Crucial launches affordable P3 and P3 Plus M.2 PCIe SSDs

So, you need a PCIe M.2 solid state drive for your laptop or desktop and you aren't sure what type to buy, eh? Well, while your computer should support PCIe 5.0 SSDs and below, the performance will be determined by your machine's PCIe type. In other words, a PCIe 3.0 M.2 slot can only achieve PCIe 3.0 speeds at best -- even if you install a PCIe 4.0 or 5.0 SSD. And so, it usually doesn't make sense to spend a premium for a drive that is rated higher than your computer.

Today, Crucial (a subsidiary of Micron) officially launches its P3 and P3 Plus M.2 PCIe solid state drives. Both affordable SSDs come in capacities ranging from 500GB to 4TB and use Micron's 176L 3D NAND, but they have a big difference between them. You see, the "Plus" designation indicates that the drive uses PCIe 4.0 as opposed to the "regular" P3 that uses PCIe 3.0. As a result, the P3 drive achieves read/write speeds up to 3500MB/s, while the superior Plus variant gets read/write up to 5000MB/s.

"The Crucial P3 Plus Gen4 NVMe SSD delivers load times and data transfers that are nearly nine times faster than SATA3 SSDs and up to 43 percent faster than the fastest Gen3 SSDs. While the Crucial P3 Gen3 NVMe SSD has load times six times faster than SATA SSDs and over twenty times faster than hard disk drives (HDDs), while offering performance that is 45 percent faster than the previous generation," says Micron.

Teresa Kelley, the company's VP and GM of consumer products adds, "The availability of both the Crucial P3 Plus and P3 SSD products gives consumers more choices when it comes to high-performance storage for their PCs -- ultimately helping them get more done, at an affordable price."

You can buy the Crucial P3 or P3 Plus here now. Pricing for the P3 starts at $54.99 for the 500GB and goes up as you increase capacity. Interestingly, The 500GB P3 Plus costs just $59.99, meaning it is only $5 more to get the PCIe 4.0 version.

In fact, all of the capacities are similarly priced between the P3 and P3 Plus, with the latter costing just a bit more. My recommendation is to opt for the P3 Plus versions -- even if your computer only supports PCIe 3.0 -- as the price increase is quite minimal and you will experience faster speeds in the future if you end up moving the drive to a different computer with PCIe 4.0 or better.

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