Crucial P2 M2 SSD not performing optimally?

sling-shot

Wise Old Owl
I have put a Crucial P2 1 TB SSD in the M2 slot of my ASUS Prime B450 Plus motherboard and am booting from it. But I am not seeing the kind of speed improvement in boot times and day to day operations in Windows as expected. I suspect due to some reason it is not performing to its full potential. Please go through these screenshots and comment.
 

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patkim

Cyborg Agent
A few possibilities & things to explore

  • Crucial P2 series is I suppose DRAM-Less SSD. DRAM-Less SSDs are much slower than DRAM ones. This is one of the most important specifications which most manufacturers simply hide
  • Update your chipset drivers. Download directly from AMD. Avoid mobo manufacturer provided drivers
  • Disable unwanted services, startup apps, system tray apps from Windows 10. Some Windows update & other services running in background sometimes shoot up CPU utilization
  • Try clean install of Windows if you cloned earlier OS after installing this SSD. Consider SSD sanitize operation (Data destructive)
  • If crucial has any proprietary software to tune the SSD, try that like Crucial Storage Executive Tool | Firmware Download
  • Run app called ATTO Benchmark Disk Benchmark for Windows Software | ATTO and do a detailed benchmark for varying I/O sizes rather than CrystalDiskMark and share the snapshot here. You should ideally get similar & consistent results. If they vary significantly try to invoke warranty
 
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OP
sling-shot

sling-shot

Wise Old Owl
Debloat your OS. Refer Chris Titus Tech on YouTube.

Sent from my moto g82 5G using Tapatalk
There are so many programs installed. For me each one has a purpose and is needed at some random time. So I don't want to remove any.

I will check out the YouTube video.
 
OP
sling-shot

sling-shot

Wise Old Owl
A few possibilities & things to explore

  • Crucial P2 series is I suppose DRAM-Less SSD. DRAM-Less SSDs are much slower than DRAM ones. This is one of the most important specifications which most manufacturers simply hide
  • Update your chipset drivers. Download directly from AMD. Avoid mobo manufacturer provided drivers
  • Disable unwanted services, startup apps, system tray apps from Windows 10. Some Windows update & other services running in background sometimes shoot up CPU utilization
  • Try clean install of Windows if you cloned earlier OS after installing this SSD. Consider SSD sanitize operation (Data destructive)
  • If crucial has any proprietary software to tune the SSD, try that like Crucial Storage Executive Tool | Firmware Download
  • Run app called ATTO Benchmark Disk Benchmark for Windows Software | ATTO and do a detailed benchmark for varying I/O sizes rather than CrystalDiskMark and share the snapshot here. You should ideally get similar & consistent results. If they vary significantly try to invoke warranty
I had very good results with Crucial MX500 in a Pentium laptop where I had cloned and replaced the HDD.

But here similar operation seemed to be less effective. Hence I wondered is M2 connection not working as intended? Or any setting that I have to do but missed?

Is the result given by CrystDisk within expected range for it?
 
OP
sling-shot

sling-shot

Wise Old Owl
CPU usage in general - sometimes CPU might be the bottleneck, as it did in case of my parent's PC which had an i3 530. You should still see everything to be faster than having OS in HDD though.

CPU use is not abnormal. I keep an eye on it through Rainmeter.

It is slightly faster than HDD but the improvement does not seem proportional to my experience on laptop (it was a crap Atom renamed Pentium based HP). And I thought M2 based SSD will be even faster than regular SATA SSD.
 
OP
sling-shot

sling-shot

Wise Old Owl
What's the problem in using Task Manager or HwInfo64 which do not consume system resources?
No particular reason. It is always in the desktop. Also gives me an overview of storage, network situation etc.
Rainmeter pulls some CPU, fan and temperature related info from HwInfo which is running in the tray.
Another reason is probably that task manager, HwInfo get an additional entry in the task bar.
 
OP
sling-shot

sling-shot

Wise Old Owl
This is for my Pentium laptop Crucial MX500 SATA.
 

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OP
sling-shot

sling-shot

Wise Old Owl
*www.tomshardware.com/features/crucial-p2-ssd-qlc-flash-swap-downgrade/2

This is most likely my case. Unfortunately I did not properly research before buying having been biased from my previous experience with MX500 and blind trust on Crucial brand. Lesson learnt.
 
I always considered Crucial P2 to have QLC for some reason. QLC ain't too bad, esp if bought for very cheap. Mostly you feel its performance limitation if drive is 90%+ full or you are copying big files (speeds will drop to HDD level).
 

DestGod

Journeyman
This is most likely my case. Unfortunately I did not properly research before buying having been biased from my previous experience with MX500 and blind trust on Crucial brand. Lesson learnt.
I think it might be more of a defect on the SSD itself then any software optimization. Despite being QLC, the Crucial P2 is still an excellent PCIe 3.0 drive that is sufficient for everyday tasks. You're sure that you're not running any hardware intensive applications in the background?
Consider doing a fresh install of Windows.
 
OP
sling-shot

sling-shot

Wise Old Owl
When you said 'hardware intensive' did you mean tasks like disk error checking?

Also how to check for defects in an SSD?
 

DestGod

Journeyman
When you said 'hardware intensive' did you mean tasks like disk error checking?
No, like transferring large files, heavy video editing, or something similarly intensive.
Also how to check for defects in an SSD?
It's just a speculation, because the P2 running slow is surprising. The drive status on CrystalDisk usually gives an idea if there's anything wrong with the drive. You could try sending it for an RMA.

Edit; Just confirming, your SSD still has the sticker on it with which it came right? Do you also use an SSD heatsink with it?
 
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OP
sling-shot

sling-shot

Wise Old Owl
No, like transferring large files, heavy video editing, or something similarly intensive.

It's just a speculation, because the P2 running slow is surprising. The drive status on CrystalDisk usually gives an idea if there's anything wrong with the drive. You could try sending it for an RMA.

Edit; Just confirming, your SSD still has the sticker on it with which it came right? Do you also use an SSD heatsink with it?

I am basing it on feel during routine tasks. After boot with no other thing running in the background majorly.

I have not tampered with the SSD anyway and I don't think there was anything like a heatsink. It was just like an elongated debit card with connector at the end.

For another comparison I have booted up and tested the Intel SSD that came in the other ASUS Vivobook 14 M413 laptop I have. It feels much more responsive.
One thing I am suspicious of is the Comodo firewall running in the desktop which is absent from the laptop.

Clean install might help a bit but I don't want to undergo the hassle of reinstalling everything. I will just let it be.

This below is from my ASUS laptop
 

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