Both drives arrive in almost identical packaging with very little information on the front/back. There are no accessories as such, just warranty documentation. Each drive does however sit within a plastic enclosure to ensure safe arrival.

P2 and P5 conform to the M.2 form factor and more specifically the 2280 variant. The only noticeable difference from the externals is that P2 is presented with a blue/white sticker on the front side, while the P5 is adorned in a more sleek, black sticker. The latter will naturally blend into any motherboard much more easily – though, many motherboards nowadays usually come with their own M.2 heatsinks which will cover the drive anyway.


Under the hood, the P2 is somewhat different to the P5. P2 features the Phison E13T SSD controller and Micron’s 96-Layer TLC flash. Whereas the P5 features Crucial’s very own DM01B2 controller with twin Micro 96-Layer TLC flash. While the P2 is DRAM-less, the P5 boasts 1GB Micro LPDDR4. Such beefed up engineering in the P5 will ultimately lend it to tapping in to much higher transfer rates and IOPS results which we’ll see on the preceding pages. P5 is touted as Crucial fastest SSD to-date, laying claim to speeds of up to 3400MB/s.