Crucial P2 250GB and 500GB SSD Review

SPECworkstation 3 Benchmark

The SPECworkstation 3 was introduced in 2018 and features 30 workloads containing nearly 140 tests. The developer updated the storage workloads that are based on traces of nearly two-dozen applications. We ran the storage workload (WPCstorge) and are using the results from just three of the tests to show the performance difference between the SSDs that we are testing. Individual scores are generated for each test and a composite score for each category is calculated based on a reference machine, yielding a “bigger is better” result. We are using the actual ‘raw score’ result in three tests that we want to show actual transfer rates rather than a composite score.

The first workload that we will be showing is a trace that uses Microsoft Visual Studio to compile a build of Mozilla Firefox browser. The Crucial P2 500GB finished this workload with a read speed of 965.8 MB/s. We did not test the Crucial P2 250GB drive on this benchmark utility as there wasn’t enough space on the drive for it to run.

The next trace involves a Handbrake transcode and that test clearly favors Intel Optane drivers with 3D Xpoint memory as the Intel Optane 905P led this test by leaps and bounds. The Crucial P2 500GB M.2 NVMe SSD finished with 346.8 MB/s read and 130.9 MB/s write speeds.

In the 7zip workload the Crucial P2 500GB drive finished with a read speed of 1,653.7 MB/s.