The Zircon R1 Series is a solid-state drive in the M.2 2280 form factor, launched in February 2023. It is only available in the 256 GB capacity listed on this page. With the rest of the system, the Zircon R1 Series interfaces using a PCI-Express 3.0 x4 connection. The SSD controller is the MAP1202A-F1C Cougar from MaxioTech, a DRAM cache is not available. Zircon has installed 128-layer TLC NAND flash on the R1 Series, the flash chips are made by SK Hynix. Please note that this SSD is sold in multiple variants with different NAND flash or controller, which could affect performance, the "Notes" section at the end of this page has more info. To improve write speeds, a pseudo-SLC cache is used, so bursts of incoming writes are handled more quickly. The R1 Series is rated for sequential read speeds of up to 3,400 MB/s and 3,100 MB/s write; random IO reaches 330K IOPS for read and 250K for writes.
At its launch, the SSD was priced at 30 USD. The warranty length is set to three years, which is above average, but shorter than the five years offered by many other vendors. Zircon guarantees an endurance rating of 384 TBW, a high value.