We would like to thank at first Silicon Power for supplying their US70 PCIe Gen4x4 M.2 2280 1TB 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."

 

Race Into The Future: PCIe 4.0

Offering a standard data transfer rate that's double that of the previous 3.0 version, the US70 PCIe Gen 4x4 with 3D NAND flash memory and NVMe 1.3 support is exactly what combative gamers, competitive overclockers, professional designers/editors, and high-end business users crave. With incredible read and write speeds up to 5,000MB/s and 4,400MB/s, respectively, the US70 is nearly 10 times faster than traditional SATA III SSDs. It provides next-level specs that will be competitively relevant for the future, while also being backwards-compatible with PCIe 3.0 too.

Long-Lasting Performance With NVMe 1.3 Support

The US70 packs the storage capacity, either 1TB or 2TB, to put its unmatched performance to good use. Featuring 3D NAND flash memory stacks, the Total Bytes Written (TBW) is substantially improved to meet the demanding needs of storage applications with ease. TBW for the 1TB version is 1,800TB and 3,600TB for the 2TB version. NVMe 1.3 support allows for higher performance, lower latency, and lower power consumption to maximize the power and lifespan of this SSD.

Powered By Multiple Technologies For Optimum Performance

The US70 supports SLC Caching and DRAM Cache Buffer to improve sequential read/write and random read/write performance. It is engineered with low density parity check (LDPC) coding and an ECC algorithm to ensure accuracy of transmission and reliability of data access. Featuring E2E data protection and support for TRIM commands, the US70 efficiently manages reusable space and significantly reduces hard drive wear out. And if all that's not enough, our proprietary S.M.A.R.T. software enables operational monitoring of the SSD at any time.

Wear leveling

Wear leveling equalizes the wear of each NAND flash block, avoiding damage or data loss caused by excess use.

Over-Provision (OP)

The built-in over-provision (OP) increases the SSD's reserved space and reduces NAND flash wear to ensure reliability and stability as well as achieve an optimal lifespan.

Bad Block management (BBM)

A bad block management (BBM) mechanism detects and marks bad blocks to avoid storage in those blocks and eliminate access errors. And, even if errors do occur in new blocks during an erase, this mechanism can move the data to other effective blocks to prevent data loss resulting from the failed erase.

A Powerful System Upgrade With Room For More

With an M.2 2280 (80mm) form factor, the US70's compact size allows for easy installation in laptops, small form factor PC systems, and some ultrabooks. Coupled with its massive storage capacity options, blazing speed, and numerous advanced technologies, it makes for an easy upgrade that will significantly improve your system's performance and storage potential, while also saving space for other components.

 

Capacity

1TB

 

Dimensions

22.0mm x 80.0mm x 3.5mm

 

Weight

8g

 

Interface

PCIe Gen 4x4

 

Performance Read(max.)

up to 5,000 MB/s

 

Performance Write(max.)

up to 4,400 MB/s

 

System Requirements

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

 

Operating Temperature

0°C - 70°C

 

MTBF (est)

1,700,000 hours

 

Shock Resistance Test

1500G/0.5ms

 

Certification

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

 

Warranty

5 years

*The SSD warranty is based on the TBW or Warranty period. Please click here for more information about Silicon Power Warranty Policy.

 

Some time ago, Silicon Power has launched their first PCIe Gen 4.0 SSD with the US70 name with capacities of 1TB and 2TB, promising to surpass all previous offerings sporting the PCIe 3.0 generation. It does incorporate a Phison E16 controller, DRAM buffering but also SLC caching. The rated speeds are up to 5000MB/s for reads and up to 4400MB/s for writes, but these will vary of course depending on the fill rate of the drive, especially when using 3D NAND Flash. The 1TB model we are going to look at in this article has a TBW rating of 1800, while the 2TB version doubles that rating.

 

The product is shipped in a familiar packaging style, showing the drive characteristics but also features a small plastic window through which the main product is visible:

 

 

 

On the back, we will learn that the product does support NVMe 1.3 specifications, but also obtain information regarding the Silicon Power service centers and the product serial number:

 

 

 

Inside the box we will find the main drive, protected in a transparent plastic mold, also designed to hold drives of other form factors as well:

 

 

 

The frontal area of the US70 drive is covered by a large sticker, where we will be able to spot the product internal code name, serial number but also capacity:

 

 

 

On the back, we will get to see two 3D NAND packages, but also one of the DRAM buffer components:

 

 

 

After removing the included sticker, the rest of the PCB components will become visible:

 

 

 

The SKhynix H5AN4G8NBJR package is a 512MB DDR4-2400 SDRAM chip:

 

 

 

The main controller is a Phison PS5016-E16 with eight 800MT/s NAND channels and supports features such as LDPC-based ECC:

 

 

 

The NAND packages are marked TABBG65AWV with a capacity of 256GB and are basically Toshiba BiCS4 96-layer 3D TLC:

 

 

 

The secondary 512MB DRAM buffer is placed on the back, along with two more 256GB NAND ICs:

 

 

 

Test Bench:

The test system did incorporate a Ryzen 5 5600X 6-core CPU, two Trident Z RGB 3200MHz 8GB memory modules with 16-18-18-38 XMP 2.0 timings, a PowerColor Red Dragon Radeon RX 5700 video card but also a Patriot Memory P200 512GB 2.5’’ SSD; all these were connected to the BIOSTAR B550GTA motherboard. As a power supply we have chosen a Cooler Master 850W non-modular and the system was running the latest Windows 10 OS build as well.

The drive has arrived unformatted, but for testing purposes, we have formatted it NTFS:

 

 

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

 

 

 

By using the B550GTA motherboard from BIOSTAR and the latest-gen series 5000 CPU from AMD, we were able to see how the US70 really performs on PCIe 4.0 and we can clearly say that we were quite impressed! The drive does still use 3D NAND packages with TLC + SLC caching, but is also helped by 1GB of DDR4 2400 of buffer in order to help keeping steady performance for longer. During our tests we have seen some performance drops due to throttling, but these have occurred mainly during intensive use. However, the PCIe 4.0 drives are well-known to dissipate more heat than the previous generation, so it is better to make use of the extra heatsinks motherboard makers do include for free, considering that this particular drive does not come with one.

 

Speaking of PCIe 4.0 drive use in laptops is quite out of the question, because most laptops (even gaming ones) do not have a proper airflow in the PCIe storage area, so mounting a drive like will add a lot of heat and throttling will occur much more frequently than in a desktop computer.

 

When the drive is not throttling, it can deliver quite consistent write performance, as it can be seen from the HDTune test:

 

 

 

The US70 1TB version can be found online for about 173 Euros; indeed, this is more expensive than the PCIe 3.0 variants but it can deliver quite a bit of extra performance, even when the drive is filled when compared to high-end drives of the previous generation.

Silicon Power US70 PCIe Gen4x4 M.2 2280 1TB SSD is Recommended for:

 

 

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