Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsPseudo-"SLC" cache of 4-5GB
Reviewed in Canada on March 24, 2023
This SSD is technically a _downgrade_ for me. My previous SSD is a Samsung 980 Pro 2TB with the 3XXXXXXX firmware... so uh yeah. That 2TB was very lightly used, but it didn't matter because its reported S.M.A.R.T. stats were already down to 90% "health" with over 500 unrecoverable sector errors. Further, according to user reports on a certain system builder's article, even updating the 980 Pro's firmware _does NOT_ prevent its premature sudden drive failure.
In light of all of that, I bought the P3 Plus 1TB because
1) I had to assume my 2TB was probably going to die, which meant I needed a replacement fast;
2) it was on sale, and
3) unlike Samsung, Crucial actually has an usable warranty for us north of the 49th Parallel.
Cloning the old drive didn't work. As mentioned earlier, my 2TB had 500+ unrecoverable sector errors. Acronis True Image would start the cloning process until it reaches those sectors... and simply FAILS. Not even the CHKDSK utility built into Windows Recovery could fix those errors. I ended up reinstalling Windows on the 1TB from scratch.
It was at this point where the pseudo-"SLC" "cache" reared its head. Granted, I've seen this before: my SanDisk (now part of Western Digital) USB dual-drives (USB-A and USB-C) have it. On the flash drives, write speeds were normal up to 1GB, then dropping down to at most 5-10MB/s until the cache clears, rinse and repeat. On the P3 Plus 1TB, the cache is around 4GB-5GB. As I had to re-transfer all the old user data from external storages, the 1TB fluctuated FREQUENTLY between bursts of very high write speeds and periods of ZERO write speed (all the old data in the "SLC" cache has to be written into the drive's actual storage, before the cache is ready to start taking in new data). Write very-fast for 4-5GB, wait 15-20 seconds at 0MB/s, rinse and repeat - not great.
Does this impact day-to-day use? No, not really. The "SLC" cache has no impact unless you're writing lots of data (4GB+) at once. Casual users are unlikely to be affected by this cache anyway.
One more thing: the version of Acronis used by Crucial throws up an error during installation. One of the drivers related to its "try me" feature add-ons cannot be installed without first disabling the Memory-related protections in Windows Security.