MSI, the world's leading gaming PC hardware brand, is proud to announce the new SPATIUM M570 PRO Series, featuring the revolutionary PHISON E26 PCIe Gen 5 SSD controller and state-of-the-art 3D NAND flash. Designed to push the limits of storage performance, the SPATIUM M570 PRO Series SSD delivers an astonishing top read speed of 14 GB/s, breaking the world record and setting new industry standards.

The strong collaboration and cooperation between MSI and PHISON have made this record possible as both companies share in the excitement of pushing the envelope. "K.S.Pua, CEO of Phison Electronics, said that the cooperation between Phison and MSI started from the SSD product line. Since both companies have their own expertise in NAND controller and computer system integration respectively, and in addition to SSD, MSI has also actively expanded its strategy in the fields of gaming, content creators, commercial, industrial, robotics, and even automotive in recent years, where the application markets are in line with Phison's long-term strategy, so the two companies hit it off. The SPATIUM M570 Pro Series SSD announced by MSI this time adopted Phison's E26 SSD controller. Since the performance of PCIe 5.0 is much faster than the previous generation of PCIe 4.0, the two companies have conducted a lot of tests and discussions on power consumption and heat dissipation, which is a valuable cooperation experience. In the future, Phison will continue to support MSI through controller technology."

The NAND memory industry is not in great shape at the moment, with the big three (Micron, Samsung, SK Hynix) having reported significant financial losses in this area recently. If you include Kioxia and Western Digital as part of this collective picture, a grand total of over $10 billion has been lost in the flash memory segment. According to DigiTimes Asia this week, Pua Khein-Seng - the chief executive officer of Phison Electronics Corporation - has warned that parts of the industry could collapse due to potential company bankruptcies.

Khein-Seng informed attendees at a press conference that forced NAND price cuts are not feasible in the current market environment, and that supply chains could be affected if related companies start to shutdown - due to operational losses. He expects 3D NAND manufacturers to cutback on output in order to soften the market, and unit price increases are also a possibility. Phison has experienced a drop in revenues for the first quarter of 2023, but the CEO insists that his company is not willing to cutback on research and development costs - 80% of its annual expense budget will be invested in future projects. Khein-Seng states that rival companies have reduced spending on R&D by 20%, yet Phison remains committed to its clients by providing cutting edge technology (for example the E26 SSD memory controller).

Nextorage Japan is preparing its NE5N range of PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSDs for launch in early June - listings have emerged on Newegg for 2 TB and 1 TB models - with a product page appearing recently on the company's (Japanese language) website. These units boast read and write speeds rated for operation up to 10 GB/s, and are based on Phison's E26 PCIe Gen 5 controller. Nextorage started off as a provider of PlayStation 5-oriented PCIe Gen 4 SSD products, due to company ties to Sony Corporation, but its upcoming NE5N range indicates that it intends to target buyers within the enthusiast PC market.

The initial batch of cutting edge SSDs are unlikely to end up in any PS5 consoles, thanks to a sizable dual formation heatsink - the Japanese company has filed a patent for the bulky two-level structure and heatpipe combination design. Gen 5 SSDs are said to be difficult to tame in terms of heat output, and manufacturers are going to great lengths (and sizes) to provide adequate cooling solutions in advance. Future versions of Nextorage Japan's NE5N NVMe M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 5 SSDs are being refined for compact PCs and laptops, so it will be interesting to find out about the intended thermal tempering for more cramped environments.

Crucial's T700 PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSD series has been previewed a couple of times, showing some impressive sequential read and write performance, and now, Crucial has announced that it is available for pre-order, directly from Crucial's own store. The release date is set for May 30th.

In case you missed it earlier, the Crucial T700 PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSD offers sequential performance of up to 12,400 MB/s for read and up to 11,800 MB/s for write (11,700 MB/s and 9,500 MB/s for the 1 TB version). Available in 1 TB, 2 TB, and 4 TB capacities, and with or without the heatsink, the Crucial T700 uses Micron 232-layer TLC NAND paired up with Phison's E26 controller. The endurance rating (TBW) for the Crucial T700 SSD series is set at 600 TB for the 1 TB version, 1200 TB for the 2 TB version, and 2400 TB for the 4 TB version, and it is backed by a 5-year limited warranty.

Galax is joining the PCIe 5.0 SSD crowd with its newest HOF Extreme 50 SSD that has been launched in China, and should come to the rest of the markets soon. The Galax HOF Extreme 50 will be only available in 1 TB and 2 TB capacities, and comes with thick heatsink with active cooling via PWM fan.

As it is the case with all other PCIe 5.0 SSDs currently on the market, the HOF Extreme 50 is based on Phison E26 controller paired up with Micron 232-layer 3D NAND flash and up to 4 GB of LPDDR4 DRAM cache. The Galax HOF Extreme 50 is not the fastest Phison E26-based PCIe 5.0 SSD announced, as Gigabyte Aorus Gen 5 1000, MSI Spatium M570 Pro, and Crucial T700, are coming and reaching up to 12 GB/s (12.4 GB/s for the Crucial T700).

Crucial is keen to drum up early interest for an upcoming SSD model, and the Linus Tech Tips team has received and tested a sample unit. The T700 is a PCIe Gen 5 NVMe M.2 SSD storage solution based around a Phison PS5026-E26 controller, which is a very common choice for the current generation of PCIe 5.0 SSDs available on the market. Micron 3D NAND chips look to be present on the T700's PCB, and a Crucial-branded heatsink is mounted to the provided sample unit. It is interesting to note that the uncovered T700 unit bears a striking resemblance to Phison's E26 Engineering Reference sample, although the latter appears to feature SK Hynix memory chips, instead of Micron.

The LTT team posted benchmark results from a Crystal Disk Mark test session, and the T700 achieved maximums of 12.4 GB/s sequential read and 11.9 GB/s write speeds. This represents an almost two fold jump over the performance of Crucial's PCIe 4.0 based P5 Plus SSD, which is a substantial improvement and also very impressive considering the T700's usage of a passive cooling solution.

Phison Electronics, a global leader in NAND flash and storage solutions, announced today the launch of IMAGIN+, an upgraded platform offering R&D resource sharing and ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit) design services for NAND flash controllers, storage solutions, PMIC, and Redrivers/Retimers. The introduction of IMAGIN+ comes during the Embedded World Exhibition & Conference (March 14-16) in Nuremberg, a premier global event for the embedded community.

Phison's rejuvenated platform, bolstered by more than two decades of research and development expertise, empowers global partners and customers to create not just ASIC chips and NAND flash storage solutions but also to participate in the growth of a thriving ecosystem of emerging technologies. Phison understands that success in today's fast-paced market requires more than just providing NAND storage solutions; it requires the ability to influence and shape the industry through signal integrity and power management ICs, Compute Express Link and other value-added offerings.

In the last few months, we have seen a wealth of new systems that all support Gen 5 SSD capabilities. A few companies have even released Gen 5 SSDs rating in the 10,000 MB/s range. At Sabrent, we have been working very hard to bring this new product to market while working extremely closely with Phison to develop our new line of Gen 5 SSDs to push the boundaries to 14,000 MB/s. There have been many challenges to overcome with these new products to meet our strict requirements for new drives to enter our lineup of high-quality products. We have been working to make the best Gen 5 SSD possible to improve system performance and user experience. Here we have our new Sabrent Rocket X5 Gen 5 SSD being tested to our specifications.

We will showcase examples of what we have come up with to demonstrate our commitment to bringing the highest quality and top performers to the marketplace.
There is no doubt that many have already seen the Tech Demo sample results that were sent out by Phison. We aim to improve that and increase the performance as high as possible. At this stage, we have passed 12,000 MB/s with the technology available. Below we'd like to show a sample of what we are able to achieve with the Technology Demo we present to you today.

GIGABYTE formally launched its flagship AORUS Gen5 10000 series M.2 NVMe SSDs that take advantage of a PCI-Express 5.0 x4 interface. Currently, all AMD B650 series and X670 series motherboards offer a PCIe Gen 5 M.2 slot wired to the processor without eating into PEG bandwidth, while some Intel 700-series chipset motherboards offer Gen 5 M.2 slots by subtracting lanes from the PEG slot. AORUS Gen5 10000 for now comes in 1 TB and 2 TB capacities. The drives combine a Phison E26 series controller with 3D TLC NAND flash memory and LPDDR4 DRAM cache.

The 1 TB model offers sequential transfer speeds of up to 9.5 GB/s reads, with up to 8.5 GB/s writes, and 700 TBW endurance; whereas the 2 TB model is faster, with up to 10 GB/s sequential reads, up to 9.5 GB/s writes, and 1,400 TBW endurance. The drive's power consumption is under 10 W, and GIGABYTE has deployed a thoughtful fanless cooling solution for the drive that spares you from the annoying high-pitched noise of other upcoming Gen 5 M.2 SSDs that use fan-heatsinks. The company didn't reveal pricing, but mentioned that the drives are backed by 5-year warranties.

Transcend introduced the MTE400S, a value-ended M.2 NVMe SSD meant for the prebuilt OEM/SI channel. Built in the 42 mm-long M.2-2242 form-factor, the drive features a PCI-Express 3.0 x4 host interface. It comes in capacities of 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB; and features a DRAM-less design, possibly using a Phison-sourced controller. The company didn't specify the type of 3D NAND flash used. The top-spec 1 TB variant offers transfer-speeds of up to 2000 MB/s reads, with up to 1700 MB/s writes; while the 512 GB variant writes at up to 1000 MB/s, and the 256 GB variant up to 900 MB/s; with endurance ratings of 100 TBW, 200 TBW, and 400 TBW, respectively. The company didn't reveal pricing, but these should be among the cheapest drives in the market, as they're sold in tray volumes.

In Japan, the first consumer focused PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSDs have gone on sale and one of these drives has been put through some quick synthetic benchmarks by @momomo_us on Twitter. We're not familiar with the CFD Gaming brand which the drive is sold under, but the CSSD-M2M2TPG5NFZ—as the drive is called—is based on Phison's E26 controller and it's paired with Micron's B58R 3D TLC NAND, suggesting it's based around a reference design from Phison. CFD Gaming offers the drive in 1, 2 and 4 TB sizes and @momomo_us tested the 2 TB version.

Before we go into the performance figures, there's one thing that needs to be highlighted about this drive, it produces a high pitch noise during use, thanks to its tiny 17x17 mm, 21,000 rpm fan from Sunon. @momomo_us provided a video on Twitter which is linked below, so you can hear it in action for yourself. Hopefully this isn't the future of NVMe SSDs, as it's going to put off many potential customers from getting one. @momomo_us only tested the drive with CrystalDiskMark 8.0.4, which shows that sequential write speeds are slightly faster than claimed by CFD Gaming, with the sequential write speeds being bang on the money. For those hoping for higher random performance, things aren't looking so great, as the drive only performs slightly better than the best PCIe 4.0 NVMe drives.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions today announced the evolutionary AORUS Gen4 7300 SSD, which is the upgraded PCIe 4.0 SSD with read speed up to 7300 MB/s. Enhanced by the select PCIe 4.0 controller with advanced 3D-TLC NAND Flash, it provides superior performance than the previous generation PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD. AORUS Gen4 7300 SSD with M.2 2280 interface comes in two capacity variants of 2 TB and 1 TB, along with a unique packaging design of separated SSD and heatsink packing to offer more flexible thermal solutions. Meanwhile, the GIGABYTE exclusive GCC software management platform provides the instant overview and adjustment of SSD status for a cool storage operation with high performance.

AORUS Gen4 7300 SSD equips the select Phison E18 8-channel controller, which provides users with ultimate random access rate, as well as the high-speed 3D-TLC NAND Flash and SLC cache design that brings the PCIe 4.0 into full play. Under the real test, AORUS Gen4 7300 SSD can reach a read speed up to 7300 MB/s and a write speed up to 6850 MB/s, which is faster than the previous gen. PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD, two times faster than PCIe 3.0 SSD, and up to 13 times faster than SATA SSD. Enhanced by the multi-core architecture of the E18 controller, AORUS Gen4 7300 SSD not only improves AI multitasking to lessen the bottleneck of system performance, but powers up content creators, gamers, and users eager for extreme performance.

At the 2023 International CES, we caught a hold of Phison, makes or arguably the most popular SSD controllers, which sprung to prominence on being the first to market with PCIe Gen 4 NVMe controllers, and now hopes to repeat it with PCIe Gen 5. We'd been shown a reference-design Phison E26-powered M.2 SSD, along with some hardware specs of the controller itself. The drive itself isn't much to look at—a standard looking M.2-2280 drive with a PCI-Express 5.0 x4 host interface, and the Phison E26 controller with its shiny IHS being prominently located next to a DDR4 memory chip, and two new-generation Micron Technology 3D NAND flash memory chips.

The Phison E26 controller, bearing the long-form model number PS5026-E26, is an NVMe 2.0 spec client-segment SSD controller. It has been built on the TSMC 12 nm FinFET silicon-fabrication node. The controller features an integrated DRAM controller with support for DDR4 and LPDDR4 memory types for use as DRAM cache. Its main flash interface is 8-channel with 32 NAND chip-enable (CE) lines, support for TLC and QLC NAND flash, a dual-CPU architecture, and hardware-acceleration for AES-256, TCG-Opal, and Pyrite. The controller features Phison's 5th generation LPDC ECC and internal RAID engines. For its reference-design 2 TB TLC-based drive, Phison claims sequential transfer rates of up to 13.5 GB/s reads, with up to 12 GB/s writes. The 4K random-access performance is rated at up to 1.5 million IOPS reads, with up to 2 million IOPS writes.

GIGABYTE in its 2023 International CES booth, showed off its upcoming flagship M.2 NVMe SSD, the AORUS Gen5 10000. Built in the M.2-2280 form-factor with PCI-Express 5.0 x4 interface and supporting NVMe 2.0 protocol, the drive is based on a Phison E26-series controller. coupled with the latest 3D TLC NAND flash. It comes in capacities of 1 TB, 2 TB, and 4 TB. Sequential transfer-rates put out by GIGABYTE put the drive at up to 12 GB/s reads, with up to 10 GB/s sequential writes.

That's hardly the most striking aspect of this drive, which is a massive aluminium dual-fin-stack heatsink that uses two fin-stacks joined at the hip by a pair of heatpipes, in what is a callback to GIGABYTE's Nehalem motherboards that used such enormous heatsinks over the X58 northbridge. GIGABYTE calls this heatsink the AORUS Xtreme Thermal Guard. The company's current flagship is the AORUS 7000, which rocks a Gen4 interface, offering up to 7 GB/s reads, with up to 5 GB/s writes.

Patriot Memory showed off its fastest gaming PC storage solutions at the 2023 International CES. The star attraction is an unnamed prototype M.2 PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSD which features active cooling. This is actually the second Gen 5 SSD we've come across today that has active cooling, signaling that future NVMe SSDs are about to get hot. The ES drive comes in capacities ranging between 1 TB to 4 TB, features a PCI-Express 5.0 x4 interface with NVMe 2.0 protocol, an unknown controller+flash combination, and claimed performance of up to 12 GB/s sequential reads, with up to 10 GB/s sequential writes.

Among the other internal drives shown are the Viper P450, a Gen 4 NVMe drive offering sequential speeds of up to 7 GB/s and up to 6 GB/s writes; and capacities ranging between 512 Gb to 2 TB; a more cost-effective VPR450 drive based on a DRAMless Phison Gen 4 controller offering up to 6 GB/s reads and up to 5 GB/s writes. The Viper VXD is an external SSD enclosure meant for M.2-2280 PCIe SSDs. It offers a USB-C connection, which connects to a Realtek RTL9210B chip that converts a 10 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2 uplink to a PCI-Express 3.0 x4 downlink, offering sequential transfer rates of up to 1 GB/s.

Phison Electronics Corp., a global leader in NAND flash controller and storage solutions, today is demonstrating the company's latest PCIe Gen5 innovation that is transcending system-level performance to new heights at CES in Las Vegas. Phison is demonstrating the E26 with Phison's proprietary I/O+ Technology to usher a new evolution of gaming experiences. For enterprise, Phison is previewing the company's latest Gen5 X Series SSD enterprise controllers, which can provide twice the performance per watt (in comparison to X1, the previous generation). Following the success of the world's first PCI-SIG Association certified PCIe 5.0 Redriver PS7101, Phison is also introducing the PS7201 Retimer with industry-proven IP. Phison's Retimer is designed to solve performance and data integrity issues in enterprise and automotive applications and further enhances the Gen5 ecosystem.

"Phison is ecstatic to be ringing in the new year by showcasing our product milestones for the industry, our partners and enterprise customers because we are committed and dedicated to engineering next generation technologies through ecosystem excellence," said Michael Wu, GM & President of Phison Technology Inc. (USA). "As a proven category leader, Phison's E26 with I/O+ Technology, latest Enterprise PCIe Gen5 X Series, signal enhancing Redriver and Retimer are product breakthroughs that are a testament to our engineering success."

For those looking at upgrading—or adding an SSD—to their Steam Deck, there's now a new option from Sabrent. The company has launched an M.2 2230 sized version of its Rocket SSD that will be available in sizes of 256 GB, 512 GB and 1 TB. As one would expect, due to the form factor, we're looking at DRAM-less drives. Sabrent has gone with Phison's E21T controller and it has been paired with Micron's B47R, 176-layer NAND.

In other words, we're not talking about a high-performance drive here, but that might be a good thing as well, since it'll produce less heat, which should prevent drive throttling in the tiny space available inside the Steam Deck. Sabrent rates the drives as having a sequential read speed of up to 5,000 MB/s and a sequential write speed of up to 4,300 MB/s. The read IOPS are rated at up to 450K, with the write IOPS at up to 920K, which once again varies between the drive sizes. The 512 GB drive appears to have the overall best performance. The drives are rated for 200, 300 and 600 TBW and come with a five year warranty. No pricing has been revealed so far.

Phison Electronics Corp., a global leader in NAND flash and storage solutions, announced today that its 8 TB M.2 2280 SSD solution has completed flight qualification tests required for Lonestar Data Holdings' historic first lunar data center mission. This SSD has been selected by Lonestar's contractor and Phison's partner, space logistics company Skycorp. Skycorp is also Lonestar's engineering design and manufacturing partner for the lunar data center mission scheduled for the second half of 2023.

"After comprehensive testing and certification process, Phison is thrilled that our SSD technology has passed all the rigorous requirements for Lonestar's upcoming Moon mission," said K.S. Pua, Phison CEO. "We are excited about playing a vital role on this important mission, and other future ones as we continue our foray into the new frontier. We also want to thank our outstanding customer, Lonestar, and partner, Skycorp, for helping to make this happen."

Phison Electronics Corp., a global leader in NAND flash controller and storage solutions, announced that its latest flagship enterprise PCIe 4.0 X1 SSD solution, which was developed in partnership with Seagate was awarded the 2023 Taiwan Excellence Award. "We are very pleased that Phison's enterprise PCIe 4.0 X1 SSD solution has received this honor," said K.S. Pua, CEO or Phison. "For Taiwanese products, the mark of Taiwan Excellence is associated with innovative values that are renowned in the international market for excellence and quality."

The Taiwan Excellence Awards were established by the Ministry of Economic Affairs of Taiwan in 1993. Every year, eligible candidates are subjected to a rigorous and stringent selection system that covers four major aspects of R&D, Design, Quality, and Marketing to identify outstanding products that offer "Innovative Value" while satisfying the key criterion of being "made in Taiwan." Products that have been selected for the Taiwan Excellence Awards will serve as domestic industry examples while being promoted by the government in the international market to shape the creative image for Taiwanese businesses.

Phison Electronics Corp., a global leader in NAND flash controller and storage solutions, today announced significant milestones in 2022 that were highlighted by key partnerships, product innovations and advancements, and overall technology leadership.

"Despite market challenges, Phison is proud to have successfully navigated 2022 with strong innovation and technology leadership, two hallmarks of our company," said K.S. Pua, Phison CEO. "As a forward-thinking company, we cannot wait to bring more SSD customizations, innovations, and solutions to our partners, and customers next year."

Corsair has quietly launched two new SSD SKUs, the MP600 PRO NH and the MP600 GS. Although the model names seem similar, the two models couldn't be more different. Both are PCIe 4.0 x4 drives and in both cases controllers from Phison are used, but beyond both using a black PCB, the common features end here. The MP600 PRO NH is based around the Phison E18 and delivers sequential read speeds of up to 7000 MB/s, with the write speeds peaking at 6500 MB/s, depending on the storage capacity and this is where things get really interesting. Corsair is offering the MP600 PRO NH in capacities of up to 8 TB, but the SKU with the overall best performance is the 4 TB SKU. Random write performance is said to be up to 1.2 million IOPS, with random read performance topping out around 1 million IOPS. For some reason Corsair is offering a 500 GB SKU as well, but it offers fairly poor performance compared to its larger siblings. All drives use 3 TLC NAND, so we're not looking at QLC drives here.

The MP600 GS on the other hand is based on the Phison E21T, which is a DRAM-less controller that targets the more affordable drive segment. Here we're looking at only two SKUs, 500 GB or 1 TB, with the 1 TB drive offering sequential read speeds of up to 4800 MB/s and sequential write speeds of up to 3900 MB/s. The random read speed hits 580k IOPS with the random write speeds reaching 800k IOPS. This drive is also using 3D TLC NAND. The MP600 GS costs US$57.99 for the 500 GB SKU and US$92.99 for the 1 TB SKU. The MP600 PRO NH starts at US$72.99 for the 500 GB SKU, followed by US$112.99 for 1 TB, US$212.99 for 2 TB, US$529.99 for 4 TB and finally a rather steep US$1,074.99 for the 8 TB SKU. Both models come with a five year warranty.

MSI, the world's leading gaming PC hardware brand, is proud to announce the new SPATIUM M570 PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 HS, with blazing fast read speeds up to 10 GB/s that unites the latest in top-notch PCIe Gen 5 controller technology with high-quality 3D NAND flash, and advanced cooling. Sporting a bronze-coloredaluminiumm heatsink, the SPATIUM M570 PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 HS SSD takes a sensational leap in storage performance, bringing more than 1.5 times faster read/write speeds compared to current PCIe 4.0 SSDs. With compliance of NVMe 2.0 and M.2 2280 form factor, the SPATIUM M570 HS offers optimal performance and long-lasting durability in 1 TB, 2 TB, and 4 TB capacity variants for professionals, content creators, and gamers in an easy installation and extreme transfer speeds for multitasking workloads. The strong collaboration between MSI and Phison was showcased to convey innovations in the storage space area during CES 2022 mutually.

"K.S.Pua, CEO of Phison Electronics, said that the cooperation between Phison and MSI started from the SSD product line. Since both companies have their own expertise in NAND controller and computer system integration respectively, and in addition to SSD, MSI has also actively expanded its strategy in the fields of gaming, content creators, commercial, industrial, robotics, and even automotive in recent years, where the application markets are in line with Phison's long-term strategy, so the two companies hit it off. The SPATIUM PCIe 5.0 SSD launched by MSI this time adopted Phison's E26 SSD controller. Since the performance of PCIe 5.0 is much faster than the previous generation of PCIe 4.0, the two companies have conducted a lot of tests and discussions on power consumption and heat dissipation, which is a valuable cooperation experience. In the future, Phison will continue to support MSI through controller technology."

The first batch of PCIe 5.0 SSDs are all likely to be based on Phison's PS5026-E26 controller, which offers eight NAND channels, capable of supporting NAND speeds of up to 2400 MT/s. Phison's own figures for the controller are 13 GB/s writes and 12 GB/s reads, with up to 1.5 million random read IOPS and 2 million random write IOPS. However, as we've already seen from various SSD brands, many PCIe 5.0 SSDs won't exceed 10 GB/s when it comes to the sequential read/write speeds. This is because the current NAND flash simply isn't fast enough to saturate the PCIe 5.0 bus, which is capable of 15.75 GB/s. That said, Micron's 232-layer 3D NAND should be able to boost the performance up to 12.4 GB/s based on the numbers Gigabyte announced for their Aorus Gen 10000 SSD.

Based on an article over at Tom's Hardware, we shouldn't expect too many drives that exceed 10 GB/s sequential writes at launch, due to most drives using 176-layer 3D NAND flash, that is limited to 1600 MT/s. As such, it might be wise to hold off on buying the first generation of PCIe 5.0 drives and wait for better availability of 232-layer 3D NAND, as beyond Micron, SK Hynix is expected to have a 238-layer 3D NAND flash in the market sometime in the first half of 2023. If you're not really eager to have the fastest SSD out there for pure bragging rights, it would seem that mid 2023 might be the right time to get a PCIe 5.0 SSD.

Kingston released the NV2 line of entry-level M.2 NVMe SSDs succeeding the NV1 series from early-2021, which was infamous for its hardware-specs lottery. The biggest change with the NV2 series is the move to PCI-Express Gen 4 (from Gen 3 for the NV1 series), even though it doesn't appear like they can take advantage of all that bandwidth.

The Kingston NV2 comes in capacities of 250 GB, 500 GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB; and offer sequential transfer speeds of up to 3000 MB/s reads, with up to 1300 MB/s writes; with endurance ratings of up to 80 TBW for 250 GB, 160 TBW for 500 GB, 320 TBW for 1 TB, and 640 TBW for 2 TB. The company won't mention the controller + NAND flash combo in use (so it could use whatever combination it wants to in the future, as long as the advertised speeds and endurance are achieved); but in all likelihood, this is Phison E19T DRAMless controller that features PCI-Express 4.0 x4, paired with 3D QLC NAND flash. Kingston is backing these with 3-year warranties.

Here are some of the first pictures of the GoodRAM IRDM Ultimate PCIe Gen 5 M.2 NVMe SSD. Built in the M.2-2580 form-factor, the drive combines Phison's upcoming E26 controller, with what's likely KIOXIA 162-layer 3D TLC NAND flash memory. The controller takes advantage of the PCI-Express 5.0 x4 interface, and NVMe 2.0 protocol, offering sequential transfer speeds of around 10 GB/s reads, with around 9.5 GB/s writes. The drive comes in capacities of 1 TB, 2 TB, and 4 TB. It comes with a fairly large heatsink included. AMD Socket AM5 will be the first platform to feature CPU-attached PCIe Gen 5 M.2 slots, which goes on sale by late-September. The first PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSDs, according to AMD, should be here by November.