Introduction

ADATA is Taiwan's largest manufacturer of flash storage and DRAM memory for computers. They have been at the forefront of SSD development for many years, bringing us famous SSDs like the SX8200, SX900, and S510.

Today, we have for review the world's first M.2 RGB SSD, the ADATA XPG Spectrix S40G. The drive comes with eight separately adjustable RGB LEDs on the PCB that have its light spread out through a diffuser to create a uniform glow. ADATA's RGB control software lets you select from predefined patterns and adjust the colors to match your computer case's theme.

The drive uses the compact M.2 form factor with a PCI-Express x4 connection to the rest of the system, which ensures optimum performance. Under the hood, the XPG Spectrix S40G uses an 8-channel Realtek RTS5762 controller, which was announced in 2018 and is now seeing some adoption in SSDs. The TLC NAND flash chips on the S40G are made by Intel IMFT, and rounding off the package is 128 MB of DDR3-1600 DRAM to store the flash mapping tables.

The ADATA XPG Spectrix S40G is available in capacities of 256 GB ($58), 512 GB ($80), 1 TB ($160), and 2 TB (unknown). Endurance is rated at 160 TB, 320 TB, 640 TB, and 1,280 TB respectively.