Crucial P5 Plus 2TB PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD US$290.79 / NZ$447.01 Shipped (With Coupon) @ Amazon US

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Nil Einne on 03/02/2022 - 13:48 amazon.com (92 clicks)
Last edited 03/02/2022 - 16:02 by 1 other user

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No where as good as the 980 Pro at $261.43 but this one will likely actually ship. Amazon.com are currently showing a US$60 coupon for the Crucial P5 Plus 2TB bring the price down to US$244.01 + US$8.85 shipping to New Zealand + US$37.93 GST = US$290.79. Amazon conversion results in NZ$447.01. This is for the SSD sold by and shipping from Amazon.com. Note delivery estimate for normal shipping is currently 28 February.

If you've never dealt with coupons on Amazon before, below the price you should see

Coupon ☐ Save an extra $60 when you apply this coupon. Terms

You need to tick the box to the right of the coupon tag while logged in. The coupon should be added to your account and applied when you check out. If you don't see the coupon I suspect it's either expired or not available to you for some reason. Note that although the details call it a BX500 1TB coupon, this seems to be just poorly named generic coupon rather than an error, as the BX500 1TB receives $10 off from the coupon. You can only use the coupon once so can't order two in an order. Not sure if you can make multiple orders on one account but you will need to pay more shipping.

The P5 Plus is a PCI-express generation 4.0 SSD. This means it should work with the PS5 and it should also exceed the read speed requirement (which at the moment doesn't seem to matter). It has DRAM cache and uses Micron's 176 layer TLC flash and proprietary DM02A1 controller. Has 5 year 1200TBW warranty.

Performance wise, it's complicated, in many tests it seems to be below most high end 4.0 drives e.g. the WD SN850, Phison E18 SSDs with the same Micron 176L TLC (e.g. Firecuda 530, Kingston KC3000, MP600 Pro XT) and Samsung 980 Pro. But it does do well in PC Mark 10. See e.g. https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crucial-p5-plus-m2-nvme… and https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/9992/crucial-p5-plus-2tb-s… Note when looking at reviews or comparisons, make sure you're looking at the 2TB drive as the 1TB is somewhat worse as it has fewer dies.

It seems somewhat less efficient than the WD or Samsung or even the Phison E18+Micron 176L so may not be the best idea for a laptop. Good thing is I think in pretty much all areas besides efficiency and price, it should be the same or better than the best PCIe 3.0 drives like the Samsung 970 Evo Plus (old or new) or Hynix P31. This is disputed for the first gen PCIe 4.0 drives (Phison E16 + Kioxia 96 layer TLC flash), let alone the QLC or most DRAM less ones. You can get 2TB Phison E16+Kioxia 96L for US$30+cheaper (before GST and shipping) but I'm not convinced they're a good buy compared to the 970 Evo Plus (even if it weren't cheaper, which it is) even for a PCIe 4.0 system except in special cases (e.g. PS5).

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  Latex Fist on 03/02/2022 - 14:02

  I mean, I would think that this would be a better buy, no? https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Internal-Extreme-Performance-…

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    Nil Einne on 03/02/2022 - 14:26

    +2

    Why? It costs more and it's one of the first gen 4.0 SSDs, Phison E16 + Kioxia 96L. If you did want to buy a Phison E16 + Kioxia 96L, I'd choose the https://www.amazon.com/Silicon-Power-NVMe-Gen4-SP02KGBP44US7… or https://www.amazon.com/PNY-CS3040-Internal-Solid-State/dp/B0… both of which are cheaper. (The PNY3040 was NZ$400 at PB Tech in early November but hasn't been repeated since then.) But I'd chose the 970 Evo Plus over Phison E16 + Kioxia 96L even at that price or even the same price since having looked into it a bit IMO the 2TB Evo Plus would generally give better performance despite the worse sequentials.

    The E16 is a barely upgraded E12 and the E12 wasn't considered very good compared to the Samsung's Phoenix. And despite some panic, the Elpis that replaced it probably isn't generally worse although the more dense NAND (they seem to use 512Gbit dies vs 256Gbit dies for the old) can be worse at 1TB. But the NAND change is probably not such a big deal, actually even an advantage on 2TB since it already used more dense flash. Old 2TB was also 512Gbit dies so if anything the move from 92L to 128L is likely an advantage. Upgraded controller + NAND doesn't seem that common on the 2TB anyway. (Hynix P31 is generally considered better than the 970 Evo Plus new or old, but not easily available to NZ.)

    Not everyone may agree on E16+Kioxia96L vs 970 Evo Plus, but see few reasons why you'd chose a higher price E16 + Kioxia 96L over the P5 Plus since the P5 Plus is better in pretty much every way. Better TBW for Chia etc is the only reason I can think of since I think some are higher. I mean the E16s tend to all use whole SSD dynamic SLC so I suspect for sequential writing there's probably some specific amount of data written where it's faster than P5 Plus. (Sometime after the P5 Plus dynamic SLC cache is full but before the ~666TB of the E16 is full and you enter into the slow folding state. Note if you're taking average speeds or time taken, this won't be the instant the P5 Plus cache is full since it's a far amount faster before that and not that slow when it does direct to TLC.) But this is a fairly esoteric performance advantage especially as outside this range the P5 Plus will be better and large sequential writes are only likely a small benefit to most people. (AFAIK, there's nothing stopping any controller using whole drive dynamic SLC at least during the design stage. Many don't because most decided it's worse to do that.)

    Whether the P5 Plus is worth the price premium, that's more complicated. Although as said IMO at the moment for NZ choice for a highish end 2TB M.2 seems to be between 970 Evo Plus or a high end PCI express 4.0 like the P5 Plus unless you have a special use case. E.g. a PS5 which required gen 4, or something weird like Chia where you probably want the highest warrantied TBW more than anything.

    BTW unless you have access to Samsung EPP, Amazon Australia seems best place for 2TB Samsung Evo Plus 970 https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B07MLJD32L although currently out of stock. (You want it sold by Amazon Au). When it's in stock it has been AU$300 recently which comes to about NZ$340 including shipping and GST.