Overall and Final Verdict
With the new update to Crucial’s lineup, they have now fully embraced PCIe 4.0 which means a big step up in performance which makes for an especially huge jump in performance when comparing the P3 Plus with their previous mid-range drive, the Crucial P2 which has a read speed of 2400 MB/s and write speed of 1900 MB/s. The P3 Plus offers over double that performance with their new drive and that doesn’t even count the fact that the P3 Plus outperformed its listed specifications as well. In fact, in some situations, the P3 Plus is running with their flagship P5 Plus. They kept the same simple styling with the blacked-out PCB and a simple black sticker for the branding and for the P3 Plus they have expanded the size options available. Where before Crucial's biggest NVMe SSD was 2TB the P3 Plus now can come in a 4TB while still having smaller 500GB, 1TB, and of course the 2TB that I tested today. As far as performance goes it was dependent on the test. The P3 Plus did especially well in some of the IOPS heavy tests but struggled in tests like the AS SSD Copy benchmark and Passmark’s Disk Mark. Overall it is a middle of the pack drive but its real-world performance was up in with some of the fastest drives.
Drive availability is still limited but looking as of writing this you can find the 500 GB model on Newegg but everything else is out of stock. Our 2TB model has an MSRP of $189.99 but Newegg is listing it at $161.99. As it sits the cheapest available comparable drives on Newegg are $174.99 and by comparable I mean PCIe 4.0 x4, 2TB, and an M.2 SSD but those lowest end drives aren’t near the 5000 read speed of the P3 Plus making it a great price even at its MSRP and amazing at the price Newegg has listed assuming that doesn’t change once they get more stock in. I loved the P1 and the P2 in the past as great budget drives that didn’t sacrifice much in performance and the P3 Plus fits right in there with middle-range PCIe 4.0 performance at bottom-end PCIe 4.0 pricing.
Live Pricing: HERE
