Introduction

The Kioxia brand was established around 2018/2019, after Toshiba sold off its SSD and memory branch "Toshiba Memory." The company now produces flash memory for its own products, but also WD and SanDisk. Part of the original Toshiba SSD business was formed in 2014, when Toshiba bought the famous OCZ brand. Recently, Kioxia also acquired the SSD maker Lite-On.



It's been a long time since I last reviewed an SSD from Toshiba/OCZ—back in 2018 was my last review, when M.2 NVMe SSDs were just starting to make a dent in the 2.5" SATA SSD market share. Today, we have for review the Kioxia Exceria Plus G2 2 TB, which is the company's current flagship SSD. It is based on the eight-channel TC58NC1201GST controller, which is a customized version of the Phison PS5012-E12S, paired with Toshiba 96-layer 3D NAND flash. Two DDR4-2666 DRAM chips provide 2 GB of memory for the mapping tables of the SSD.

The Kioxia Exceria Plus G2 comes in capacities of 500 GB ($65), 1 TB ($110), and 2 TB ($270). Endurance for these models is set to 200 TBW, 400 TBW, and 800 TBW respectively. Kioxia includes a five-year warranty with the Exceria Plus G2.

Packaging

The Drive

The drive uses the M.2 2280 form factor, which makes it 22 mm wide and 80 mm long.


Like most M.2 NVMe SSDs, the Kioxia Exceria Plus G2 connects to the host system over a PCI-Express 3.0 x4 interface.


On the PCB, you'll find the controller, eight flash chips, and two DRAM chips.

Chip Component Analysis

Kioxia has licensed the Phison E12S controller and rebranded it. It's an eight-channel design with support for TLC and NVMe 1.3c.


The eight flash chips are 96-layer 3D TLC NAND made by Kioxia/Toshiba.


Two Hynix DDR4-2666 chips provide a total of 2 GB of fast DRAM storage for the controller to store the mapping tables.

Test Setup