Silicon Power Teases A PCIe 5 XPower XS80 SSD That Can Rip 10GB/s Reads And Writes
Silicon Power is getting ready to release the XPower XS80, a "groundbreaking" solid state drive (SSD) with a PCI Express 5.0 interface paving the way for incredibly fast sequential read and write speeds on supported platforms. Of course, it's backwards compatible so you don't necessarily need a PCIe 5-based system to run it, but you'll certainly want one to take advantage of its full speed potential.
Running at full bore, Silicon Power says the 2TB model can hit up to 10,000MB/s (10GB/s) for both sequential reads and writes. It also plans on releasing a 1TB model with a slightly less blistering top speed of 9,500MB/s (9.5GB/s) for sequential reads and 8,500MB/s (8.5GB/s) for sequential writes. Both feature 232-layer 3D NAND flash memory.
Such breakneck speeds come with a couple of caveats. One of them is that sequential read and write performance will only get you far—it's mainly an indicator of how fast the drive can shuffle around large files. Random read and write metrics tend to be more relevant to real-world performance, and unfortunately Silicon Power is not sharing those details just yet.
The other caveat is cooling because it directly relates to sustained performance and how long a drive can stave off throttling. According to Silicon Power, the custom-crafted aluminum heatsink on the XPower XS80 is actively-cooled, which suggests there's a fan tucked inside. The drive maker also says it's using "intelligent thermal regulation technology" to prevent overheating. All told, the XPower XS80 with its chunky cooler stands 20.5mm (0.8 inches) high.
These kind of releases are important regardless of whether you own and/or have an interest in a PCIe 5.0 platform. Why? They help keep SSD prices in check for the crop of still-very-fast PCIe 4.0 drives. It's not the only factor, but with chip makers looking at increasing NAND flash memory chip prices on the supply side, there's a possibility that retail SSDs will start trickling up again in the months ahead.
Silicon Power hasn't announced pricing or a release date for the XPower XS80 yet, but there's a product page so hopefully that means it's coming soon.
