We would like to thank at first Silicon Power for supplying their P34A60 PCIe 3x4 M.2 2280 512GB SSD for testing and reviewing.

 

 

About Silicon Power:

 

"Founded in 2003 by a group of enthusiastic data storage industry experts, Silicon Power is committed to delivering outstanding product and service quality. Headquartered and with our own state-of-the-art production site in Taipei, we have become a leading manufacturer of flash memory cards, USB flash drives, portable hard drives, solid state drives, DRAM modules and industrial-grade products. As an international player with four branch offices around the globe, we continuously strive to offer the perfect data storage solution for all requirements of modern digitalized life. With a strong focus on combining innovative technology and award-winning design, we live up to our brand promise to reliably preserve and protect your most valuable data.

Because memory is personal."

 

A Fundamental PCIe Gen3x4 That Goes Further

 

The P34A60 is an affordable storage solution that doesn't skimp on performance. It's designed for novice users, DIY system builders, purpose-built system manufacturers, and simply those who are looking to upgrade their PC. But with a PCIe Gen3x4 interface, which means four lanes are used for transmitting and receiving data simultaneously, read speeds up to 2,200 MB/s, and write speeds up to 1,600 MB/s, this SSD is anything but basic.

 

NVMe 1.3 + HMB = Optimum Performance

 

The P34A60 supports NVMe 1.3, which demands better performance vectors than AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface), including scalable bandwidth, increased IOPS, and low latency. In addition, HMB (Host Memory Buffer) architecture, which allows the host driver to allocate system memory (RAM) for exclusive use by the SSD, results in higher efficiency. It's this teamwork that provides optimum performance.

 

Your Data In Good Hands

 

The P34A60 is engineered with LDPC (Low-Density Parity Check) coding, a powerful error correction code (ECC) algorithm, to keep data secure. Furthermore, End-To-End (E2E) data protection, to ensure that accessed and retrieved data are correct from start to finish, and a RAID engine, which provides an acceptable level of fault tolerance, work to enhance data integrity for greater reliability and stability.

 

A System Upgrade With Room For More

 

With an M.2 2280 (80mm) form factor, the P34A60's compact size allows for easy installation in laptops, small form factor PC systems, and some ultrabooks. And with up to a massive 2TB capacity option, it's an easy upgrade that can greatly expand your system's storage potential while also saving space for other components.

 

Capacity

1TB

 

Dimensions

22.0 x 80.0 x 3.5mm

 

Weight

8g

 

Interface

PCIe Gen3x4

 

Performance Read(max.)

up to 2,200 MB/s

 

Performance Write(max.)

up to 1,600 MB/s

 

MTBF (est)

2,000,000 hours

 

Operating Temperature

0 degrees Celsius - 70 degrees Celsius

 

Shock Resistance Test

1500G/0.5ms

 

Certification

CE, FCC, BSMI, Green dot, WEEE, RoHS, KCC

 

System Requirement

Computer with M.2 slots supporting PCIe interface and one of the following operating systems: Windows 8.1 or Windows 10

 

Warranty

5 years

 

 

In this review we will concentrate upon the 1TB version of the P34A60 3x4 M.2 2280 NVMe SSD from Silicon Power, from the same class as the previously tested 512GB version. The manufacturer does rate the read speeds of up to 2200MB/s, while the writes are rated to up to 1600MB/s, regular figures for most mainstream SSDs. The P34A60 drive does support Host Memory Buffer which allows the host driver to allocate system memory as buffer (RAM), allowing sustained transfer rates for a longer time period.

 

The drive is shipped inside a vey compact cardboard enclosure with a small window; we will get to see highlights here such as the total drive capacity and the 5-year warranty period:

 

 

 

On the back, we will spot some more product details, such as the power rating, details on the Silicon Power service centers, but also the product internal code name and serial number:

 

 

 

Inside the cardboard layer, we will find a transparent plastic mold, which holds the drive in a secure manner:

 

 

 

The frontal drive area is covered completely with a large sticker, acting as a heatsink as well; here we will note the full product code name, the drive capacity, the product series but also the serial number:

 

 

 

As with the 512GB drive, we have no extra ICs on the back, meaning that the 1TB drive does hold packages of double capacity:

 

 

 

After removing the sticker, we will get to see that the P34A60 implementation is a DRAM-less solution, with four 3D TLC NAND Flash packages from Micron:

 

 

 

The SM2263XT controller from Silicon Motion is a 4-channel SKU built on the TFBGA288 package:

 

 

 

Each of the four 29F02T2ANCTH1 (IMFT CuA 3D TLC NAND) package comes with a 256GB capacity:

 

 

 

Test Bench:

 

CPU: Intel I5 9700K Retail

CPU Cooler: Deepcool Captain 240 EX RGB AIO

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z370 AORUS Ultra Gaming

RAM: Patriot Memory Viper RGB Series DDR4

Video: KFA2 GeForce GTX 1060 OC 6GB

Power Supply: Cooler Master 850W

SSD: OCZ Vector 150

Case: Cooler Master ATCS 840

 

 

The drive has arrived unformatted:

 

 

For testing purposes, we have formatted it NTFS; here is the total remaining free space afterwards:

 

 

With the help of AIDA64, we could extract more information regarding the drive:

 

The Tests

 

HDTach Short Test

Blank SSD

 

HDTach Long Test

 

Blank SSD

 

CrystalMark HDD Test Suite

 

AIDA64 Disk Test Suite

 

PCMark05 HDD Test Suite

 

 

CrystalDisk Test Suite (Random)

 

HDTune Test Suite

Blank SSD

 

PCMark Vantage HDD Test Suite

 

PCMark 7

 

Anvil [Read]

Anvil [Write]

 

Extra Tests:

 

AS SSD Benchmark

Blank SSD

AS SSD Benchmark (IOPS)

Blank SSD

ATTO Disk Benchmark

Blank SSD

PCMark 8

Blank SSD

 

 

 

The Tests

 

HDTach Short Test

Filled SSD

 

HDTach Long Test

 

Filled SSD

 

CrystalMark HDD Test Suite

 

AIDA64 Disk Test Suite

 

PCMark05 HDD Test Suite

 

 

CrystalDisk Test Suite (Random)

 

HDTune Test Suite

Filled SSD

 

PCMark Vantage HDD Test Suite

 

PCMark 7

 

Anvil [Read]

 

Anvil [Write]

 

Extra Tests:

 

AS SSD Benchmark

Filled SSD

AS SSD Benchmark (IOPS)

Filled SSD

ATTO Disk Benchmark

Filled SSD

PCMark 8

Filled SSD

 

 

 

As expected, the 1TB version of the P34A60 mainstream SSD from Silicon Power does trade punches with its 512GB counterpart and in some cases, it even succeeds to keep performance steady for longer thanks to the included SLC cache. When writing to the drive continuously or copying very large files, the cache will eventually fill up, but the speed won’t drop under 108MB/s, as we have noticed by running the HD Tune Pro write benchmark.

 

 

Due to implementation of HBM (Host Memory Buffer), the caching of the drive is further improved, but depending on the rest of the computer performance, the results may vary. In terms of pricing, this drive can be found online for about 132 Euros, which is a very competitive price versus the competition. This drive is great to be used as primary with mainstream computers but also as a secondary, storage drive for different projects or running games for low loading times between levels.

Silicon Power P34A60 PCIe 3x4 M.2 2280 1TB SSD is Recommended for:

 

 

We would like to thank again to Silicon Power for making this review possible!