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SK hynix Platinum P41 SSD Review: The Best Around (Updated)

Tom’s Hardware Verdict

The SK hynix Platinum P41 delivers on expectations with unrivaled performance and power efficiency. It’s the best consumer PCIe 4.0 SSD we’ve tested to date, proving that a winning formula can be made even better.

Pros

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Class-leading all-around performance
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Competitive performance in sustained workloads
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Class-leading power efficiency
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Competitive pricing

Update 13th July 2022: We’ve updated this article with new testing for the 1TB SK hynix Platinum P41 SSD on page 2.

Sale — SK hynix P41 Platinum PCIe 4.0 SSD (1TB): was $149, now $127 at Amazon
This drive is the top choice on our best SSDs list, promising 7,000 / 6,500 MBps sequential reads and writes with 1.4 and 1.3 million random IOPs.

Original Review published 4th June 2022:

We can say, without hyperbole, that SK hynix’s Platinum P41 is one of the most anticipated consumer SSDs in recent memory due to the pairing of its new Aries SSD controller with 176-Layer TLC flash, thus delivering headline specs of up to 1. 4 million IOPS that will pose a challenge to the leaders on our list of best SSDs. Storage enthusiasts have looked askance at drives like the Samsung 980 Pro, instead holding out for the P41’s inevitable arrival. There was every reason to believe that the day would soon come as SK hynix had announced the drive earlier this year with a general date in mind.

SK hynix’s proprietary Cepheus controller has been a noteworthy champion even as Crucial’s in-house controllers for the P5 and P5 Plus have demonstrated growing pains. However, SK hynix stepped up to the new Aries SSD controller in the Platinum P41. This new Aries controller offers 33% higher bus speeds, twice the number of channels, and more than doubles the IOPS compared to the previous-gen Cepheus, making us wonder if it can retain its throne as the efficiency king. Moreover, Micron beat Sk hynix to 176-Layer flash, with SK hynix playing catch-up. We’re particularly curious to see how this rivalry plays out.

Specifications

Product	500GB	1TB	2TB
Pricing	$104. 99	$149.99	$259.99
Capacity (User / Raw)	500GB / 512GB	1000GB / 1024GB	2000GB / 2048GB
Form Factor	M.2 2280	M.2 2280	M.2 2280
Interface / Protocol	PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.4	PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.4	PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.4
Controller	SK hynix Aries	SK hynix Aries	SK hynix Aries
DRAM	SK hynix LPDDR4	SK hynix LPDDR4	SK hynix LPDDR4
Memory	SK hynix 176L TLC	SK hynix 176L TLC	SK hynix 176L TLC
Sequential Read	7,000 MBps	7,000 MBps	7,000 MBps
Sequential Write	4,700 MBps	6,500 MBps	6,500 MBps
Random Read	960,000 IOPS	1,400,000 IOPS	1,400,000 IOPS
Random Write	1,000,000 IOPS	1,300,000 IOPS	1,300,000 IOPS
Security	AES-256	AES-256	AES-256
Endurance (TBW)	500TBW	750TBW	1200TBW
Part Number	SHPP41-500GM	SHPP41-1000GM	SHPP41-2000GM
Warranty	5-Year	5-Year	5-Year

The Platinum P41 has a five-year warranty with 500TBW, 750TBW, and 1200TBW ratings for the 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB SKUs, respectively. You might be dismayed by the lack of awe-inspiring endurance, but the TBW rating (terabytes written — endurance) only refers to total writes during the warranty period, and 99% of users will never exceed that amount of writes within the given time frame. The drive also supposedly supports AES-256 encryption and TCG Pyrite (but not OPAL) this time around, unlike the company’s Gold P31 SSDs, although the value in that is questionable for consumers.

Otherwise, this is a typical M.2 2280 NVMe drive that’s designed to be a high-end PCIe 4.0 option. The 1TB and higher-capacity models claim 7/6.5 GBps of sequential read/write throughput and up to 1.4M/1.3M random read/write IOPS, exceeding anything we’ve seen before in this space. These numbers separate the P41 from the rest of the pack, but the market is competitive and the P41’s MSRP is arguably most competitive at 1 and 2TB, particularly the latter. The real-world value may be dependent on sales pricing, however, as other products have been on the market longer.

Software and Accessories

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The Platinum P41 comes pretty barebones, but SK hynix has some useful software available on its website. The first is the SK hynix SSD System Migration Utility, or clone tool, which assists with data migration. This utility is powered by Macrium, which makes the popular Reflect software, which is useful for backups, cloning, and disk imaging.

SK hynix also includes Drive Manager, or Easy Kit, which has typical SSD toolbox options. This includes providing information about the drive, S.M.A.R.T. data, a firmware check, an update function, etc. Software is often an afterthought, so it’s nice to see this type of support from SK hynix.

A Closer Look

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The Platinum P41 is plain-looking, with just top and back labels. The drive is single-sided with a controller, DRAM, and two NAND packages. The back label offers some basic information about the drive, including the fact it’s rated to pull up to 8.25 watts. Continuous and peak draws are separate stories, of course, but users have been curious about this drive’s power efficiency. SK hynix states 7.5W for the drive, which is also stated in the S.M.A.R.T. data. For comparison, the 1TB Kingston Fury Renegade is rated at 8.8W.

The M.2 specification has a nominal power limit of around 7W. However, we’ve seen many PCIe 4.0 drives rated for more than this, from 2.5A with the 1TB Kingston KC3000 to 3A with the 2TB MP600 XT Pro — and we have seen a drive pull over 10W with the 8TB Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus. As drives get faster, power draw is increasingly a concern — especially for laptops — and extraordinary efficiency is one reason the Gold P31 has been so popular.

This drive is single-sided, but there’s clearly only enough space for two NAND packages. Double-sided designs, as with the Phison E18 controller, can reach up to 8TB, and NAND packages can contain up to 16 dies — although eight tends to be more reasonable unless you’re very constrained. Dies have to meet physical requirements for area and height. SK hynix has stated the launch Platinum P41 drives use 512Gb dies, so the 2TB here has two sixteen-die, or 16DP, packages.

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Most consumer NVMe controllers use architectures based on ARM’s Cortex-R series, which are processor cores specialized for real-time applications such as latency-sensitive I/O. The new 12nm Sk hynix Aries SSD controller is larger than its previous-gen Cepheus, and the increased surface area will play a part in heat dissipation. SK hynix has confirmed this is an eight-channel design with a doubling of cores over the Cepheus. The package measures 17 x 17mm, which is larger than the 15 x 15mm specified by SMI for the SM2264. The ‘2149’ on the controller likely refers to the manufacturing date — week 49 in 2021. This is not unusual, but the current marketplace is struggling to provide microcontrollers, so perhaps SK hynix stockpiled or otherwise waited for flash production to ramp up.

SK hynix also uses its own LPDDR4 DRAM on the P41, matching what it used on the Gold P31. This is a specialized DDR designed for mobile applications with lower power usage. DRAM for SSDs is most commonly used for metadata, particularly, mapping and addressing for translation between physical and logical data locations. DRAM has far lower latency than NAND, so it is particularly useful for many small and random I/O operations. This is especially true for writes as they require an update of the look-up table (LUT). DRAM works optimally by storing the most recent or “hottest” data accesses.

We often talk about DRAM configuration in reference to the bus bit width. A lower bit width tends to have more bandwidth, but a higher bit width is cheaper. Due to the type of access used on SSDs, the latter is a better choice, so we typically see a 16-bit configuration.

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SK hynix listed several challenges in its 2021 ISSCC technical digest for the 176-layer TLC flash it uses on this drive. We don’t list flash density on our specs table. This is an important characteristic as it is one factor that limits capacity. Flash manufacturers constantly try to increase the number of cells and bits they can cram into a given surface area, encouraging improvements like CMOS-under-Array (CuA). SK hynix’s 176-layer 512Gb TLC is rated for 10.8Gb/mm2, which is comparable to Micron’s 10.27Gb/mm2 and BiCS6’s 10.4Gb/mm2. SK hynix has therefore improved density by more than a third over its previous generation of TLC flash, keeping up with the competition. For comparison, Micron’s 176-layer 1Tb QLC, with 33% more bits per cell, should be at 14.7Gb/mm2.

SK hynix’s specifications for this flash came from the 2021 International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), which referenced their 512Gb die design. The Gold P31 uses both 512Gb and 1Tb dies depending on capacity, while SK hynix states 512Gb for the three launch SKUs. There are similarities to the previous 128-layer generation, with the 176-layer flash being somewhat faster in latency but with a much faster I/O interface speed — 1066 MT/s versus 1600 MT/s. While this can improve response time to some degree, any bandwidth limitation is dependent on the controller, that is, the bus rate and the number of channels.

Array efficiency, the ratio between total gate layers, and the number of word lines for data have continued to improve. Some layers might be relegated for use as dummy word lines, generally at either end of the data word lines and between decks to mitigate electron injection effects at the edges. Others may be used for source and drain gate selectors. All of this is relevant if one is trying to gauge the “real” layer count, although, in practice, that just gives an idea of architectural efficiency. It suffices to say we expect this flash to perform reasonably well as SK hynix has addressed height concerns.

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Comparison Products

We compared the 1TB SK hynix Platinum P41 to its predecessor, the Gold P31, and multiple prominent PCIe 4.0 SSDs. The list includes drives with proprietary designs such as the WD Black SN850, the Samsung 980 Pro, and the Crucial P5 Plus. The remaining drives use the Phison E18 controller paired with Micron TLC flash. In the case of the Kingston Fury Renegade, this means 176-layer flash, while the Corsair MP600 Pro and Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus use the older 96-layer flash.

Trace Testing — 3DMark Storage Benchmark

Built for gamers, 3DMark’s Storage Benchmark focuses on real-world gaming performance. Each round in this benchmark stresses storage based on gaming activities including loading games, saving progress, installing game files, and recording gameplay video streams.

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The Platinum P41 tops the charts. We suspect some drives might be optimized to do well on this benchmark, but the P41 beats them all regardless.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices.

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The P5 Plus does better here than it does in 3DMark. The PCIe 3.0 Gold P31 falls behind, with the Rocket 4 Plus and MP600 Pro next-to-last due to their older flash.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom, 50GB dataset. We copy 31,227 files of various types, such as pictures, PDFs, and videos to a new folder and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file.

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The P41 essentially ties, or beats, the best in DiskBench. The read transfer rate is similar for all PCIe 4.0 drives, showing that the test is bandwidth-limited; as a result, the P31 falls behind. However, the P41 stands out a bit in the file copy test, and we see that the newer flash on the Fury Renegade helps it stand apart from the Rocket 4 Plus and MP600 Pro.

Synthetic Testing — ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that SSD vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes.

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The P41 shines during the ATTO read benchmark, matching the best drives that favor such peak performance. There is a bit of a drop during the write test, though it still musters a strong showing against the proprietary drives. The Fury Renegade is on top with the PCIe 3.0 P31 at the bottom, as would be expected.

The P41 does exceptionally well with sequential results during the CrystalDiskMark benchmark. But, again, the Fury Renegade’s newer flash also helps it pull away from the pack. The P31, limited by its interface, conversely struggles to keep up. When looking at the results for random performance, users often look at queue depth one (QD1) to get a good feel for SSD responsiveness, and the P4 does quite well enough. Its incredible maximum IOPS is also shown off in the Q16T16 random read result.

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data. Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the «native» TLC or QLC flash. We use Iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

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The Platinum P41 starts a little slow, between 5.2 and 5.8 GBps, with what appears to be an anomaly. This is probably the static portion of the SLC cache, as we also see with the 2TB model. This may be an artifact of testing or something SK hynix can fix later in firmware. In either case, the drive then hits its stride at 6.55 Gbps for 30 additional seconds, suggesting a cache of around 213GB in total size.

After that, the direct-to-TLC period is around 1.45 GBps, which is fairly quick compared to most drives. This speed is a bit higher with the 2TB SKU, which does have a smaller cache in relative terms. There are faster TLC drives, for example, some using Micron’s 176-layer B47R flash, but the exact write response depends on cache capacity. Having a more conservative scheme, as on the P41, ensures a responsive drive that can sustain relatively high levels of performance. This can be indicative of full drive and steady-state performance.

The 1TB P41 rebounds to 2.2-2.3 GBps, a faster intermediate state. This is also where the drive heads when given some time to idle, as it does not quickly recover to full SLC speeds. This is pretty impressive for a 1TB drive and is what we would expect given the speed of this 176-layer flash with this much interleaving. While many high-end PCIe 4.0 drives seem to peak at 2TB, the P41 is quite happy at 1TB in this test, following an overall pattern similar to the previous-gen P31.

The 1TB SKU can write almost as much data in cache mode as the 2TB, given sufficient time. SK hynix told us all launch capacities use 512Gb flash, which should show higher speeds at 2TB after SLC. With 1Tb dies, we’d expect about the same. The cache is not so large as to force that condition otherwise, so this might be a purposeful or expected limitation as it ends up being quite consistent. SK hynix has room to improve write performance if it ever decides to release a 4TB SKU.

Power Consumption and Temperature

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you’re looking for a laptop upgrade as even the best ultrabooks can have mediocre storage.

Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state more quickly, ultimately saving energy.

We also monitor the drive’s temperature via the S.M.A.R.T. data and an IR thermometer to see when (or if) thermal throttling kicks in and how it impacts performance. Remember that results will vary based on the workload and ambient air temperature.

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Those users who embraced the Gold P31 for its excellent power efficiency, which is especially great for laptops, can tentatively celebrate. The Platinum P41 is the most efficient drive we’ve tested to date, including at the 1TB capacity.

Our test is simple and uses a file copy, which tends to favor faster drives but does give a solid measure of efficiency. Any proper laptop will idle just fine with an NVMe drive and most of your time is probably spent in idle; testing a wider range of workloads can be more difficult since every laptop is different with unique battery wear over prolonged testing. Desktops tend to engage in higher power states, and users often want this for gaming and productivity. So, a quick file copy gives a snapshot of everyday use.

The Gold P31 is still excellent here, but some of the more recent PCIe 4.0 drives do rather well. Newer 176-layer flash tends to be more efficient, and new PCIe 4.0 controllers are produced with an efficient process node. We may see a four-channel PCIe 4.0 drive that mimics the P31 once we have appropriate flash — 232-layer or higher at up to 2400 MT/s — that will offer a new tier of efficiency, but that’s down the line. Initial PCIe 5.0 drives will take time to saturate that interface. For the time being, then, the P41 is as good as it gets.

The 1TB Platinum P41 idled around 40-45C, measured by SMART and temperature gun, eventually reaching over 80C after we nearly filled the drive with an extended write workload. The drive began to throttle at around 80C, but the write speeds were still high. However, throttling became more serious at 82C+. This is not a realistic workload, but it does indicate a heatsink might be a good addition, particularly in warmer environments.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

CPU	Intel Core i9-11900K
Motherboard	ASRock Z590 Taichi
Memory	2x8GB Kingston HyperX Predator DDR4 5333
Graphics	Intel UHD Graphics 750
CPU Cooling	Alphacool Eissturm Hurricane Copper 45 3x140mm
Case	Streacom BC1 Open Benchtable
Power Supply	Corsair SF750 Platinum
OS Storage	WD_Black SN850 2TB
Operating System	Windows 10 Pro 64-bit 20h3

We use a Rocket Lake platform with most background applications such as indexing, windows updates, and anti-virus disabled in the OS to reduce run-to-run variability. Each SSD is prefilled to 50% capacity and tested as a secondary device. Unless noted, we use active cooling for all SSDs.

Comparison Products

Trace Testing — 3DMark Storage Benchmark

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The Platinum P41 tops the charts. We suspect some drives might be optimized to do well on this benchmark, but the P41 beats them all regardless.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices.

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The P5 Plus does better here than it does in 3DMark. The PCIe 3.0 Gold P31 falls behind, with the Rocket 4 Plus and MP600 Pro next-to-last due to their older flash.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

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Synthetic Testing — ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

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Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

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Power Consumption and Temperature

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Test Bench and Testing Notes

CPU	Intel Core i9-11900K
Motherboard	ASRock Z590 Taichi
Memory	2x8GB Kingston HyperX Predator DDR4 5333
Graphics	Intel UHD Graphics 750
CPU Cooling	Alphacool Eissturm Hurricane Copper 45 3x140mm
Case	Streacom BC1 Open Benchtable
Power Supply	Corsair SF750 Platinum
OS Storage	WD_Black SN850 2TB
Operating System	Windows 10 Pro 64-bit 20h3

Comparison Products

Trace Testing — 3DMark Storage Benchmark

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The Platinum P41 tops the charts. We suspect some drives might be optimized to do well on this benchmark, but the P41 beats them all regardless.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices.

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The P5 Plus does better here than it does in 3DMark. The PCIe 3.0 Gold P31 falls behind, with the Rocket 4 Plus and MP600 Pro next-to-last due to their older flash.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

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Synthetic Testing — ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

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Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

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Power Consumption and Temperature

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Test Bench and Testing Notes

CPU	Intel Core i9-11900K
Motherboard	ASRock Z590 Taichi
Memory	2x8GB Kingston HyperX Predator DDR4 5333
Graphics	Intel UHD Graphics 750
CPU Cooling	Alphacool Eissturm Hurricane Copper 45 3x140mm
Case	Streacom BC1 Open Benchtable
Power Supply	Corsair SF750 Platinum
OS Storage	WD_Black SN850 2TB
Operating System	Windows 10 Pro 64-bit 20h3

Comparison Products

Trace Testing — 3DMark Storage Benchmark

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The Platinum P41 tops the charts. We suspect some drives might be optimized to do well on this benchmark, but the P41 beats them all regardless.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices.

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The P5 Plus does better here than it does in 3DMark. The PCIe 3.0 Gold P31 falls behind, with the Rocket 4 Plus and MP600 Pro next-to-last due to their older flash.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

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Synthetic Testing — ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

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Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

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Power Consumption and Temperature

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Test Bench and Testing Notes

CPU	Intel Core i9-11900K
Motherboard	ASRock Z590 Taichi
Memory	2x8GB Kingston HyperX Predator DDR4 5333
Graphics	Intel UHD Graphics 750
CPU Cooling	Alphacool Eissturm Hurricane Copper 45 3x140mm
Case	Streacom BC1 Open Benchtable
Power Supply	Corsair SF750 Platinum
OS Storage	WD_Black SN850 2TB
Operating System	Windows 10 Pro 64-bit 20h3

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Features and Specification

Next Page 1TB Performance Results

Shane Downing is a Freelance Reviewer for Tom’s Hardware US, covering consumer storage hardware.

Kingston KC3000 M.2 SSD Review: The Fastest Flash You Can Get

Tom’s Hardware is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s why you can trust us.

Kingston’s KC3000 delivers potent speeds for gamers and pros.

Editor’s Choice

(Image: © Tom’s Hardware)

Tom’s Hardware Verdict

Kingston’s 1TB KC3000 isn’t quite as fast as the 2TB model, but it trades blows with the best SSDs on the market, delivering some of the fastest overall performance results we’ve seen.

Pros

+
Fast PCIe 4.0 performance and cool operation
+
Attractive design
+
5-year warranty and high-endurance ratings

Today’s best Kingston KC3000 1TB deals

$173. 22

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December 22, 2021 Update: We’ve updated this article with new testing for the 1TB Kingston KC3000 M.2 NVMe SSD on page 2.

Original Review published November 8, 2021:

Designed to compete with the performance leaders on our best SSDs list, Kingston’s KC3000 features the fastest hardware combo we’ve seen from any Phison-based drive yet. Leveraging Phison’s PS5018-E18 PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe controller and Micron’s 176L TLC NAND flash operating at full steam 1,600 MTps, the KC3000 is a potent SSD for both creative professionals and hardcore gamers. Available in capacities up to 4TB, Kingston’s flagship drive looks sleek and keeps cool thanks to a low-profile graphene aluminum heat spreader, but it will cost you a pretty penny compared to your average NVMe SSD.

Specifications

Product	512GB	1TB	2TB	4TB
Pricing	$106.99	$174.99	$399.99	$999.99
Capacity (User / Raw)	512GB / 512GB	1024GB / 1024GB	2048GB / 2048GB	4096GB / 4096GB
Form Factor	M.2 2280	M.2 2280	M.2 2280	M.2 2280
Interface / Protocol	PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.4	PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.4	PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.4	PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.4
Controller	Phison PS5018-E18	Phison PS5018-E18	Phison PS5018-E18	Phison PS5018-E18
DRAM	DDR4	DDR4	DDR4	DDR4
Memory	Micron 176L TLC	Micron 176L TLC	Micron 176L TLC	Micron 176L TLC
Sequential Read	7,000 MBps	7,000 MBps	7,000 MBps	7,000 MBps
Sequential Write	3,900 MBps	6,000 MBps	7,000 MBps	7,000 MBps
Random Read	450,000 IOPS	900,000 IOPS	1,000,000 IOPS	1,000,000 IOPS
Random Write	900,000 IOPS	1,000,000 IOPS	1,000,000 IOPS	1,000,000 IOPS
Security	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Endurance (TBW)	400 TB	800 TB	1,600 TB	3,200 TB
Part Number	SKC3000S/512G	SKC3000S/1024G	SKC3000D/2048G	SKC3000D/4096G
Warranty	5-Years	5-Years	5-Years	5-Years

The Kingston KC3000 is available in capacities ranging from 512GB up to 4TB. Although most capacities are on the pricey side, including our 2TB sample, the 1TB model is priced particularly aggressively at the time of writing, listed at $174.99. The other capacities range from $0.20-$0.24 per gigabyte.

Kingston rates the KC3000’s performance for up to 7 GBps sequential reads and writes with a random read and write of 1 million IOPS. It features a large dynamic write cache that spans one-third of its available capacity, meaning it can outperform the Seagate FireCuda 530 and Corsair MP600 Pro XT in moderate file transfers.

Endurance Ratings (TBW)	500GB	1TB	2TB	4TB
Kingston KC3000	400 TB	800 TB	1,600 TB	3,200 TB
WD_Black SN850	300 TB	600 TB	1,200 TB	—
Seagate FireCuda 530	640 TB	1,275 TB	2,550 TB	5,100 TB
Corsair MP600 Pro XT		700 TB	1,400 TB	3,000 TB
Samsung 980 Pro	300 TB	600 TB	1200 TB	—
Patriot Viper VP4300		1,000 TB	2,000 TB	—
Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus		700 TB	1,400 TB	2,800 TB
Adata XPG Gammix S50 Lite		740 TB	1,480 TB	—
Crucial P5 Plus	300 TB	600 TB	1,200 TB	—

Kingston backs the KC3000 with a five-year warranty and limits it to some solid endurance figures. Each capacity is rated higher than the Samsung 980 Pro and WD_Black SN850. At 2TB, our sample is rated to handle up to 1.6 petabytes worth of writes within its warranty period. However, while impressive, this somewhat pales in comparison to the Seagate FireCuda 530’s endurance figures.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

The KC3000 supports Trim, S.M.A.R.T. data reporting, end-to-end data path protection, and can be securely erased, but it does not support AES 256-bit hardware encryption for speedy, secure password protection. Kingston provides a key for Acronis True Image HD for cloning over your old data and the company’s website has an SSD toolbox for download, Kingston SSD Manager, which allows you to monitor drive health and update the firmware.

A Closer Look at Kingston KC3000

Image 1 of 2

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

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The Kingston KC3000 comes in an M.2 2280 single or double-sided form factor depending on which capacity you get. The 512GB and 1TB come single-sided while the larger capacities come with components on both sides of the PCB.

The design of the KC3000 is one of the best we’ve seen. We appreciate the well-thought-out and executed use of labels on both sides of the SSD. The top remains blacked out with only the essential info listed while the back-side hides the distracting QR code and compliances.

Similar to the Team Group T-Force Cardea A440, the KC3000 comes with a graphene label. The difference between the two is that the Kingston’s is mixed with aluminum while the Team Group’s was mixed with copper.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

Phison’s high-performance, 8-channel PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe 1.4 NVMe SSD controller, the PS5018-E18 lies at the heart of the Kingston KC3000. It leverages a triple-CPU primary architecture based on Arm Cortex R5 cores and offloads common, repetitive firmware code to a dual-CPU coprocessor, accelerating writes and queueing.

The controller is built on a 12nm process to keep a handle on the heat output while operating at 1 GHz. It features ASPM, ASPT, and supports the low-power L1.2 idle state to keep cool. It also thermal throttles if it is to exceed a temperature of 84 degrees Celsius based on its S.M.A.R.T. data.

To attain its high endurance ratings, the KC3000 takes advantage of Phison’s fourth-generation Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) ECC and the company factory overprovisioned by 7.4%. This not only aids with sustained write performance but also is implemented to aid with bad block management and other background NAND management routines.

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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

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The controller interfaces with a DDR4 DRAM cache provided by a Kingston-branded chip that operates 1,600 MHz. Also, interfacing are thirty-two dies of Micron’s 512Gb 176L TLC flash, operating at full speed, 1,600 MTps.

With the flash operating so fast, the Kingston KC3000 comes to us as the most responsive retail Phison E18-based NVMe SSD that we have reviewed thus far. At this speed, and paired with its larger SLC cache, the KC3000 should have the upper hand on the Seagate and Corsair as they duke it out in battle.

MORE: Best SSDs

MORE: How We Test HDDs And SSDs

MORE: All SSD Content

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Features and Specifications

Next Page 1TB Performance Results

Sean is a Contributing Editor at Tom’s Hardware US, covering storage hardware.

Tom’s Hardware is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site .

SSD comparison | Compare solid-state drives & benchmarks

SSD comparison | Compare solid-state drives & benchmarks — Versus

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Top 10DRAM cacheM. 2NVMe

Sort by:

Versus ScoreRelease datePrice (high to low)Price (low to high)

Team Group T-Force Cardea A440 Pro 4TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

100points

496 EUR

Team Group T-Force Cardea A440 Pro 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

96points

600 EUR

Silicon Power XS70 4TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

94points

1,014 EUR

Corsair MP600 Pro LPX 4TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

93points

Corsair MP600 Pro XT 4TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

93points

Adata Legend 960 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

92points

328 EUR

Team Group T-Force Cardea A440 Pro 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

92points

745 EUR

Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 4TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

92points

MSI Spatium M480 Play 4TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

90points

1,404 EUR

Seagate FireCuda 530 4TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

89points

Corsair MP600 Pro LPX 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

89points

Adata Legend 960 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

89points

Corsair MP600 Pro XT 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

88points

Team Group T-Force Cardea A440 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

88points

362 EUR

MSI Spatium M480 Play 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

86points

Corsair MP600 Pro LPX 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

85points

438 EUR

Team Group T-Force Cardea Ceramic C440 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

85points

312 EUR

Team Group T-Force Cardea Zero Z440 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

85points

Asus ROG Strix SQ7 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

85points

Corsair MP600 Pro XT 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

85points

Corsair MP600 Pro 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

84points

1,002 EUR

Kingston Fury Renegade 4TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

84points

369 EUR

Seagate FireCuda 530 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

84points

267 EUR

Corsair Force Series MP600 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

83points

536 EUR

SK Hynix Platinum P41 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

83points

Mushkin Redline Vortex 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

83points

Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus G 4TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

83points

Patriot Viper VP4300 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

82points

952 EUR

Kingston KC3000 4096GB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

82points

Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

82points

323 EUR

Adata XPG Gammix S70 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

81points

211 EUR

Team Group T-Force Cardea Ceramic C440 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

81points

170 EUR

Team Group T-Force Cardea Zero Z440 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

81points

330 EUR

Western Digital WD Black SN850 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

81points

Adata XPG Gammix S70 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

81points

371 EUR

Patriot Viper VP4100 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

80points

203 EUR

MSI Spatium M480 Play 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

80points

Silicon Power UD90 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

79points

342 EUR

Kingston Fury Renegade 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

79points

188 EUR

Corsair MP600 Pro 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

79points

Team Group T-Force Cardea A440 Pro Special Series 4TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

79points

167 EUR

Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

78points

Gigabyte Aorus NVMe Gen4 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

78points

Silicon Power UD90 250GB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

78points

163 EUR

Western Digital WD Black SN850 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

78points

161 EUR

Patriot Viper VP4100 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

78points

354 EUR

Kingston KC3000 2048GB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

78points

Seagate FireCuda 530 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

78points

342 EUR

MSI Spatium M480 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

77points

Samsung 980 Pro 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

77points

Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus G 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

77points

196 EUR

Gigabyte Aorus Gen4 7000s 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

77points

330 EUR

Samsung 980 Pro 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

77points

Mushkin Redline Vortex 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

76points

Apacer AS2280Q4U 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

76points

Gigabyte Aorus NVMe Gen4 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

76points

587 EUR

Corsair MP600 Core 4TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

76points

93 EUR

Western Digital WD Black SN850 500GB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

75points

Seagate FireCuda 520 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

75points

Apacer AS2280Q4U 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

75points

Samsung 980 Pro 500GB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

75points

274 EUR

Crucial P5 Plus 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

75points

Apacer AS2280Q4U 512GB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

75points

Team Group T-Force Cardea A440 Pro Special Series 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

75points

102 EUR

Corsair MP600 Pro LPX 500GB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

75points

Patriot Viper VP4300 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

74points

187 EUR

Kingston Fury Renegade 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

74points

Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus G 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

74points

167 EUR

Kingston KC3000 1024GB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

73points

474 EUR

Mushkin Gamma 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

73points

385 EUR

MSI Spatium M470 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

73points

Silicon Power XD80 512GB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

73points

Team Group T-Force Cardea Z44L 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

73points

169 EUR

Seagate FireCuda 520 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

73points

Adata Legend 840 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

73points

153 EUR

Crucial P5 Plus 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

72points

Gigabyte Aorus Gen4 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

72points

MSI Spatium M480 Play 500GB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

72points

Corsair Force Series MP600 500GB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

72points

Corsair Force Series MP510 4TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

72points

181 EUR

MSI Spatium M480 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

71points

410 EUR

Addlink X70 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

71points

Team Group T-Force Cardea A440 Pro Special Series 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

71points

569 EUR

Team Group T-Force Cardea Zero Z340 4TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

70points

Team Group T-Force Cardea Z44L 500GB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

70points

160 EUR

MSI Spatium M470 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

70points

235 EUR

Adata XPG Gammix S50 Lite 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

69points

Addlink X70 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

69points

188 EUR

Seagate FireCuda 530 500GB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

69points

81 EUR

Crucial P5 Plus 500GB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

68points

Patriot Viper VP4100 500GB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

68points

888 EUR

Mushkin Delta 4TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

68points

Adata XPG SX8100 4TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

68points

93 EUR

Adata XPG Gammix S50 Lite 512GB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

68points

102 EUR

Adata Legend 840 512GB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

68points

126 EUR

Gigabyte Aorus NVMe Gen4 500GB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

68points

236 EUR

Corsair MP600 Core 2TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

68points

Mushkin Gamma 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

68points

111 EUR

Adata XPG Gammix S50 Lite 1TB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

68points

Samsung 980 Pro 250GB

Read speed
Write speed
Benchmarks
General info

67points

SSD comparison

Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1TB

Samsung 980 1TB

Samsung 980 Pro 1TB

Western Digital WD Black SN850 1TB

Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1TB

Western Digital WD Black SN770 2TB

Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1TB

Samsung 980 Pro 1TB

Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1TB

Samsung 970 Pro NVMe M2 2280 1TB

Kingston KC3000 2048GB

Samsung 980 Pro 1TB

Crucial P2 1TB

Western Digital WD Blue SN570 1TB

Kingston A400 480GB

Kingston Q500 480GB

Western Digital WD Black SN750 SE 1TB

Western Digital WD Blue SN570 1TB

Samsung 980 1TB

Western Digital WD Black SN750 1TB

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Fastest M.2 NVMe SSDs in 2022 (September Update)

Home » Hardware » Storage » The Fastest M.2 NVMe SSDs in September 2022

Gaming PC Builder is reader-supported. When using links on our site to make a purchase, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Faster storage can take seconds off most of your PC activities – from booting up your OS to loading apps and games. But not all SSDs are created equal. If you have a spare PCI Express (PCIe) M.2 slot on your motherboard (desktop or laptop), then this is where to install your system drive. The best M.2 drives also use the modern storage interface protocol NVMe.

Table of Contents

What is NVMe and do I need it?
Fastest Gen4 & Gen3 M.2 SSDs
Best M. 2 NVMe SSDs 2022 (September)
What drive is best for gaming?
Will it work in my desktop/laptop PC?
How to choose the right capacity

What is NVMe and do I need it?

Image credit: Intel

The performance of any storage device boils down to how quickly it lets you move data from storage (non-volatile, slower) to DRAM (volatile, faster).

The NVMe protocol – short for non-volatile memory express – was created to make the most out of solid state drives in combination with the PCIe interface. It replaces AHCI (paired with SATA), which was originally intended for mechanical hard drives. The newer protocol includes many efficiency improvements to deal with parallel transfers and the low-latency nature of SSDs.

As of 2022, high-end NVMe SSDs are about to become even faster in gaming PCs, thanks to GPU acceleration using Microsoft’s DirectStorage API. AMD and Nvidia are implementing this technology under the names Smart Access Storage and RTX IO, respectively, which will be worth keeping an eye on.

Fastest Gen4 Vs. Gen3 M.2 SSD

When shopping for a new SSD, it is important to remember that M.2 is just a form factor that says nothing of the drive’s performance. Some M.2 SSDs use the SATA interface and have the same performance limitations as any 2.5″ drive. If you have a somewhat modern motherboard, it most likely has a PCIe/NVMe-capable (and therefore much faster) M.2 slot, so this is the type of drive to look for.

You also have to account for multiple generations of the PCIe interface itself. PCIe 5.0 (Gen5)-capable motherboards are now starting to arrive with Intel and AMD’s 600-series chipsets, but there are still no SSDs that utilize this latest version of the interface.

For now, the fastest M.2 SSDs use the PCIe 4.0 (Gen4) standard. Gen4-capable systems are however also relatively recent and start with Intel’s 11th/12th-gen Core platforms or an AMD counterpart based on a Ryzen/Threadripper 3000/5000 CPU and an X570, B550, or TRX40 motherboard or later.

Many users (those with older Intel builds in particular) are still on PCIe Gen3. There is no need to invest in a more expensive Gen4 SSD for use in a Gen3 system. Although Gen4 drives are backward-compatible, they offer no performance benefit.

As of September 2022, the SK Hynix Platinum P41 is one of the fastest Gen4 SSDs overall. It is closely followed by the Kingston KC3000 and other SSDs based on nearly identical hardware. Another strong contender for the top spot is the new(ish) WD Black SN850X. We also have high expectations for the Samsung 990 Pro, which arrives in October. In the PCIe 3.0 generation, the Samsung 970 EVO Plus is still an excellent choice – not least because it’s a lot more affordable than the best PCIe Gen4 SSDs.

Product

Fastest M.2 SSD (Gen4)

SK hynix Platinum P41 1TB PCIe NVMe Gen4 M.2 2280 Internal SSD l Up to 7,000MB/S l Compact M.2 SSD Form Factor SK hynix SSD — Internal Solid State Drive with 176-Layer NAND Flash

Best Gen3 SSD

SAMSUNG 970 EVO Plus SSD 1TB, M. 2 NVMe Interface Internal Solid State Hard Drive with V-NAND Technology for Gaming, Graphic Design, MZ-V7S1T0B/AM

Image

Sequential read (max., MB/s)

Sequential write (max., MB/s)

Random read IOPS (4K/QD1)

19,000

Random write IOPS (4K/QD1)

60,000

Random read IOPS (4K/QD32)

1,400,000

600,000

Random write IOPS (4K/QD32)

1,300,000

550,000

Warranty

5 Years

Endurance rating (TBW)

750 TBW

600 TBW

Check Price

View on Amazon

Fastest M.2 SSD (Gen4)

Product

SK hynix Platinum P41 1TB PCIe NVMe Gen4 M.2 2280 Internal SSD l Up to 7,000MB/S l Compact M.2 SSD Form Factor SK hynix SSD — Internal Solid State Drive with 176-Layer NAND Flash

Image

Sequential read (max., MB/s)

Sequential write (max. , MB/s)

Random read IOPS (4K/QD1)

Random write IOPS (4K/QD1)

Random read IOPS (4K/QD32)

1,400,000

Random write IOPS (4K/QD32)

1,300,000

Warranty

5 Years

Endurance rating (TBW)

750 TBW

Check Price

View on Amazon

Best Gen3 SSD

Product

SAMSUNG 970 EVO Plus SSD 1TB, M.2 NVMe Interface Internal Solid State Hard Drive with V-NAND Technology for Gaming, Graphic Design, MZ-V7S1T0B/AM

Image

Sequential read (max., MB/s)

Sequential write (max., MB/s)

Random read IOPS (4K/QD1)

19,000

Random write IOPS (4K/QD1)

60,000

Random read IOPS (4K/QD32)

600,000

Random write IOPS (4K/QD32)

550,000

Warranty

5 Years

Endurance rating (TBW)

600 TBW

Check Price

View on Amazon

Last update on 2022-09-13 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

1.

Best NVMe M.2 SSD Overall: SK Hynix Platinum P41

SK Hynix is the world’s second-largest memory chip manufacturer (after Samsung). It is however only recently that the company has started to sell consumer products under its own brand name. This should not be taken lightly by the competition, as the Platinum P41 is clearly one of the best M.2 SSDs to date.

Released in May 2022, the SK Hynix Platinum P41 is an entirely in-house design based on the manufacturer’s own 176-layer TLC NAND chips and uses a proprietary controller dubbed Aries. It also includes an SK Hynix LPDDR4 DRAM cache. Sequential performance is up to 7,000/6,500 MB/s (read/write) and random performance up to 1.4M/1.3M IOPS. More importantly, it performs exceptionally well in real-world-oriented benchmarks such as 3DMark and PCM10.

The only downside is that the Platinum P41 so far is limited availability, as it’s still hard to find in the US and Europe.

Check prices (1TB): Amazon, Newegg

2.

Western Digital WD Black SN850X

Launched in 2020, the original WD Black SN850 was and still is one of the fastest M.2 SSDs on the consumer market. Now, two years later, the drive has been updated with higher-density 112-layer BiCS 5 NAND memory chips. Improvements are mainly seen in random read/write performance, which has gone from 1M/720K IOPS to 1.2M/1.1M IOPS in the 2 TB capacity.

This appears to be more than enough to propel the SN850X to the top of the charts in real-world benchmarks such as PC Mark 10 and 3DMark’s SSD gaming test. As is the case with most of the leading SSDs, the 2TB and 4TB capacities are the strongest in the lineup due to the advantages of increased parallelism.

Check prices (1TB): Amazon, Newegg

3. Kingston KC3000

The Kingston KC3000 uses the same Phison E18 controller and 176-layer Micron TLC NAND that recently propelled Seagate’s FireCuda 530 to the top of the charts. However, the KC3000 model manages to outperform the FireCuda in several benchmarks. This makes it an attractive choice for any PCIe Gen4-compatible build that does not compromise on storage performance.

The main disadvantage compared to the FireCuda 530 is that the latter comes with a significantly higher endurance rating (1,275 TBW versus the KC3000’s 800 TBW in the 1 TB capacities). Another detail worth noting is that, much like the FireCuda 530, you have to opt for the 2TB or 4TB models to get the best possible performance.

Check prices (1TB): Amazon, Newegg

4. Seagate FireCuda 530

Like the Kingston KC3000, the Seagate FireCuda 530 is equipped with the same winning combination of a Phison E18 controller and Micron’s latest 176-layer Flash chips. In its 2TB and 4TB capacities, the drive reaches its maximum 6,900 MB/s sequential write throughput (compared to 6,000 MB/s for the 1TB model). What makes the FireCuda 530 particularly attractive in the high-end SSD space is the drive’s endurance ratings. Even the 500GB capacity offers higher endurance than its 1TB Samsung and WD competitors at 640 TBW.

Check prices (1TB): Amazon, Newegg

5. Corsair MP600 Pro XT

As a third “2nd-generation Phison E18” option, Corsair’s MP600 Pro XT is based on the same hardware as the aforementioned competitors and offers roughly the same performance. Also much like its competitors, you also have to opt for the 2GB or 4TB capacities to get the best possible performance. The endurance ratings are a bit lower than both the KC3000 and the FireCuda 530, at 700 TBW (1TB), 1,400 TBW (2TB), and 3,000 TBW (4TB). On the plus side, the MP600 Pro XT comes with a large heat spreader that should help reduce throttling during intensive workloads.

Check prices (1TB): Amazon, Newegg

6. Western Digital WD Black SN850

Both the SN850 and Samsung’s 980 PRO are strong competitors to the aforementioned drives – and ahead of them in quite a few benchmarks. Western Digital’s SN850 in particular is an exceptionally fast M.2 SSD with sequential read speeds of up to 7,000 MB/s (read), 5,300MB/s (write) as well as up to 1,000,000 random 4K IOPS. The WD SN850 performs better than the Samsung 980 PRO in a majority of benchmarks, although the 980 PRO remains ahead in some.

Check prices (1TB): Amazon, Newegg

7. Samsung 980 PRO

Samsung’s 980 PRO launched in late 2020 and was a market leader before the WD SN850 arrived. And to be fair – even after the arrival of the 2nd-gen Phison E18 SSDs, it is still the best M.2 SSD in some benchmarks. In other words, it remains a solid choice for any PCIe Gen4-capable system. At times, you can find it at a slight discount compared to the competition, which makes it even more attractive.

Notably, the 980 PRO is more of a successor to the 970 EVO Plus than to the 970 PRO. Previously, the PRO lineup has been exclusively based on higher-end MLC (multi-level cell) NAND memory chips. With the 980 PRO, Samsung has opted for the same cost-effective TLC chips that all of its competitors use. The newer Samsung 980 (non-PRO), on the other hand, is a DRAMless budget M. 2 SSD that competes in the Gen3 category.

Check prices (1TB): Amazon, Newegg

8. Crucial P5 Plus

The Crucial P5 Plus, released in the middle of 2021, is a high-end Gen4 drive positioned as a marginally slower but also more affordable alternative to the market leaders from Samsung and WD. It uses a proprietary controller and sequential reads and writes are rated at up to 6,600 MB/s and 5,000 MB/sec, respectively. Random reads and writes are also a bit more modest than the fastest M.2 SSDs at 630/700K IOPS but this seems to be more than sufficient to earn a price/performance mention.

Check prices (1TB): Newegg

9. Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus

Outside of storage behemoths like Western Digital and Samsung – who develop and produce SSDs from the ground up in their own fabs –, Sabrent is one of the most interesting manufacturers. Although the company is a comparatively recent addition to the storage industry, it has consistently managed to be first on the market with a variety of attractive products, be it high-capacity M. 2 drives, early PCIe Gen4 drives, or affordable QLC-based models.

This is also the case with the Rocket 4 Plus, which takes advantage of the new Phison E18 controller. On the whole, it looks like this drive is a strong competitor to the flagship devices from WD and Samsung, though not quite on par in most cases.

Check prices (1TB): Amazon, Newegg

10. HP FX900 Pro

Launched as recently as March 2022, the FX900 Pro is HP’s latest high-end offering in the M.2 PCIe/NVMe space. It stands out in the crowd by employing Innogrit’s IG5236 Rainier controller in combination with 176-layer Micron memory chips. The 1TB and 2TB capacities both offer random read/write IOPS above 1 million and up to 7,400 MB/s sequential read transfer rates. In general, the 2TB model is nevertheless the faster one. Endurance ratings are acceptable at 600 TBW for the 1TB capacity and 1,200 TBW for the 2TB.

Check prices (1TB): Amazon

Best Gen3 M.

2 SSDs: Samsung 970 PRO and EVO Plus

No single drive will take home the crown as the fastest M.2. SSD in every single use case or benchmark. However, one of the best general performers in the PCIe 3.0 segment is still the MLC-based Samsung 970 PRO. Samsung’s performance and reliability track record in the SSD segment has been almost flawless for a decade, so this drive is a very comfortable recommendation.

The 970 PRO comes with Samsung’s proprietary controller and MLC chips, as well as an excellent endurance rating of 1,200 TBW (1TB) or 600 TBW (512GB). When looking at price versus performance, the 970 PRO has always been a somewhat questionable choice, but it might be a sensible investment for the most demanding users. Unfortunately, there are no large capacities available.

Check prices: Amazon, Newegg, Amazon UK

Samsung’s 970 EVO Plus is a lot more affordable than the PRO but very close in terms of actual performance. Although it doesn’t use high-end MLC NAND, this drive is still among the best in the PCIe Gen 3 category.

Check prices: Amazon, Newegg, Amazon UK

Additional Gen4 Options: The Phison E16 Lineup

Right until Samsung launched the 980 PRO, all PCIe 4.0-capable SSDs for consumers were based on the same Phison PS5016-E16 controller and 3D TLC NAND combo. What this means is that all of these drives offer roughly the same performance of up to 5,000 MB/s (sequential read) and 4,400 MB/s (sequential write). Some of the nearly identical drives are:

Overall performance is about the same with any of these drives, and all come with the advantage of superb endurance ratings compared to the competition. They are also known to run relatively hot, so unless you have a motherboard with an included heat spreader (often supplied with Z590 and X570 motherboards), this might be a useful addition. Although the E16 drives are no longer in the lead, they are now strong alternatives in the affordable M.2 NVMe category for anyone looking for Gen4 performance on a budget.

9 of the Best PCIe Gen3 M.2 SSDs

If your system is not PCIe Gen4 ready, you can save quite a lot by opting for a Gen3 drive, without losing much in terms of real-world performance. The following list includes some of the best-performing M.2 SSDs from the past couple of years. They are ordered by sequential performance first, random second. Because of different controllers and memory types, these numbers are only an indication of actual performance.

Which is the Best M.2 SSD for Gaming?

The difference between an SSD and a hard drive in terms of user experience is clearly noticeable. To date, the effect of shifting from one type of SSD to another is not nearly as dramatic, at least when it comes to gaming. These are some results from our own testing:

Here’s another test from the web, comparing an M.2 PCIe SSD (970 Pro) versus an older 2.5″ SATA SSD (plus a mechanical hard drive) when loading various games:

SSD game loading test: fastest Samsung 970pro vs OLD SATA SSD vs HDD

Watch this video on YouTube

A summary of the data:

Game	Loading from HDD	Loading from 2. 5″ SATA SSD	Loading from 970 Pro (PCIe/NVMe)	Decrease/Increase, (NVMe Vs SATA)
Destiny 2	45s	31s	29s	-6%
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided	71s	27s	21s	-22%
DOOM	65s	49s	47s	-4%
Civilization 6	27s	18s	17s	-6%
Far Cry 5	25s	10s	11s	+10%
Path of Exile	23s	3s	3s	+0%
World of Warcraft	36s	7s	6s	-14%
Skyrim Special Edition	20s	9s	12s	+33%
Witcher 3	13s	7s	5s	-29%
Total	325s	161s	151s	-6%

Source: YouTube user Alexandr iuneWind

In other words, until recently it has been safe to assume that a comparison of individual high-end M. 2 PCIe SSDs will result in small differences as far as gaming is concerned. This situaiton is however about to change, as Microsoft’s DirectStorage API makes its way into high-end gaming PCs. In short (and among other things), this means that data from your fast NVMe SSD is sent to the graphics card for decompression, which will significantly enhance loading times.

Will it Work on my Laptop/Desktop PC?

For the aforementioned drives to work with your computer, you will need an M.2 slot and support for PCIe/NVMe. But there may be exceptions: Even without an M.2 slot on your (desktop) motherboard, you may still be able to use one in a full-size PCIe x4 slot using an adapter. But if you want to run your OS from the drive, your motherboard must still support booting from PCIe, which is no guarantee with older motherboards.

All recent, high-end ATX-size motherboards, on the other hand, include at least one M.2 slot and will be able to run a modern SSD at PCIe 3.0 speeds at a minimum. With an older board, you might not be so lucky. In any event, it’s always best to check the manual before buying a new drive.

Keying and Sizes

M.2 SSDs (and other M.2 cards) come in different sizes and some motherboards – particularly in laptops – will only hold a drive up to a certain size. They also have different sets of notches (keying) that will prevent you from installing it the wrong way.

M.2 Keying and Size

Three different key types or ‘notch styles’ may be used by M.2 SSDs: B, M, or B&M. The socket can be either B or M, but not both.

High-end SSDs, as well as recent motherboards, will have to use an M-key slot, as this is the only type that provides four lanes of bandwidth, or 20 Gbit/s, also known as PCIe x4. B-key supports ‘only’ PCIe x2, or 10 Gbit/s.

On many motherboards, the connector itself or the PCB next to it will be labeled with the keying. Otherwise, check the specs or the manual. Likewise, M. 2 card length might be stamped on the board, looking something like this:

High-capacity drives have additional memory chips mounted on the card and may require more space in some cases. The M.2 standard allows for cards of five different lengths, with the number format meaning width-length in millimeters. All sizes are the same width, so the two most common, 2280 and 2242, are 80mm and 42mm long, respectively (and so on). All sizes:

2230
2242
2260
2280
22110

Not all motherboards – and much less all laptops – can accommodate the longest cards, but most will support the common 2280 size (the format used by most of the drives listed above). 22110 drives are however very rare. Equally rare is the 2230 form factor used by some small devices including the Steam Deck.

Also, don’t confuse M.2 and mSATA, which is another, older standard. These slots may look similar on the motherboard, but they’re not compatible. M. 2 SSDs may also use the SATA interface, but that doesn’t mean it’s an mSATA drive.

It really is a bit confusing, but fortunately, M.2 2280 is the most common standard by far, so it’s harder than it looks to get it wrong. But just to be safe:

Checklist Before Buying an M.2 SSD

Check the drive’s interface and M.2 keying, e.g. B+M-key/M-key (all PCIe x4 SSDs are M-key).
Make sure it matches the slot on your motherboard or in your laptop. You can usually find this information on the specs page.
Also ensure that the length of the drive is supported, e.g. 2280 or 2242 (numbers in bold are millimeters).

To sum things up about keying and interfaces: it might sound complicated, but really isn’t. If you are building a high-end PC based on a Z170, Z270, B350/B450, X370/X470 chipset, it will likely have an M-key slot. And if so, most of the popular M-key or B+M-key drives will work. But there are a few exceptions, so it’s best to double-check.

Choosing the Right Capacity

You can hardly ever have too much storage space, but all of it doesn’t have to be super fast. There is no reason to use an expensive, high-end SSD to store family photos or your Steam library backups.

What capacity you need is always a personal question. If you just want a really fast computer for work (and who doesn’t?), you can probably get by with as little as 128 GB and use mechanical hard drives for general storage. However, when looking at the price/performance ratio (performance is usually improved in larger capacities), 2 TB is a reasonable price point with few compromises.

Most importantly, you want to boot from your fastest drive. That means it must be able to store the OS and all of its associated files (such as caches and swap). And it’s not that much:

Windows 10 (64-bit): 20GB
MacOs Catalina: 12.5GB
Ubuntu 20.04: 25GB
Manjaro 18/19: 30GB
Linux Mint 20: 20GB
Elementary OS 5 (Debian/Ubuntu): 15GB
Fedora 30 Workstation: 10GB
OpenSuse Tumbleweed: 40GB

Those numbers may or may not be a minimum requirement, but also add – at the very least – the amount of RAM in your system to be on the safe side (to make room for the swap file). Office apps are usually not that demanding either, with MS Office taking up about 4 GB of space on your SSD. Games tend to use a lot more but can range in size from a few hundred megabytes to well over 100 gigabytes, i.e. a lot more demanding in terms of storage space.

MLC Vs. TLC Vs. QLC NAND

In any SSD context, you will inevitably run into the MLC, TLC, and QLC abbreviations. What these signify is the number of bits that can be written to each cell in NAND (Not-AND) memory chips. In the early days, just one bit could be written to each cell, hence the name single-level cell, or SLC. Solid state drives using SLC memory were (and now only in very rare cases, are) extremely durable but also prohibitively expensive.

Consumer SSDs became common once density increased to two bits per cell, also known as multi-level cell or MLC. Most high-end drives today use the even denser triple-level cell, or TLC, memory type, whereas some budget SSDs use quad-level cell, or QLC NAND.

The downsides to increased densities are – all other things being equal – worse performance and durability. Adding additional bits per cell adds to the complexity and cells will be worn down in fewer write/erase cycles.

Nevertheless, today’s TLC-based drives are far faster than older MLC drives thanks to some highly innovative use of buffering and caching technology, whereby data is first written in SLC mode and then to the slower TLC memory. The durability problems have also mostly been solved using, among other things, spare capacity (overprovisioning) to spread out the wear over time. On the whole, today’s TLC-based SSDs are not only much faster but also durable enough to outlast most other PC parts for the average user.

Which SSD Is Right for You?

The drive you use in your computer matters, and nowadays there’s plenty of options to choose from. Especially for people looking to outfit their gaming PCs or laptops with increased performance at a lower cost, considering the best kind of drive for a computer means taking into account the advantages and disadvantages of solid-state drives (SSDs). But with a number of different types to choose from, the hunt for the SSD you need can be confusing at the outset. Given our love for digging into the differences between and performances of many different types of drives, we developed this “What’s the Diff” post to lay it all out for you.

SSDs have become a popular option because of their smaller size while having the capacity for increased data read and write speeds. In this post, we’ll cover:

What is a SSD?
What is a SATA SSD?
What is a M.2 SSD?
What is a NVMe SSD?
Which SSD is right for you?

A Brief Introduction to SSDs

SSDs are common drives that are now standard issue for most computers, as is the case across Apple’s line of Macs. Rather than using disks, motors, and read/write heads like hard disk drives (HDDs), SSDs use persistent flash memory to retain information. SSDs have become so common mainly because they hold an advantage over HDDs for performing at higher speeds and using less power. You can read more about the difference between SSDs and HDDs in this post.

SSDs—namely NVMe drives and M.2 drives—are also available at a range of form factors so they can be applied to a range of devices.

Taking a Look at SATA SSDs

A Serial AT Attachment (SATA) is now widely considered the storage standard for PCs. A SATA SSD is an SSD equipped with a SATA interface. SATA SSDs have the advantage of being faster than spinning disc HDDs, but their speed caps at 600 MB/s. Generally, SATA SSDs offer lower cost storage than M.2 or NVMe drives, so they tend to be a better option for anyone seeking a general purpose drive on a tighter budget.

One of the disadvantages of SATA drives is that they require two cables to function correctly, so they can clutter your setup and even affect airflow within a computer. However, not all SSD form factors use the same type of connection, so they differ in speed and the clutter around your setup.

What Are M. 2 Drives?

M.2 is a new form factor for SSDs that plug directly into a computer’s motherboard without the need for any extra cables. M.2 SSDs are significantly smaller than traditional, 2.5 inch SSDs, so they have become popular in gaming setups because they take up less space.

Even at this smaller size, M.2 SSDs are able to hold as much data as other SSDs, ranging up to 8TB in storage size. But, while they can hold just as much data and are generally faster than other SSDs, they also come at a higher cost. As the old adage goes, you can only have two of the following things: cheap, fast, or good.

People who are looking to improve their gaming setup with an M.2 SSD will need to make sure their motherboard has a M.2 slot or two. If your computer has two or more slots, you can run the drives in RAID.

An M.2 SSD can be SATA-based, PCIe-based with NVMe support, or PCIe-based without NVMe support. This versatility means that an M.2 SSD with NVMe support offers up to five times more bandwidth than a SATA M. 2 model, providing faster performance for file transfers, video or photo editing, transcoding, compression, and decompression.

NVMe SSDs

Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) drives were introduced in 2013 to attach to the PCI Express (PCIe) slot on a motherboard instead of using SATA bandwidth. NVMe drives can usually deliver a sustained read-write speed of 3.5 GB/s in contrast with SATA SSDs that limit at 600 MB/s. Since NVMe SSDs can reach higher speeds than SATA SSDs such as M.2 drives, it makes them ideal for gaming or high-resolution video editing.

Their high speeds come at a high cost, however: NVMe drives are some of the more expensive drives on the market.

Which SSD Is Best to Use?

There are a few factors to consider in choosing which drive is best for you. As you compare the different components of your build, consider your technical constraints, budget, capacity needs, and speed priority.

Technical Constraints

Check the capability of your system before choosing a drive, as some older devices don’t have the components needed for NVMe connections. Also, check that you have enough PCIe connections to support multiple PCIe devices. Not enough lanes, or only specific lanes, means you may have to choose a different drive or that only one of your lanes will be able to connect to the NVMe drive at full speed.

Budget

SSDs and SATA drives tend to be more affordable options compared with NVMe drives. However, you should consider the performance upgrade that an NVMe drive can offer—if you plan to be making a lot of large file transfers or want to have the highest speeds for gaming, then a higher priced NVMe SSD is worth the investment. For example, at the time of publication, a Western Digital 1TB SATA SSD retails for around $100, while a Western Digital 1TB NVMe drive starts at around $200.

Drive Capacity

SATA drives usually range from 500GB to 16TB in storage capacity. Most M.2 drives top out at 2TB, although some may be available at 4TB and 8TB models at much higher prices.

Drive Speed

When choosing the right drive for your setup, remember that SATA M. 2 drives and 2.5 inch SSDs provide the same level of speed, so to gain a performance increase, you will have to opt for the NVMe-connected drives. While NVMe SSDs are going to be much faster than SATA drives, you may also need to upgrade your processor to keep up or you may experience worse performance. Finally, remember to check read and write speeds on a drive as some earlier generations of NVMe drives can have different speeds.

Choose the Right Drive for Your Setup

Before choosing a new drive, remember to back up all of your data. Backing up is essential as every drive will eventually fail and need to be replaced. The basis of a solid backup plan requires three copies of your data: one on your device, one backup saved locally, and one stored off-site. Storing a copy of your data in the cloud ensures that you’re able to retrieve it if any data loss occurs on your device.

Interested in learning more about other drive types or best ways to optimize your gaming setup? Let us know in the comments below.

NVMe vs. SSD: What’s the difference?

Solid-state drives (SSDs) are a core component of any modern PC, whether it’s a traditional SATA SSD or a more modern NVMe drive. Knowing the difference between these two types of SSD is important, too, as they can have a dramatic effect on your system’s cost, size, and performance.

Contents

NVMe versus SSD
Connector and size
Performance
Cost

All SSDs are faster than traditional hard drives, but there are some big differences between NVMe SSDs and SATA SSDs that are well worth considering.

NVMe versus SSD

The larger drives are Samsung’s traditional SATA SSDs, while the smaller ones are NVMe M.2 and mSATA. Samsung

SSD is the broad category of data storage medium that uses integrated circuits and flash memory to store data. SSDs are connected to your system or the motherboard using a physical interface, which is usually SATA or PCIe bus. SATA drives are the larger, 2.5-inch drives that most resemble classic laptop hard drives.

NVMe or Non-Volatile Memory Host Express, on the other hand, is the logical interface specification that is used to access a computer’s non-volatile storage media at high speeds. NVMe is primarily seen on PCIe-based SSDs that are built in the M.2 size. Those are the stick drives that are a few inches long and around an inch wide.

Connector and size

The first iteration of SSDs launched with the SATA interface. This included a small L-shaped connector to transfer data and a similar larger connector for power delivery.

Modern SSDs, however, have now moved to the PCIe interface that has a simple connector allowing it to easily slot into the motherboard without the need for any cables. While the early versions of PCIe SSDs launched as add-on cards, almost like a tiny graphics card, the arrival of the M.2 form factor completely changed the game. M.2 today is utilized by both SATA and PCIe SSDs with at least one or two dedicated slots available on most motherboards.

M.2 drives are also much smaller than 2.5-inch SATA SSDs, almost like a strip of gum, having a flat profile that simply sits on top of the motherboard. Since the NVMe interface is highly efficient with PCIe, you are primarily going to find NVMe on SSDs that have the M.2 form factor in modern PCs, especially in laptops.

Performance

There is a huge difference in terms of raw performance when comparing a standard SSD with SATA protocol and an SSD that uses NVMe. Modern SATA SSDs can reach a maximum possible data transfer speed of up to 550MBps. In the real world, not all SSDs can reach these speeds, but there are a few drives on the market that manage to offer speeds that are at least closer to the claims.

For instance, the Samsung 860 EVO SATA 2.5-inch SSD is rated at 550MBps sequential read speeds and 520MBps sequential write speeds. As you can see from the results below, it manages to reach up to 537MBps read speeds and 505MBps write speeds on ATTO Disk Benchmark, which are pretty solid numbers.

ATTO Disk Benchmark results for the Samsung 860 EVO SATA SSD.

NVMe based M.2 SSDs, however, can go far faster. Different generations of drives, typically twinned with a generation of PCIExpress, have differing speeds, with the latest PCIE 4 drives reaching up to 7,300MBps in sustained read and 5,200MBps in sustained write.

In the real world, you won’t see those kinds of numbers reached unless you are doing very sustained read and write tasks, with more general usage seeing lower numbers. Even then, though, they are far faster than SATA SSDs, and when they can be taken advantage of, that can result in a much snappier experience. Unfortunately, many applications, including games, can’t really make the most of these drives just yet, so you’d only see some games load a few seconds quicker, and Windows doesn’t boot much faster on an NVMe drive than it does on a traditional SATA SSD.

Sabrent’s Rocket 4 Plus series comes with a fairly big heatsink for efficient performance. The potential is there, though, and in the future, as game and application developers begin to better utilize the technology, we should see NVMe SSDs dramatically improve performance in certain settings.

One downside of all that speed, though, is that NVMe SSDs tend to draw a lot of power and can hit high temperatures under heavy loads. In rare cases, these drives can overheat, leading to a drop in performance. To deal with the heat, certain manufacturers have now started shipping NVMe drives with their own dedicated heatsinks — that’s considered mandatory for adding a secondary SSD in the PlayStation 5.

Cost

Considering the fact that they are smaller and faster, NVMe based SSDs launched at a more expensive price tag compared to 2.5-inch SSDs with SATA interface. However, things have changed today as the price is almost the same, and in some cases, NVMe drives are marginally cheaper. For instance, Samsung’s 980 M.2 NVMe SSD starts at $50 for the 250GB size variant, while the 870 EVO 2. 5-inch SATA SSD and even the 860 EVO M.2 SATA SSD are both selling for about $60.

To sum it up, NVMe is the future of speedy storage. If you are planning to upgrade your storage, it is highly recommended that you go for an NVMe SSD, with only the largest of capacities of SATA SSD being really worth it on a cost per gigabyte basis.

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isn’t it time to speed up? / HDD, SSD, flash drives, other storage media / iXBT Live

Not so long ago I wrote a review of conventional 2.5 inch SSD drives. It seemed like it was the week before last. .. M.2 form factor SSDs then seemed to be something expensive and not really needed. It seemed that you want a hurricane of speed, take two SSDs and «make» them work in RAID 0 (Stripe) mode, but time does not stand still, the time has come for the M.2 SSD of the NVM Express specification. I recently experienced this myself.

Back in winter, a friend gave me such an SSD (OEM Samsung) for my birthday, which I, unable to install in my PC, put on the table. I remember he said that this SSD would «break» my raid on two Intel 545s …

Of course, I immediately decided to check it out by buying an adapter and installing everything on a PC, but then I was disappointed. I found that the speed of work was less than promised due to the fact that the Asrock Z87 Pro3 motherboard worked with the disk exclusively in PCIe 2.0 x1 mode and, as I did not try to modify Bios, I did not want to load the operating system from the adapter.

Now is the time to check it out. I had a suitable motherboard and several inexpensive M.2 SSDs at my disposal.

Despite the originality of the motherboard, in the end it did an excellent job with the mission assigned to it. The adapter was installed in a slot designed for a PCIe 3.0 x16 video card, while the built-in video card was used. The processor was installed Intel Pentium G4400 two cores at 3.3GHz. The amount of RAM was eight gigabytes.

Consider the SSD drives themselves, which I managed to get for review, arranging them in alphabetical order. The list is headed by SSD from the Chinese manufacturer Azerty , already known from a number of my articles. For those who are not yet familiar, please click on the link.

Azerty BR 256 Gb M

The disc has the following declared characteristics (taken from the manufacturer’s website):

Drummer volume:	256 GB
Maximum reading speed:	1700 MB/s
Maximum 9000 Since
type flash memory:	TLC NAND 3D
Operating time for failure:	200000 hours

The photo shows Silicon Motion’s SM2263XT controller. This is a four-channel mainstream controller with a claimed sequential read speed of 2400MB\s and a sequential write speed of 1700MB\s

Aida 64 gives us the following disk information.

Let’s check with the built-in subtests in Aida64 whether this corresponds to reality.

Let’s start with linear read speed.

Hmm… It seems that our Chinese comrades were very modest, indicating on the site the reading speed as much as 35 percent less! Or is it a safety net in case of changing suppliers of parts, because, as was repeatedly written in the comments, it is difficult to believe the reviews of Chinese components as they change suppliers from batch to batch, leaving the name of the model the same, while the speed of work often changes with the change of these components. We can definitely say in their favor that it is better to be pleasantly surprised to see this than vice versa.

Now the next picture, among other things, will show us the random access speed.

It can be seen that the speed of random reading is the same as sequential reading, which is very beneficial when working with databases in the information retrieval mode, not to mention the operation of the operating system.

Well, the disk operation algorithm is clearly visible on the sequential write test.

It can be seen that the write speed within the SLC buffer is again higher than the declared one by 20 percent, which here is less than a third of the volume and is equal to approximately 26% of the disk volume. Outside of the SLS buffer, the speed is much slower, but still not less than the speed of good representatives of disks with platter rotation. And how many of us write more than 65GB at a time!? I think there are few of them and there are large disks for them or even disks using other types of memory (here I remembered the Intel OPTANE P4800X).

The next performance test I chose was CrystalDiskMark 8.0.1 x64 , which is widely used in manufacturers’ advertising campaigns due to the fact that it often shows high performance results. Especially when testing with a data volume of 1Gib.

The reading result is lower than in Aida64. Weird. Usually the opposite. But even this is higher than stated by the manufacturer…

0003

We see that the write speed has become lower, but not critical.

Now let’s check it with another test AS SSD Benchmark 2.0.7316, which is interesting in that it puts an estimate at the end, as well as a subtest of the speed of copying various types of files. Copying is done with three types of files: disc images, software files and game files. The volume with which the program works is also set. Let’s start with the default value of 1Gb.

The next result is 10Gb.

Well, some values remain the same, some have changed down. I’m not going to draw any conclusions yet. Let’s move on to the next reviewer.

KingFast F8N 256Gb.

Flash type	Synchronous TLC NAND Flash
Sequential Read	Up to 1700MB/s
Sequential Write	UP to 600MB/S
MTBF:	> 2. 000,000 HOURS

In the photo we see the same Silicon Motion’s SM263XT controller, which and the previous case. Let me remind you that the declared speeds of the controller are: 2400MB\s (read) and 1700MB\s (write)

Aida 64 gives us the following information about the disk.

Let’s look at the speed of linear reading in Aida 64.

And we also see that the measured speed greatly exceeds the declared speed!

A similar situation with the speed of random access. Let’s look at the write speed.

The situation also resembles the previous one. However, nothing surprising, the controller is the same, there are the same number of memory modules soldered on the bar. Perhaps the manufacturers differ, but apparently this is not so important.

Let’s check what CrystalDiskMark 8.0.1 x64 says. The amount of data is 1GiB

CrystalDiskMark for some reason underestimated the read speed here, but it still became equal to the declared one. The write speed is 25% higher than stated. A trifle, but nice.

Now next AS SSD Benchmark. Will its results differ from the previous one? We look at the results with 1GB

As a result, the scores for reading are much lower, the scores for writing are the same, the overall score is lower. The copy results are also below. I see two options here as to why. The firmware or memory chips are to blame. The results of work with 10GB are expectedly lower.

Let’s turn to the third disk in the list.

Micron MTFDBA256TCK 256Gb.

The label shows that this is an OEM supply for HP. The controller seems to be installed native from Micron, the memory modules are similar.

Aida64 gives more information about him.

We see that the manufacturer is more confident and claims the following speed characteristics.

Read speed: 3000MB\s

Write speed: 1050MB\s

Aida64 does not quite agree with him, but the result is probably not the worst.

Random reading is also good. We look at the recording, the situation is similar to the same for previous disks, except that SLC is a larger buffer.

Now maybe the moment of truth will come and CrystalDiskMark will make this disk flex its muscles…

Yes. And there is. In reading, only 6% did not reach the declared result, but you can turn a blind eye to this — who knows the size of the error in these programs. Let’s look at the result with a large amount of data.

Surprisingly, the result is even better. Here it is — the magnitude of the error, which I wrote about above.

And the results of the following tests.

In some ways worse than the previous discs, in some ways, perhaps better, but in general the situation is similar.

Samsung PM981a NVMe

In this case, I didn’t even want to remove the label to see the controller — it’s clear that it’s from Samsung. Although, over time, you may have to do this for the sake of cooling. I must say right away that the controller for this SSD is one of the hottest in the review. The same hot only in WD SN730. You can’t hold your finger on it for a long time at the time of active work.

Let’s see what information Aida 64 can report about the disk.

We see that the speed characteristics declared by the manufacturer are very high.

Sequential read speed: 3400MB\s

Sequential write speed: 1500MB\s

Let’s go through Aida64’s reading test and see

The result of 2800Mb\s is close, but does not correspond to the declared one…

is similar to the previous random read result.

Very fast, but very small SLC buffer, but behind it the speed is twice as fast as the previous contestants. So far this is the best result. I think CrystalDiskMark should not only confirm, but also improve the measurements.

We see that the reading result was confirmed, the write result is even much higher than the declared one. Let’s increase the amount of data with which the program will make measurements.

The write speed has significantly decreased in one of the subtests, but, perhaps, also — the measurement error … The rest are unchanged. The results of AS SSD Benchmark are below.

And here the situation is similar to other disks, even the number of points is about the same.

Western Digital WDC PC SN 520 In terms of positioning, there should be something in between the entry-level green series and the top-level black series. Even the color of the textolite here from this point of view is correct.

Let’s see what Aida64 tells us about him.

Declared not the highest performance speed.

Read speed: 1700MB\s

Write speed: 1300MB\s

Has SanDisk taken a break on it? However, perhaps this is also a safety net and the test results will pleasantly surprise you. Let’s look at the speed of linear recording in Aida64.

Hmm… No comment yet.

Same result.

The result within the SLS — the buffer is not bad, but the buffer has a meager volume. But outside of it, the speed does not decrease catastrophically, and even higher than that of the Samsung drive. Let’s see what CrystalDiskMark will show.

Full confirmation of the declared characteristics, which, unfortunately, are not the highest and decrease with the increase in the amount of test data.

Low capacity AS SSD Benchmark results are as good as other drives, but drop significantly as capacity increases. What is the fee for positioning in the budget range? Now we will find out by comparing it with the “big brother”, which was attributed to the top line of the black series.

Western Digital WDC PC SN730.

Black label, black textolite (sorry not glossy) — everything is solid.

Read speed: 3150MB/s

Write speed: 2100MB/s

Is this an open bid to win? Still, it’s embarrassing that the SanDisk controller is also here, it upset me a lot in the review of the SSD 2 “5 green series.

Good results.

Hmm… Just like the “little brother”, but a little better.

Not bad either, but the Samsung SSD is slightly better.

In order not to scroll up and down in search of the desired results, I entered everything into the tables, marking the winners in shades of blue. The darker the blue, the higher the place.

Conclusion.

The picture turned out to be quite colorful, there is no clear winner. Somewhere better than Samsung PM981a NVMe, somewhere better than Western Digital WDC PC SN730, and somewhere even Azerty BR 256Gb.

It is difficult to advise to choose a particular one. See, compare and decide. Probably, the price will play a fundamental role in the choice. Although, there are also adherents of a certain brand and they will give a dozen arguments in their favor. I can definitely say that my raid on the 2″ 5 SSD from Intel turned out to be slower and it looks like it’s time for a full upgrade.

The choice is yours, I just tried to give you the results of my modest work as concisely as possible.

NVMe vs SATA: What’s the difference?

Feb 2021

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When it comes to superior storage technology, NVMe is in a league of its own. Even at first glance, the performance difference between NVMe and SATA is impressive. The communication drivers and interfaces of NVMe and SATA are completely different because SATA uses AHCI drivers designed for hard disk drives (HDD) with spinning technology, while the NVMe driver is specifically designed for solid state drives with flash technology. In addition, NVMe can use PCIe slots to communicate between the storage interface and the system processor for even greater efficiency. If this comparison were a sporting event, it would be like comparing Formula 1 to a car race.

Despite the speed of both protocols, even a cursory comparison of these two types of SSDs highlights their differences. When considering these differences, you need to evaluate your needs, wants and requirements.

SATA Solid State Drives

Serial ATA (SATA) technology dates back to 2000 as an enhancement to the existing Parallel ATA technology, which struggled with cable size, cost, performance, and functionality. Both technologies were sufficient for hard disk drives (HDDs), which had significantly less functionality than today’s solid state drives (SSDs). The advent of SATA-based SSDs has shown that the ATA bus has reached its performance limit. Where HDDs could only achieve write speeds of 50-120 MB/s, SSDs could load the SATA bus up to 550 MB/s. Despite the bus limitation, it is common to use SATA-based SSDs instead of legacy hard drives to improve overall system performance by 10 to 15 times.

AHCI

Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) is a communication mode developed around 2004 to improve the performance and functionality of SATA-attached storage devices. It was intended for hard drives and introduced a single queue of storage requests with a depth of up to 32 commands. This meant that HDDs could provide higher bandwidth and performance, but future implementation would be a bottleneck for SSD controller technology. For example, HDDs can perform up to 200 input/output operations per second (IOPS), while SATA-based SSDs can reach 100,000 IOPS and their performance would be artificially limited by the SATA bus.

NVMe SSDs

Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) technology was introduced in 2011 to address various SATA interface and communication protocol bottlenecks. NVMe technology uses the PCIe bus instead of the SATA bus, unlocking huge bandwidth potential for storage devices. PCIe 4.0 (current version) provides up to 32 lanes and can theoretically transfer data at up to 64,000 MB/s, compared to the SATA III specification limit of 600 MB/s. The NVMe specification also supports 65535 command queues, each of which can contain up to 65536 commands. Recall that SATA-based SSDs are limited to a single queue with a depth of only 32 commands. NVMe technology creates huge potential for storage devices by improving efficiency, performance and interoperability across a wide range of systems. It was believed that this technology would become the new industry standard.

Solid State Drive Form Factors

While HDDs are typically 2.5″ or 3.5″ wide and most SATA-based SSDs are 2.5″ wide and 7mm thick, NVMe drives are being manufactured in a number of new form factors that allow you to install them in various devices.

M.2. Reducing the physical size of the M.2 drive ensures that these storage devices are ubiquitous in the future. 22 is the width and 30/42/80/110 is the length in millimeters. M.2 2280 drives currently support SATA. In addition, it is also the most common NVMe SSD form factor for the NVMe protocol. As technology improves and size shrinks, this may change.

U.2. These are more expensive, high performance, and durable storage devices that are commonly used in data centers and enterprise storage environments.

PCIe expansion cards. These high-performance NVMe SSDs have found their way into systems that have not yet adopted M.2 form factor connectors.

SSD Performance Brief

NVMe is a storage protocol designed specifically for SSDs. By eliminating the middle layer of the SATA host bus adapter, NVMe allows SSDs to communicate directly with the CPU over the PCIe bus, opening up opportunities for tremendous performance improvements. In comparison, the SATA III bus performance limit is 6Gb/s, meaning a SATA SSD can achieve a maximum throughput of 550MB/s with overhead included. A single PCIe 3.0 lane can provide 1 GB/s of bandwidth (bidirectional), so for a PCIe 3×4 SSD, the read/write bandwidth can be up to 4 GB/s. For PCIe Gen 4X4 SSDs, this goes up to 8 GB/s (bidirectional) The performance limit here is no longer protocol, but NAND, which has undergone huge changes in recent years to allow manufacturers to deliver maximum density and performance in the smallest form -factors.

Protocol latency is also significantly reduced with NVMe due to the shorter and optimized data path to reduce latency compared to SATA/SAS. Queue management in NVMe devices is also handled more efficiently by the CPU due to the presence of an I/O processing start signal, which greatly reduces the load on the CPU. In addition, NVMe devices are supported by most major operating systems due to the huge development efforts made in the last decade.

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review and comparison with conventional SSD

To date, the highest performance indicators show devices using NVMe technology. Let’s see what kind of technology it is and what indicators it produces.

What is NVMe?

NVM Express is a type of drive in the SSD family that is connected using the PCI Express bus.

The new NVMe interface has been designed to reduce latency and improve performance of SSDs. NVMe uses a new software and queuing mechanism, as well as more efficient high parallelism of storage devices.

Conventional SSDs work using the SATA interface, which leads to a number of restrictions and a decrease in data transfer speed, regardless of the technical characteristics of the drive itself. In fact, connecting to the new interface removes the limitations that SATA drives have.

The history of NVMe creation

The first discussion about the appearance of a new standard was formed at the Intel developer forum back in 2007. In the same year, a group of developers led by Intel was assembled to work on the NVMHCI interface. The NVMHCI 1.0 specification was finalized in the spring of 2008, and the initial version of NVMe 1.0 was not released until March 2011.

NVMe controllers were first announced in 2012 by ITD.

The first NVMe drives for PCs and servers were released by Samsung in 2013. The reading speed of these devices reached 3 GB / s, which was a kind of breakthrough in the field of solid state drives.

Comparing AHCI and NVMe

The traditional mechanism used to connect Serial Ata (SATA) storage devices, such as SSDs, is called the Advanced Host Controller Interface (ACHI). It was he who was replaced by NVMe technology.

Comparative analysis of the characteristics of AHCI and NVMe technology, consider in Table 1:
AHCI NMVe Maximum request queue depth 1 queue, up to 32 commands per queue 65536 queues, up to 65536 commands per queue Non-cached register accesses (2000 cycles each) 6 for teams out of turn; 9 per team queued 2 per team MSI-X and interrupt control 1 interrupt; no control 2048 message signaled interrupts or MSI-X (Message Signaled Interrupts Extended) Multithreading and concurrency Synchronization lock required to issue command Not required Efficiency for 4K instructions Command parameters require two DRAM serial requests All command parameters in one request 64Kb
In NVMe technology, the load can be distributed simultaneously to 65,000 queues of 65,000 commands, while AHCI has one queue of 32 commands. When a priority task occurs, the NVMe SSD performs it faster thanks to the ability to manage interrupts.

NVMe has one request to RAM (DRAM), AHCI has two. Thus, NVMe has less latency when executing commands. By connecting an NVMe drive via PCI Express, the drive speeds up to 3.2 GB / s, which is 3 times faster than SATA.

Comparison of SATA and NVMe specifications

Let’s compare the performance of NVMe and SATA SSDs in Table 2:
Intel® D3-S4510 Series ( SATA)
Intel® DC P4510 Series (NVMe) Maximum read speed 560 Mbps 3200 Mbps Maximum write speed 510 Mbps 2000 Mbps Random Read Speed 97000 IOPS 637000 IOPS Random write speed 35500 IOPS 81500 IOPS Read delay 36 µs 77 µs Write Delay 37 µs 18 µs Active power 3. 2W 12W Standby power 1.1W 5W
NVMe has half the write latency of a SATA drive. The operation of the drive via PCI Express allows you to develop a maximum data processing speed of up to 3.2 GB / s, which is 3 times more than that of SATA.

In all tests, NVMe demonstrates a clear advantage over SSD. NVMe has several times the speed of random reading and writing, which allows you to process more requests per unit of time.

Separately, it is worth noting the performance improvement on the example of the 1C-Bitrix CMS, which is known for its demanding file system speed. Hosting the CMS on a server with NVMe SSD drives doubles the performance of the CMS, speeds up site page loading, and reduces backup time.

Thus, in all respects, NVMe drives are superior to SATA drives. For the highest processing speed, low latency and high performance, choose NVMe hosting as the latest and greatest hosting solution for your website.

NVMe in SpaceWeb

SpaceWeb has been using NVMe technology successfully since 2017.

NVMe SSD drives are used in shared hosting, reactive hosting and VPS/VDS servers. You can test the speed of your site for free for:

— 14 days on Shared hosting;

— 7 days on Reactive hosting;

— 3 days VPS/VDS.

What is the difference between SATA SSD, M.2 and NVMe

In fact, comparing the concepts of SSD, M.2 and NVMe is incorrect. One of them is a data drive, the other is the drive form factor, and the third is a data transfer standard in general. In order not to get confused in terms, let’s delve into these concepts. Let’s start with hard drives and their differences from SSDs, highlight the differences between 2.5-inch SSDs and M. 2 drives, and also compare SATA with NVMe.

What is a hard drive, or HDD

First, let’s look at the main types of drives that can be found in servers — HDD and SSD.

An ordinary PC, like a server, consists of many components, of which four are of interest to us:

Processor : responsible for processing information, calculations, for executing program code and the operating system, controls the operation of all other parts.

Motherboard . A processor, RAM, video cards, controllers are installed on it, ports for connecting external memory are located on it. The motherboard powers all the components and combines them into a single whole.

Busbars, interface, ports . They may be called differently, but the essence is the same: this is the connection that is necessary to transfer data — for example, from RAM to the processor.

The hard drive is a storage device that stores programs, files, and the operating system. This text is dedicated to him and his variations.

HDD device

HDD, or Hard (magnetic) Disk Drive, is a classic hard disk, data storage.

The hard disk case contains magnetic platters on which data is written. They are read and written as follows: the disk rotates, and the head reads or writes data using magnetic pulses. The disk rotates the engine, and the microcircuit — the controller — runs all the work.

Data is recorded in tracks on the surface of the disc, much like vinyl records. In this case, the information is not stored in one place, but in clusters or sectors scattered across the disk, so the disk must rotate to read the data.

The faster the disk spins, the more data per second can be read or written. But here a limitation arises: if the speed is infinitely increased, then the material may not withstand vibrations and collapse from loads.

This problem was tried to be solved. For example, in 2000, Seagate released the X15 drive, which spun up to 15,000 rpm. But this is rather exotic — ordinary disks do not exceed 7200 rpm for home PCs, which gives 85-120 MB / s reading. The maximum speed of disks on home PCs does not exceed 150 MB / s.

Depending on the size, there are several form factors, or types, of HDDs:

3.5″ — more common in servers,

2.5″ — for home PCs,

external HDD — used as an external storage medium (they also use a 2.5-inch drive, but have an external enclosure).

Left to right: HDD 3.5″, HDD 2.5″, external drive 2.5″.

What is an SSD and how it differs from an HDD

An SSD, Solid State Drive, is a solid state drive. It works on a principle different from HDD: it stores information on semiconductor chips in memory cells. These are so-called «non-volatile non-mechanical storage devices». «Non-volatile» means that data is retained when power is lost.

SSDs consist of resistors, capacitors, a controller, DRAM buffer, NAND persistent memory chips, and connectors. In fact, this is a large «flash drive». The main difference from the HDD is not in the components (here, the disks are largely similar), but in the absence of moving parts.

From the «static» of the SSD-disk follows a number of its advantages:

— takes up less space,

— silent,

— more reliable (does not «wear out» due to reading data),

— writes and reads faster data.

Their read speed varies from 270 to 500 MB / s, which is several times higher than that of HDD. So, the time to fully boot Windows 7 for HDD is on average 49 seconds, and for SSD — 19 seconds.

Disk interfaces: SATA and NVMe

An interface is a set of ways to connect to the motherboard, methods and rules for how a disk interacts with the rest of the PC. This includes the types of physical connectors, and data transfer protocols, and data transfer methods.

Parallel IDE 9 connection0369

A good example of an interface for HDDs is IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) or ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment). Conventionally, this is a simple way to connect a hard drive to the motherboard through a cable of 40 or 80 cores.

This is how the IDE ports on the HDD look like. The IDE connector is clearly visible in the photo. Source

We mentioned that the interface also includes data transfer methods. There are several such methods for IDE. For example, PIO (Programmed input / output), when data is transferred between devices through the processor, or DMA (Direct Memory Access), when the processor is not used for data transfer.

Information is transmitted through the IDE interface in parallel, when each bit of data goes along its own signal line — over a physical channel. Therefore, for the interface, the connection goes through a 40- or 80-wire loop. Data is transmitted in portions equal to the number of channels.

From the minuses of the solution: parallel channels influence each other, which leads to distortion of messages. This problem is solved in the SATA interface, which has become an evolution of the parallel IDE.

SATA 9 serial communication interface0369

SATA, or Serial ATA (SATA), is a serial way to transfer bits of information. With it, the bits go one after another, one bit at a time.

The motherboard may have multiple SATA connectors. This allows you to connect multiple hard drives that will work at the same time, which was not possible in the IDE.

This is what SATA connectors look like.

SATA interface transfers data faster than IDE. SATA has fewer pins and chips, and they’re less likely to overheat.

The SATA connection interface has become more common in SSD drives. Initially, the interface was developed for HDDs, the head of which can access only one cell of one plate (pancake) of the disk. Therefore, SATA devices have only one channel and a low data transfer rate. This read speed is offered by different SATA specifications:

1 — 150 MB / s;

SATA 2 — 300 MB/s;

SATA 3 — 600 MB/s.

This is the theoretical maximum speed, and it is several times lower than the speeds of the NVMe standard, which we will talk about later.

NVMe

NVMe, or Non-Volatile Memory Host Controller Interface Specification, is a specification for storage access protocols. Allows SSDs to read and transfer data through the PCIe slot, which we’ll cover below.

NVMe can provide write speeds up to 3.2 GB/s, which is 6 times faster than SATA 3. This performance is achieved due to several features:

cables.

To execute a command, NVMe accesses RAM only once, while SATA — twice.

There are parallel threads.

There are mechanisms for working with queues and interrupt handling — commands with a high priority will be processed faster.

PCIe and AHCI data transfer protocols

Now let’s talk about data transfer modes based on the considered interfaces. Here, PCIe and AHCI are of greatest interest.

PCIe

Peripheral Component Interconnect Express, or PCIe, is a serial I/O bus. Physically, this connection, «adapter», in the form of a slot or connector for connecting devices directly to the motherboard.

Top slot — PCIe x4, center — PCIe x16, bottom — PCIe x1. Source

PCIe has a direct channel of «communication» with the processor and RAM, as well as independent channels for receiving and transmitting data, or lines.

A line is a kind of connection between devices in the form of four wires: two for transmitting, two for receiving data. They transmit data like a two-lane highway: in one direction and the other at the same time. This is called duplex mode. Two signal wires with opposite polarity allows you to deal with interference.

PCIe transfer rate depends on version and number of lanes. For example, the theoretical speed of PCIe 3.0 is 986 MB / s with one lane, and with two — 1970 MB / s.

Note . The PCIe bus is designed to connect peripheral devices — not only hard drives, but also GPUs or network cards.

PCI Express is a way to connect to the motherboard and transfer data. This is what the NVMe protocol/interface uses.

AHCI

Despite the name, AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) is not an interface in the truest sense. It is rather a mechanism or mode that improves upon the SATA standard.

For example, AHCI has hot-swappable disks without shutting down the server and hardware queuing of NCQ commands, which is achieved by optimizing the movement of the read head. Since there is no problem with the same head for SSDs, it is generally accepted that AHCI mode is more suitable for HDDs.

The difference between SATA in AHCI mode and NVMe

The NVMe protocol is designed specifically for SSDs to unlock the potential of SSDs. The fact is that their potential speed with a SATA connection is limited by the SATA 3 protocol, namely, 600 MB / s for reading. Physically, drives are able to work ten times faster. To bypass the limitation, there is NVME, with which the SSD speed reaches 3.2 GB / s.

SATA in AHCI mode is designed for HDDs. The mode speeds up file launch, IOPS, and improves performance by about 20%. You can work in AHCI mode with SSD drives, but there will not be a big increase in speed.

Types of SSDs

Now that we’ve covered SSDs, interfaces, and connection modes, let’s look at the types of SSDs. They differ according to the following criteria:

size and shape;

data transfer method — SATA or NVMe;

interfaces that we have already written about.

SSD 2.5″ SATA

This is an SSD in a plastic case with connectors for SATA connection via SATA cable. The picture shows that the board with chips is installed in a plastic case, in which there is a lot of empty space.

SSD drive in a plastic case. Source

This was done for a reason: this format allows you to put a 2.5 ”SSD instead of a 2.5” HDD in the same seat. In addition, the “extra” space protects the board from damage and allows you to passively cool the device.

In the same 2.5-inch form factor, there are SSD drives not only with the SATA interface. For example, WD Gold WDS384T1D0D 3.8TB, 2.5 inches, works via PCIe x4 interface.

Western Digital SSD. Source

This is an enterprise drive because the PCIe interface provides fast data access. SSD form factor 2.5″, but with a connector not on SATA, but on U.2, which connects to PCIe and uses 4 lanes.

.Connection also takes place via a cable — for example, this one. Source

M.2 SSD

M.2 is the SSD form factor. This is the same SSD, but without a plastic case: just a board on which the chips, controller, buffer memory are located.

They have several sizes: 2230, 2242, 2260, 2280, 22110. The first two digits are the width in millimeters, the rest are the length. The width of all boards is 22 millimeters, and the length varies from 30 millimeters to 110 millimeters.

SSD M.2 drives are connected to special slots, without power cables or flat cables. Powered by the motherboard.

M.2 SSD example. Source

Interaction with the motherboard and processor goes through different buses and standards: SATA, PCIe and NVMe. Through the same M.2 slot, a disk can transfer data in different ways: over the old and slow SATA bus or the more modern PCIe.

Therefore, when it comes to M.2, they simply mean the form factor. How it will connect and how fast it will work depends on the M.2 key — M.2 SATA or M.2 NVMe.

Note . M.2 is not always about SSDs. This is just a form in which other modules can exist — for example, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, other technologies.

M.2 SATA

M.2 SATA is the same 2.5-inch SSD, but in the M.2 form factor. It connects via SATA.

An example of an M.2 SATA drive. Source

They almost always have two «cuts» on the board — keys M and B. It is quite easy to distinguish them: the «cut» of key B is on the right, and M has it on the left (if you look at the board from above).

M.2 SATA speed is limited to the latest version of SATA 3, 600 MB/s.

M.2 NVMe, or M.2 PCIe NVME

This is the same M.2 SSD, but with an NVMe connection interface that transfers data through the PCI Express bus.

NVMe M.2 disk example. Source

As you can see in the picture, such a board has one key — M. Therefore, M.2 SATA SSD can be connected to any M.2 connector, but M.2 NVMe compatibility is not so high. Versions with key B are almost never found.

Such drives can achieve high read speeds because there is no interference in the form of SATA bus bandwidth. The response when accessing M.2 NVMe devices is also much higher. For example, the read speed of a Samsung 970 EVO Plus MZ-V7S250BW 250GB, M.2 2280, PCI-E x4, NVMe drive (pictured above) is 3500 MB/s, and 2300 MB/s for writing.

At the same time, the Kingston 120GB A400 (SA400M8/120G) SSD in the same form factor that works on SATA 3 has lower IOPS characteristics — 500/320.

The same SSD from Kingston.

Comparison of M.2 SATA and M.2 NVMe

The caveat is that these speeds are theoretical. In practice, most operations occur with small files, so it is not the sequential speed of reading files that is important, but the speed of working with random blocks. NVMe has a slight advantage over SATA here. The boot speed of OS and programs with NVMe is not much higher than with SATA. NVMe drives are a good choice when working with large files, such as video.

M.2 SATA also has advantages — they do not heat up, which means they do not require additional heatsinks for cooling. Although the M.2 SATA slot itself is usually located next to the video card.

At the same time, the situation is opposite for M.2 NVME: the power consumption of NVME devices exceeds SATA by several times and they get very hot. As a result, the controller may overheat and the performance of the drive will deteriorate. As a solution, you can buy NVMe devices with a complete heatsink or install an aluminum bar for passive cooling.

You can compare M.2 NVMe and M.2 SATA drives, but not M.2 and NVMe. NVMe is a data transfer standard, while M.2 is an SSD form factor where NVMe is supported. They are logically and physically different things.

When choosing an SSD drive, you need to focus on the selected motherboard, read/write speed requirements, and financial capabilities.

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Summary

SATA SSD is a SATA SSD designed for HDDs.

M.2 SSD is a type of solid state drive. They can be connected both via SATA and via the faster PCIe bus.

NVMe is a fast data transfer protocol over the PCIe bus. The protocol is designed for SSD drives.

If we combine these concepts, it turns out that NVMe is not a device, but a protocol specification for transferring data via the PCIe interface from an M.2 SSD drive. Therefore, for example, the phrase «NVMe drive» is incorrect.

Maximum speed and performance for M.2 PCIe drives. But not all motherboards and companies support them — expensive. Not all boards have M.2 slots, and if they do, M.2 SATA is more common.

M.2 SATA and SATA SSD 2.5 have almost the same specifications due to the common protocol. Therefore, if you need compactness (for example, you have a laptop), it is better to choose M.2 SATA or increase the number of M.2 NVMe ports with adapters. But if this is a stationary computer, then there is no difference with a 2.5 » SSD, both in terms of speed and price. At the same time, it is more convenient to quickly change disks through a cable.

Comparison: NVMe SSD vs. SATA SSD

High-speed NVMe SSDs appeared in 2013, but we decided to use them in our infrastructure only now, when there were no doubts about the reliability of the technology.

Until now, SATA SSD drives have been the fastest storage available in virtual servers. Now NVMe SSDs can challenge this title. In this article, we will understand how NVMe technology works and compare the performance of different technologies. Further, for convenience, we will use an abbreviated version of the names: just SSD for the old standard, NVMe for the new one.

What is NVMe

NVMe is the new standard in SSD storage. Conventional SSDs operate on the SATA interface, which transfers information more slowly than the drive itself is capable of. NVMe works on the PCI Express interface, the performance of which is more than enough. The NVMe drive delivers faster data read/write speeds.

Another feature is the protocol by which the disk interacts with the rest of the computer. SSDs use the outdated AHCI protocol, which was originally developed for hard disk drives. It absolutely does not take into account the features of the solid state drive, limits it. For NVMe, Intel has developed its own interface — disks have become more efficient with a large number of simultaneous requests, accessing RAM for data faster. The NVMe drive allows for more requests per unit time (IOPS) to be processed.

The friendly 1DEDIC project posted a little more technical details.

Testing speed

NVMe drives outperform SSDs by about 2-3 times, but in different operating modes the difference can be more or less noticeable.

We tried to evaluate the performance of the virtual server from different angles — not only the read-write speed, but also how this speed affects application tasks.

We will test and compare SSD drives on the SATA3 interface and NVMe drives on the U.2 interface.

Platform Performance:

Platform: Intel S2600WFT

Processor: Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 5115 CPU @ 2.40GHz — 2pcs.

RAM: 64GB DDR4 2666Mhz

Drives:

— INTEL SSD DC P4510 (SSDPE2KX010T8) 1 TB

— INTEL SSD D3-S4510 (SSDSC2KB019T8) 1920 GB x 20348

Operating system: CentOS Linux 7 with standard kernel — 3.10 (at the time of testing, the kernel version was 3.10.0-862.14.4.el7.x86_64). I/O scheduler — none.

Performance characteristics of drives

Bitrix

Let’s deploy the standard edition of Bitrix Start CMS on two VDS and run the built-in performance test.

Bitrix engine performance:

36 parrots on SSD

79 parrots on NVMe (more is better)

Backups

Owners of large sites are faced with a situation where it takes a long time to create a backup copy. It is important that the load on the disk subsystem and the time it takes to perform disk operations is minimal. This directly affects the speed of the server and the opening time of the sites themselves.

Let’s try to create a backup of the same site on Bitrix.

Bitrix backup speed:

27 seconds on SSD

18 seconds on NVMe (less is better)

Does the presence of a fast NVMe disk affect the site opening speed? Let’s check the site opening speed on Bitrix — how fast it loads from different points.

Page Open Speed:

1.2 seconds on SSD

0.6 seconds on NVMe (lower is better)

Read/write speed and number of requests per second (IOPS)

Finally, let’s perform the main tests to check disk performance — measure and compare:

linear reading

random read

linear entry

random entry

IOPS

I will measure readings with the fio utility at a queue depth of 16, in blocks of 4K, 8K, 16K, 32K, 64K, 128K, 1M, 4M (4M is not a mandatory option). The test conditions are exclusively synthetic, allowing you to squeeze the maximum performance out of the drives.

If you want to see all the numbers, follow the pdf link with the data in the tables.

NVMe reaches peak linear read speed on blocks from 1M to 4M. And the SSD reaches its “ceiling” on 128K blocks and is clamped by the bandwidth of the SATA bus.

In random read operations, SSD reaches its maximum speed on blocks of 128K, while NVMe does not change the picture.

In linear write operations, NVMe reaches its maximum speed already at 8K blocks, SSD — from 16k-32k. In random write operations, the picture is similar.

It is noteworthy that the test results confirm the promises of the manufacturer. And IOPS got even more.

Conclusion

In all tests, NVMe demonstrates a confident advantage over SSD. Of course, the tests turned out to be not very clean — NVMe virtual machines open on new Xeon Scalable platforms. They are more powerful than the Xeon E5 servers we’ve used so far.

You can test the power of the new technology on standard plans with an NVMe drive or on Fast and Furious 2.0. In clusters with these services, we use exactly the same platform as in testing.

Article author
Grigory Pradedov

history, comparison, advantages and disadvantages. Detailed overview of Market.CNews – Market.CNews

27 October 2020 12:10 27 Oct 2020 12:10
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Solid-state storage systems SSD are gradually replacing mechanical memory elements. There is a tendency to reduce the size of devices. Servers, laptops and phones are getting thinner and smaller. There is no space left inside their case to accommodate classic laser hard drives. Therefore, manufacturers are developing non-mechanical media technology. One of the most relevant systems of this type at present is NVMe.

What is NVMe SSD

The

NVMe SSD is a type of solid-state media based on memory chips. The difference between this particular type of storage devices is the data transfer through a high-speed PCI Express connection. This type of connection allows you to organize transmission in several simultaneous streams. Such multitasking has been made possible by the proliferation of multi-core processors capable of performing several tasks in parallel.

NVMe directly refers to data transfer protocols, and not to the connector or shape of the device. However, it is often identified with the M.2 form factor. Such a judgment is erroneous, but these two concepts are often used together, since PCI Express drives are most widely used at the moment in this format.

The history of the emergence of SSD NVMe

In view of the intensive development of computer technology, already in the beginning of 2000 it was predicted that in the near future the existing standards for accessing storage devices would not be able to cope with the transfer of an increasing data stream. However, the first official announcements about the development of an improved type of connection to non-volatile memory appeared in 2007. It was reported on the Intel Developer Forum. Engineers have introduced a new connection option between the host and the HAND controller. The novelty received the abbreviation NVMHCI. In the same period, the composition of the working group for this project was approved.

NVMe SSD Versions

The first working version of NVMHCI 1.0 was completed in 2008. A year later, a working group of representatives of 60 companies to develop NVMe was created. In 2011, a pilot version of the new specification was presented. Subsequently, during the development of the assembly under the index 1.1, released in 2012, attention was paid to preparing for corporate use. Multidirectional data transfer, which appeared in this standard, made it possible to connect several clients to the drive without reducing the speed of reading and writing.

There are 5 official versions of the NVMe specification:

Build 1.1 (11/11/2012) is the first in the series. The attention of the developers was paid to multidirectional recording and output of information;

1.1b (2.06.2014) — was an optimized version of its predecessor;

1.2 (11/3/2014) — Consumer devices received advanced power management and the ability to use drives without dynamic memory. The corporate version has learned to carry out updates with simultaneous access to resources from user computers;

1.2b (11/23/2015) — optimization for user class devices;

1. 3 (05/24/2018) — the appearance of boot partitions, the possibility of self-testing without mounting volumes located on the media;

1.4 (announced in 2019) — simplifying the procedure for moving and restoring information, continuous monitoring of events, organizing a buffer inside the client system.

First NVMe drives and controllers

In 2012, Integrated Device Technology released the first NVMe SSD controller and PCIe flash drive. The server version of the drive operating via the PCI Express bus appeared a year later in 2013, thanks to Samsung. During that period, developments were made to use the technology in the U-2 form factor.

In 2014, Intel enters the NVMe market with its server drives. Three models were released, differing in their capacity and performance. DC P3500, DC P3600, DC P3700 were produced in U-2 format. The first modification served as the basis for the subsequent release of the first user version, released in 2015.

In the same 2015, Samsung introduced NVMe SSD in M. 2 format. In this version, the SM951-NVMe model was the first. It has found wide application in the laptop segment. Although it was not uncommon to use them in portable PCs. An adapter was required to connect to standard PCI Express.

7.5g Keychain Size NVMe SSD Capacity — 250GB

Advantages and Disadvantages of

NVMe SSD

The specification under consideration has a number of undeniable advantages, however, as with any other technology, it was not without drawbacks. For a more detailed study of all aspects of this issue, you should familiarize yourself with the table:

Pros Cons

Operational work. NVMe allows the system to turn on and manipulate data faster;
· High bandwidth increases protection against DOS attacks;
· Support system testing without disconnecting clients;
· Can be removed, installed, and replaced without shutting down the system. Higher cost for this type of storage;
· Strong heat during operation;
· Consume more electricity.

NVMe versus SATA, SDD and SAS

Among solid-state storage devices on chips, SATA devices are the most common. They are used on most wearable gadgets, laptops, tablets.

If we talk about servers, then SAS drives are most common. They are more expensive than SATA, but provide better performance due to parallel SCSI based operation.

The main difference between both media and NVMe is that they are connected to the motherboard through an intermediate SAS / AHCI stack. Naturally, the intermediary reduces the speed of information transfer.

NVMe is connected via the PCI Express connector. It allows you to support up to 4 channels of simultaneous data transmission. The speed of each of them reaches 984.6 MB / s. That is, the total flow will be equal to 3.94 GB / s. For SATA, this figure is only 768 MB / s.

NVMe in IaaS

Using NVMe for storage on personal devices will not fully benefit from high-speed transfers. According to private research, connecting a drive via PCI Express gives the greatest advantage at maximum load levels. This is provided only on massive servers that provide their resources to clients as a service — IaaS.

NVMe SSDs increase system throughput. Increasing the number of channels for simultaneous data transmission reduces the likelihood of server overload. Increased protection against DDoS attacks.

Service Benefits

As mentioned above, the NVMe developers have achieved stable operation of the drive even at the time of system testing. The upgrade can occur without disconnecting users. Another advantage of the carriers under consideration is the possibility of “hot extraction”. In the event of a breakdown, a separate block is retrieved without shutting down the stack. In this case, the impact on the quality of service is minimal.