Crucial P2 M2 SSD not performing optimally?

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.

Which SSD did you have earlier?

Check in Task Manager the CPU usage.

Debloat your OS. Refer Chris Titus Tech on YouTube.

Sent from my moto g82 5G using Tapatalk

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

omega44-xt said:
Which SSD did you have earlier?

Check in Task Manager the CPU usage.

I had a HDD before. CPU usage for disk operations or in general?

SaiyanGoku said:
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.

patkim said:
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?

sling-shot said:
I had a HDD before. CPU usage for disk operations or in general?

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.

omega44-xt said:
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.

sling-shot said:
CPU use is not abnormal. I keep an eye on it through Rainmeter.

What's the problem in using Task Manager or HwInfo64 which do not consume system resources?

SaiyanGoku said:
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.

This is for my Pentium laptop Crucial MX500 SATA.

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

Nerevarine said:
*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).

sling-shot said:
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.

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

Also how to check for defects in an SSD?

sling-shot said:
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.

sling-shot said:
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?

DestGod said:
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

W

sling-shot said:
One thing I am suspicious of is the Comodo firewall running in the desktop which is absent from the laptop.

Security software creating some conflict can slow down even the fastest ssd.

Is Crystaldiskinfo reliable.?

Yes, Crystaldisk info is reliable. Maybe both are using different sensors, not sure. Just check Hwmonitor & HWinfo as well.