Solidigm P44 Pro SSD Review: Ultra-Fast PCIe Gen 4 PC Storage

Solidigm P44 Pro: Starting At $55, $179 For 2TB Model The Solidigm P44 Pro is an enthusiast-class PCIe Gen 4 solid state drive that offers excellent all-around performance at competitive prices. Strong All-Around Performance Low Latencies Aggressive Pricing Good Endurance Ratings None Since Solidigm was formed after SK Hynix completed the acquisition of Intel’s SSD business, the company has released a number of excellent drives, which targeted multiple markets and price points. We’ve already taken a look at the affordable Solidigm P41 Plus, a DRAM-less QLC drive designed for mainstream...

Samsung T7 Shield 4TB Review: Fast, Rugged Portable SSD Storage

by Marco Chiappetta - Wed, Feb 01, 2023

Samsung T7 Shield External SSD - Starting At $99 (1TB), $409 (4TB) The Samsung T7 Shield is a compact, rugged, and reliable external USB-C SSD, with decent performance and competitive pricing. Small Form Factor Rugged, IP68 Rated Strong Compatibility Reliable And Consistent High Capacity Sequentials Trail Competition Included Cables Are Short Samsung recently updated its line-up of portable, external solid state storage solutions with the capacious 4TB T7 Shield external SSD. If you recall, the T7 series consists of an array of portable SSDs, some with basic storage functionality (the...

Phison E26 SSD Preview: PCIe 5 Storage Breaks Out For 2023

by Marco Chiappetta, Zak Killian - Mon, Jan 02, 2023

Phison E26 PCIe 5 NVMe SSD Preview: Coming Soon To An SSD Near You A new controller, fresh firmware, and an updated design paradigm results in one of the fastest SSDs we've ever tested. Ultra High Sequential Transfers Low Latency Tuned For DirectStorage Didn't Always Lead With Random 4K Transfers Needs Faster NAND For Max Performance Both AMD and Intel's desktop platforms now boast PCI Express 5.0 support—at least, as long as you get a premium motherboard. However, there simply aren't many PCIe 5.0 devices in the consumer arena to make use of said support. NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel's graphics...

Solidigm P41 Plus SSD Review: Strong PCIe 4 Storage Value

by Marco Chiappetta, Chris Goetting - Tue, Dec 06, 2022

Solidigm P41 Plus: Starting At $82.99 The Solidigm P41 Plus is an affordable, DRAM-less PCIe 4 Solid State Drive, tuned for low queue depths and mainstream computing workloads. It offers good throughput at very attractive price points. Excellent cost per gigabyte Strong low queue depth performance PCIe 4.0 class transfer speeds with pSLC cache Predictable and consistent performance Robust reliability rating No DRAM cache Prone to higher I/O latencies High queue depths do not scale well Solidigm has seemingly not missed a beat since the company was recently spun out of Intel. Now under...

Kioxia XG8 SSD Review: Fast PCIe 4 Storage For OEM PCs

by Ben Funk - Tue, Nov 29, 2022

Kioxia XG8: Starting at $59, $189 For 2TB A new NVMe controller and the latest 3D NAND combine to make a very solid product for OEM markets. It won't officially come to retail channels, though.  Excellent sequential throughput Very good latency and IOPs at high queue depths Solid performance in system drive workloads Mediocre latency with QD1, which is typical for client use Slower load times in real-world game loading scenarios OEM only, not available at retail Kioxia may not be a household name just yet, but there's a decent chance that your laptop has a Kioxia solid-state...

Samsung SSD 990 Pro Review: Super-Fast Storage For Gamers

by Marco Chiappetta - Tue, Oct 18, 2022

Samsung SSD 990 Pro: Starting At $169 A new, more efficient controller and fresh V-NAND boost Samsung SSD 990 Pro series performance to over 7.4GB/s, while consuming less power. It's a win-win. Excellent Sequentials Top-Notch PCMark Score Cool, Low-Power 8nm Controller Better At Low Queue Depths Mediocre 4K Transfers Trails At High Queue Depths Samsung was relatively early to the PCI Express Gen 4 NVMe SSD party with its 980 Pro series of drives, which we reviewed way back in September 2020. While that drive was speedy in its day, the Samsung SSD 980 Pro was quickly eclipsed by faster PCIe...

Adata Elite SE880 External SSD Review: Tiny, Durable, And Fast

by Tim Sweezy - Fri, Sep 16, 2022

Adata Elite SE880 External SSD - Starting At: $79 The Adata Elite SE880 is a compact, durable, high-performance external solid state drive, ideal for PC users and console gamers looking to expand their storage. High Performance Tiny Form Factor Tough Enclosure Includes USB-A And USB-C Cables Included Cables Are Short Max Performance Requires USB 3.2 Gen2 x2 Adata's Elite SE880 external SSD is billed as a high performance, sturdy portable drive for road warriors and gamers. This compact SSD is small enough to comfortably fit in a shirt pocket -- it's actually smaller than an Airpods case --...

Solidigm SSD D7-P5520 Review: Big, Fast NVMe Cloud Storage

by Marco Chiappetta - Thu, Jul 14, 2022

Earlier this year, SK Hynix acquired Intel’s NAND flash business and formed a new entity, dubbed Solidigm. For all intents and purposes – to this point, at least – Solidigm's operation is a well-oiled machine and subsidiary that has taken Intel’s established and respected NAND flash business and ran with it under a new name. As such, the first Solidigm product we’ll be showing you here today, the SSD D7-P5520, may cause a few double-takes. As you’ll see, the physical drives still carry Intel branding and carry on with the same model number scheme and design....

ADATA XPG Atom 50 Review: A Speedy Gen 4 SSD For Gamers

by Marco Chiappetta - Fri, Mar 25, 2022

The NVMe M.2 solid state storage market continues to expand with an ever-increasing number of drives, at a variety of price points and performance targets. There has been a steady influx of high-end drives targeting enthusiasts, along with an array of more-affordable DRAM-less offerings specifically tuned for consumer and gaming workloads. The ADATA XPG Atom 50 we’ll be showing you here today falls into the latter category. The ADATA XPG Atom 50 is available for a relatively low price, yet packs some decent specifications, including a native PCIe Gen 4 interface and sequential transfers north...

WD Black SN770 SSD Review: Killer Gen 4 Storage For Gamers

by Marco Chiappetta - Wed, Feb 02, 2022

WD just launched a brand new series of PCIe Gen 4 solid state drives that target gamers on a budget, the WD Black SN770. As its names suggests, the new WD Black SN770 sits ahead of the previous-gen SN750 drives in WD’s line-up, but a tick behind the flagship, top-performing SN850. Like the WD Black SN850 though, the SN770 is a PCIe Gen 4 x 4 drive, designed to offer increased bandwidth and lower latency than older PCIe Gen 3 drives, but it’s also a cost-reduced solutions that eschews a DRAM cache and leverages a scaled back controller. We’ll get to the particulars shortly. For...

Kingston KC3000 SSD Review: A PCIe Gen 4 Speed Demon

by Marco Chiappetta - Mon, Jan 10, 2022

At a time when it’s exceedingly tough for enthusiasts to acquire many top-flight PC components, dashing hopes for many a fun upgrade or new build, solid state drives remain a shining beacon of hope. The SSD market has seen a consistent influx of new and updated products, addressing virtually every price bracket, with good availability across the board. At the high-end, massive performance increases have also been the order of the day, with PCIe 5 drives – set to double peak sequential performance yet again to nearly 14GB/s – due to arrive later this year. As it stand today, Phison-based...

Intel’s PCIe 5 SSD Sneak Peek Shows Blistering-Fast 28GB/s Speeds With Dual Samsung Drives

by Jeff Butts - Fri, Dec 31, 2021

Update (12/31/01): Intel's Ryan Shrout decided not to wait for CES to showcase a 12th Gen Intel Core i9-12900K system rocking a Samsung PM1743 PCIe 5.0 solid state drive achieving over 13GB/s in IOMeter, but why not showcase a pair of drives? The question was posed, and Shrout answered with another awesome bandwidth demo, this time achieving an eye-popping 28GB/s. A few asked why we didn't show both of the PCIe 5.0 drives running at the same time. Fine @IanCutress here you go. Addressing them independently in IOmeter for a combined bandwidth over 28 GB/s!! https://t.co/107wlJ4wit pic.twitter.com/c8fecGkxli...

ADATA XPG Gammix S70 Blade SSD Review: Super-Fast NVMe Storage

by Marco Chiappetta - Tue, Dec 21, 2021

This past year was a tough one for PC enthusiasts. It was exceedingly difficult to acquire some of the most sought after components, like the latest and greatest CPUs and GPUs for example, and if you were lucky enough to score one, you often had to pay through the nose for it. Solid state storage, however, continued to advance at a steady clip and despite industry wide shortages, pricing remained relatively stable. Some of the best solid state drives are quite affordable, widely available, and some are even predicting significant price drops in the coming year. The ADATA XPG Gammix S70 Blade we’ll...

Intel SSD D7-P5510 Review: Ultra-Fast PCIe 4 Enterprise Storage

by Marco Chiappetta - Fri, Jul 09, 2021

Intel has been making noise in virtually all segments of the storage market as of late. A few weeks back, we took a look at the Optane Memory H20, which combines 3DXpoint media with traditional NAND on hybrid M.2 device to accelerate the storage subsystem in mainstream notebooks and PCs. More recently, we evaluated the blazing-fast, ultra-pricey Optane SSD P5800X for high-performance workstations, and we can't forget about the budget friendly SSD 670p that arrived in early March. Today, we’ll shift our focus to the enterprise space and inspect Intel’s recently-announced PCIe Gen 4 SSD...

Intel Optane SSD P5800X Review: The Fastest SSD Ever

by Marco Chiappetta - Wed, Jun 30, 2021

When we reviewed the Intel Optane SSD 905P back in 2018, despite a significant price premium over NAND-based SSDs, we gave the drive and Editor’s Choice award due to its exceptional performance where it mattered most for consumers, e.g. access times and random transfers at low queue depths. Intel Optane solid state drives typically offer much better latency characteristics, more consistent and predicable performance with a variety of workloads -- regardless of how much drive capacity is being used – and their endurance ratings are off the charts. The only caveats with the 905P were...

Kingston DC1500M SSD Review: High Endurance NVMe Storage

by Marco Chiappetta - Mon, Jun 28, 2021

This morning Kingston announced that its latest DC1500M series of enterprise-class solid state drives have begun shipping. Like many of its predecessors in Kingston’s enterprise SSD line-up, the new DC1500M series leverages a hot-pluggable U.2 (2.5”, 15mm) form factor, that’s compatible with common U.2 backplanes. The drives are tuned for mixed-use case, data-intensive workloads, including cloud computing, web hosting, high-performance computing (HPC), virtual infrastructures, and AI and deep learning applications. There are four drives in the initial Kingston DC1500M SSD line-up,...

TEAMGROUP T-Force Cardea Zero Z440 PCIe Gen 4.0 SSD Review

by Ben Funk - Thu, Jun 24, 2021

The PCI Express 4.0 interface has been around on AMD's Ryzen platform for a long time now, ever since the launch of Zen 2 and the X570 chipset. The new spec has finally gone mainstream on Intel's platforms, as well, with the release of the Rocket Lake-S 11th Gen Core processor family and the accompanying Z590 PCH. That means that neither camp is restricted to the older 3.0 spec which has half the bandwidth of the newer PCIe interface. It's high time we saw PCIe 4 solid state drives go mainstream, and today we have another offering on tap as a result with TEAMGROUP's T-Force Cardea Zero Z440...

WD_Black D50 Game Dock Review: Wicked-Fast External Storage

by Ben Funk - Mon, Jun 14, 2021

Notebooks often have limited storage capacity, despite significant advancements over the last few years. An M.2 drive is only the size of a stick of gum, but not every laptop can fit more than one or two drives at a time, and some users aren't comfortable opening up their machine to upgrade them, which ultimately limits their storage capabilities. This is particularly painful in gaming notebooks, when many games can take up dozens of gigabytes a piece. Western Digital thinks it has a solution, though. The WD Black D50 Game Dock is an all-in-one Thunderbolt 3 dock and PCI Express NVMe storage controller...

Phison E18 With Micron B47R Preview: Future Of PCIe 4 SSDs

by Marco Chiappetta - Tue, May 25, 2021

A number of today’s best performing, PCIe Gen 4 solid state drives are built around Phison’s E18 controller. If you remember, way back when the AMD Ryzen 3000 series debuted, a number of SSD providers also launched Phison PS5016-E16 based drives alongside the processors to highlight some of the benefits of the platform's PCI Express Gen 4 bandwidth. Those early drives paired the Phison E16 with some of Toshiba’s BiCS4 NAND flash memory and SK Hynix DRAM to produce some fast SSDs at the time, but the E16 wasn’t actually a native PCIe 4 solution. Soon thereafter, Phison began...

Intel Optane Memory H20 Review: Performance Where It Matters

by Marco Chiappetta - Mon, May 17, 2021

Intel first showed off its Optane Memory H20 solid state drive late last year. Just in case you missed the initial news, Optane Memory H20 is the follow-up to 2019’s Optane Memory H10, which combines 3D Xpoint-based Optane Memory technology and QLC (quad-level cell) 3D NAND flash on a single M.2 storage device. The Intel Optane Memory H20 is a hybrid solid state drive that leverages Intel’s latest Optane Memory media and 144-layer QLC NAND flash memory, but is designed to offer the benefits of both. Like the first-gen H10, the new Optane Memory H20 will find its way into utlrabooks,...

Samsung SSD 980 Review: Affordable NVMe PC Storage

by Marco Chiappetta - Tue, Mar 09, 2021

Although the company just recently fleshed out its flagship line of PCIe Gen 4 NVMe solid state drives with the 2TB SSD 980 Pro, Samsung is already back at it, with yet another family of drives that target a different market segment. While the Samsung SSD 980 Pro is intended for workstations types, performance enthusiasts and gamers that crave nothing but the best, the new Samsung SSD 980 drives – sans “Pro” – we’ll be showing you here today, target more mainstream computing applications. The branding of the new Samsung SSD 980s may be reminiscent of their higher-end...

Intel SSD 670p Review: Snappy, Budget-Friendly NVMe Storage

by Marco Chiappetta - Mon, Mar 01, 2021

Intel is releasing a new family of solid state drives today, targeting mainstream users and everyday computing tasks. The new Intel SSD 670p series leverages the company’s latest 144-layer QLC 3D NAND flash memory technology, with an improved dynamic SLC caching algo and updated PCIe Gen 3 controller. Unlike some of the more recent ultra-high-end PCIe Gen 4 SSDs to be released recently, complete with insanely high sequential transfer speeds north of 7GB/s, the Intel SSD 670p eschews the blazing sequentials in favor of optimized performance for random transfers at low queue depths that are...

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