Solidigm Unveils Flagship P44 Pro SSD With Blistering Reads And Maingear Takes Notice

Solidigm may not yet be a household name for some of our readers, but it should be. The company was spun out of Intel’s SSD and NAND flash business as part of its sale to SK Hynix last year. We were impressed by Solidigm’s D7-P5520 NVMe drive for datacenters earlier this year, and it is continuing to deliver in the enthusiast space now with the introduction of its P44 Pro M.2 NVMe SSD.

The Solidigm P44 Pro is positioned as a high end PCIe 4.0 drive, with sequential read speeds rated up to 7,000 MB/s. It is available in three capacities: 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB. The latter two are rated for write speeds up to 6,500 MB/s, while the 512GB is only rated up to 4,700 MB/s. All three capacities do share the read speed rating, at least.

“Our flagship client SSD, the P44 Pro, is built with our cutting-edge NAND technology. Combined with our powerful software, it delivers the high performance users require in demanding applications. The P44 Pro is the most powerful client SSD Solidigm has launched to date and the premier enthusiast SSD on the market,” said Sanjay Talreja, General Manager, Client Storage Group.

Solidigm (pronounced like paradigm, by the way) indicates that the P44 Pro drives can achieve these rated speeds within a 5.3-watt power envelope. It says the low power draw is important for more than just efficiency—it also helps keep thermals in check. Talreja says this “minimizes throttling that can come from excessive power and heat – resulting in consistent peak performance.”

The P44 Pro has attracted the acclaim of at least one boutique performance PC manufacturer. “MAINGEAR’s award-winning gaming desktops depend on fast storage to offer the best performance possible,” said Wallace Santos, Maingear CEO and Founder. “Solidigm has taken that performance to the next level with the launch of the P44 Pro. Boasting the incredible speed and reliability required to deliver an amazing gaming experience, Solidigm SSDs are the first choice for our pre-configured desktops. MAINGEAR is proud to partner with a company with a proven track record in engineering world-class storage solutions, and we are excited to offer Solidigm SSDs across all of our products.”

In addition to high end PCs, the P44 Pro will also find a home in some Sony PlayStation 5 consoles. The drive meets or exceeds all of Sony’s specifications so it could be an attractive upgrade option.

We hope to see larger capacity options arrive as well. Larger 4TB capacities are becoming more common for SSDs, and an 8TB version could be really handy for media creation workloads. In any case, the drives will go on sale later this month starting at $79.99, $129.99, and $234.99 for 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB capacities respectively.