Crucial P3 500GB NVMe PCIe 3.0 SSD

The Crucial P3 500GB is an internal NVMe SSD in the M.2 2280 form factor — the drive that goes straight onto a modern motherboard with a single screw and no cables at all. It is sized for Windows, the applications you use daily and a couple of games alongside them. It connects over PCIe 3.0 x4 and reads sequentially at up to 3,500 MB/s while writing at up to 1,900 MB/s. In practice that is the difference between a machine that boots and opens software immediately and one that leaves you waiting on a mechanical disk. The M.2 2280 length is the standard slot size on current desktop and laptop boards, so fitting is a matter of one slot and one screw. Crucial covers the P3 with a 5 year warranty. This is the first upgrade worth making on any system still starting from a hard drive, and the sensible boot drive in a new build: put the operating system and the software you open every day on it, and add a second drive later for bulk storage, since most boards keep a spare M.2 slot free. In a laptop it also means less heat and no moving parts, which matters in a warm, humid room.