't fill the cache as fast at 500 MB/s and B) some of the data is being cached in DRAM. But your system already write caches and, obviously, DRAM is volatile (loses data on power loss).

As for overprovisioning: for consumer use, it's unnecessary, especially as SSDs will use free (or unpartitioned) space as dynamic overprovisioning through TRIM & GC. There are use cases for it but the P1 doesn't have the hardware to really get into heavy workloads.

Apologies if this comes off as terse but I want to be clear on this. You have to keep in mind that the fastest drive on the market, which has the largest possible SLC cache for a TLC drive, can only write at maximum speed for 85 seconds (assuming it doesn't throttle first); SLC is really fast. But if you want to avoid a slow state you want a different sort of drive, one with a small SLC cache because then you'll hit a consistent TLC speed, e.g. 1500 MB/s on the WD SN750 or Samsung 970 EVO Plus. Those two drives will actually outwrite the E16 given sufficient time. The P1 is actually the WORST drive at this type of workload.

Maxx said:

30 seconds of high-speed data transfer can be a lot: that's up to 60GB at maximum speeds (2 GB/s). The P1's SLC cache varies in size based on capacity, but for the 1TB SKU it's 140GB at its maximum and 12GB at its minimum. Once this cache is exhausted you will hit QLC folding speeds which are only 80 MB/s. If you were looking to transfer files as large as 250GB from fast sources (e.g. another NVMe) then you absolutely got the wrong drive. QLC is awful specifically at sequential and sustained writes.

What you're doing in software is no different than Samsung's RAPID Mode which uses system RAM/memory to cache transfers. This is entirely a gimmick as your system already caches, it just adds an extra layer of software overhead. If you write at slower speeds the drive can maintain its speed longer because A) the drive will be emptying the SLC cache in the background and you can't fill the cache as fast at 500 MB/s and B) some of the data is being cached in DRAM. But your system already write caches and, obviously, DRAM is volatile (loses data on power loss).

As for overprovisioning: for consumer use, it's unnecessary, especially as SSDs will use free (or unpartitioned) space as dynamic overprovisioning through TRIM & GC. There are use cases for it but the P1 doesn't have the hardware to really get into heavy workloads.

Apologies if this comes off as terse but I want to be clear on this. You have to keep in mind that the fastest drive on the market, which has the largest possible SLC cache for a TLC drive, can only write at maximum speed for 85 seconds (assuming it doesn't throttle first); SLC is really fast. But if you want to avoid a slow state you want a different sort of drive, one with a small SLC cache because then you'll hit a consistent TLC speed, e.g. 1500 MB/s on the WD SN750 or Samsung 970 EVO Plus. Those two drives will actually outwrite the E16 given sufficient time. The P1 is actually the WORST drive at this type of workload.

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Hi, Maxx,

I greatly appreciate the insights! I bought the P1 because it was the cheapest drive around, and I got what I paid for ;-). If I had searched out forums such as this one before I bought, I certainly would have been able to make a better-informed decision! Fortunately for me, the big copies are done infrequently. Because of this the consistent speed during the big copies of 500 MB/sec is good enough for me.

Thanks for the very detailed advice!

Maxx said:

30 seconds of high-speed data transfer can be a lot: that's up to 60GB at maximum speeds (2 GB/s). The P1's SLC cache varies in size based on capacity, but for the 1TB SKU it's 140GB at its maximum and 12GB at its minimum. Once this cache is exhausted you will hit QLC folding speeds which are only 80 MB/s. If you were looking to transfer files as large as 250GB from fast sources (e.g. another NVMe) then you absolutely got the wrong drive. QLC is awful specifically at sequential and sustained writes.

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I personally can't imagine doing a 250 GB file transfer, let alone 60 GB, but that's a strictly personal viewpoint based on the fact that I don't do video editing or work with massive datasets for research or design purposes. I'm sure others do. For a personal perspective, my C: drive, which is Windows, swap and hibernation files, and applications only, is about 127 GB. I would certainly hit this limit when I did a one-time clone operation from a regular SATA SSD to the NMVe Crucial drive.

So I think that the "best" or "most cost-effective" product depends on the individual's use cases. I would probably be very happy with this Crucial drive in day-to-day use, except maybe for the part about being too hot.

x509 said:

I personally can't imagine doing a 250 GB file transfer, let alone 60 GB, but that's a strictly personal viewpoint based on the fact that I don't do video editing or work with massive datasets for research or design purposes. I'm sure others do. For a personal perspective, my C: drive, which is Windows, swap and hibernation files, and applications only, is about 127 GB. I would certainly hit this limit when I did a one-time clone operation from a regular SATA SSD to the NMVe Crucial drive.

So I think that the "best" or "most cost-effective" product depends on the individual's use cases. I would probably be very happy with this Crucial drive in day-to-day use, except maybe for the part about being too hot.

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Hi, x,

And I'm quite happy with it these days, as well. I haven't had overheating issues with it since the firmware upgrade that I performed using the Crucial Storage Executive software. I have the drive in a Lenovo P52 laptop. The laptop has 64 GB of RAM and another 500 GB SSD, so there are lots of other little furnaces in that laptop enclosure. I haven't experienced overheating problems with any of the components.

x509 said:

I personally can't imagine doing a 250 GB file transfer, let alone 60 GB

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It happens rather often when backing up drives and games, transferring the images and backup files around between computers, servers and backup external drives.

I have a handful of crucial P1 drives, they are definitely consumer drives for consumer tasks. Put windows, apps etc on them, but heavy, huge loads probably are best on a different stick.

TDunnavant said:

Hi, Maxx,

I greatly appreciate the insights! I bought the P1 because it was the cheapest drive around, and I got what I paid for ;-). If I had searched out forums such as this one before I bought, I certainly would have been able to make a better-informed decision! Fortunately for me, the big copies are done infrequently. Because of this the consistent speed during the big copies of 500 MB/sec is good enough for me.

Thanks for the very detailed advice!

Click to expand...

If it works for you, that's good. It's probably running cooler because drives tend to get hottest with sustained writes (up to 2000 MB/s on the P1) or mixed I/O, so 500 MB/s without anything heavy will keep the drive from throttling. The P1 is built on a relatively fast foundation for everyday use which is why it's popular (that and being cheap) so it can get the job done.

if your doing massive large writes often then the MLC based SSDs from samsung (any of there PRO drives as they are all MLC) may be a better option if not expensive (you can Blast petabytes of data at them and hardly make then flinch and no SLC cache to worry about) but the TLC based SSDs (samsung EVOs) even once the SLC has ran out TLC still quite fast (nothing like poor QLC drives witch go at around 80MB/s)