PNY’s 14.9 GB/s PCIe 5.0 SSD Hits Market for $125
▼ Summary
– PNY has launched the CS3250 PCIe 5.0 SSD with transfer speeds up to 14,900 MB/s, positioning it as a competitor to the TeamGroup Z54E.
– The drive likely uses Phison’s E28 controller and Sandisk BiCS8 218-layer TLC flash, though PNY has not officially confirmed these components.
– It is available in 1TB and 2TB capacities, with a 4TB version in development but no release date announced yet.
– Pricing starts at $125.99 for the 1TB model and $219.99 for the 2TB model, offering competitive cost per gigabyte.
– The CS3250 features a thermal coating for heat management, includes a five-year warranty, and has varying performance and endurance based on capacity.
PNY has officially launched its new CS3250 PCIe 5.0 SSD, delivering staggering transfer speeds of up to 14.9 GB/s at a highly competitive price point. This M.2 2280 form factor drive enters the market as a direct rival to other high-performance models like the TeamGroup Z54E, offering both 1TB and 2TB capacities for consumers seeking top-tier storage performance.
While PNY has not publicly confirmed the internal components, industry analysis suggests the drive likely utilizes Phison’s advanced E28 PCIe 5.0 SSD controller. For NAND flash memory, the probable candidate is 218-layer BiCS8 TLC flash, with sources indicating a preference for Sandisk-supplied chips over Kioxia’s due to performance differentiation, despite the identical underlying technology. These details remain speculative until a full teardown and review can be conducted.
The drive is currently available in 1TB and 2TB versions, with a 4TB model confirmed to be in development for users requiring massive high-speed storage. PNY has not announced a specific release date for the larger capacity, advising customers to monitor its official website for the latest announcements.
Pricing positions the CS3250 as an aggressive contender in the premium SSD space. The 1TB model is listed at $125.99, translating to a cost of roughly 13 cents per gigabyte. The 2TB version sells for $219.99, bringing the price per gigabyte down to approximately 11 cents.
Performance scales with the drive’s capacity. The flagship 2TB SKU achieves the highest specifications, with sequential read and write speeds peaking at 14,900 MB/s and 14,000 MB/s, respectively. The 1TB model maintains the same blistering read speed but sees its write performance dip to around 13,500 MB/s. To combat thermal throttling and ensure consistent operation, PNY has applied a specialized thermal coating to the controller to enhance heat dissipation.
The DRAM cache configuration is presumed to follow a common industry pattern of 1GB per 1TB of storage. This would mean the 1TB drive includes a 1GB DRAM cache, while the 2TB model is equipped with 2GB. In a trend seen with other E28-based SSDs, PNY has not released any official random read/write performance figures for the CS3250.
PNY backs the CS3250 with a standard five-year warranty. Official endurance ratings, measured in Terabytes Written (TBW), have not been published. However, if the drive uses hardware similar to the TeamGroup Z54E, estimated endurance would be 600 TBW for the 1TB drive and 1,200 TBW for the 2TB model.
A key differentiator for the PNY drive is its immediate availability. Although TeamGroup announced its competing product earlier, the CS3250 is already in stock and available for purchase, while details on the Z54E’s market release and final pricing remain unclear.
(Source: Tom’s Hardware)