Crucial's P310 drive was originally launched as a 2230 drive offering a fast storage upgrade for portable gaming and compute or ultra-thin devices. Now there's a new model on the market, aimed at the desktop and laptop market segments, known as the P310 2280. We test the 2TB version and find out what it can bring to the table at the £125 asking price.
The P310 combines a Phison PS5027-E27T (DRAM-less) 4-channel controller and Micron 232-layer 3D QLC NAND. The drive doesn't have any form of heatsink at present (at the time of writing) but heatsink-equipped versions of the drives are not too far away. At launch, the 2280 version of the P310 comes in three capacities; 500GB, 1TB, and the flagship 2TB, so identical to the 2230 drive range.
Crucial quote Sequential performance figures for the 2TB drive (the drive we are reviewing), as up to 7,100MB/s and 6,000MB/s for read and writes respectively. The 1TB drive has the same ratings while the 500GB makes do with up to 6,600MB/s for reads and up to 3,500MB/s for writes. Random performance is quoted as up to 1M IOPS for reads and up to 1.2M IOPS for writes for both the 1 and 2TB models with the 500GB drive rated at up to 520,000 IOPS and 890,000 IOPS for reads and writes respectively.
The endurance rating for the 2TB drive is 440 TBW which is lower than what you may be used to seeing for a 2TB Gen 4 drive but that's down to the limitations of QLC NAND. Crucial backs the drive with a 5-year warranty.