Considering the high drops in price lately for SSDs, the 4TB versions are becoming more and more attractive, no matter if we do choose to go with a QLC or TLC solution. In the past, we did take a look at the P3 Plus 2TB version which did hold its own thanks to the healthy amount of included pseudo-SLC cache on the Micron 2FC2D NY161 ICs so, obviously, we are quite interested in seeing what the 4TB variant can do.
The drive is shipped inside a medium-sized cardboard enclosure, which shows how the drive looks with the help of a photo, but here we will also learn of the drive capacity and the rated read speeds, specific to PCIe 4.0 mainstream drives:
On the back side, we will be reminded of the online resource links, but through a small cut-out we will also have access to a QR code; it is important to know that this product is backed by a 5-year limited warranty:
After removing the top packaging layer, we will note that the drive is held secure inside a transparent plastic mold, together with a small screw for mounting purposes; a small leaflet also accompanies the product:
The mentioned documentation does inform the user where to go in order to access the free Data Transfer software from the old drive, the electronic installation guide but also the needed optimization/firmware utility:
The frontal area of the P3 Plus 4TB is covered by a large sticker, with white fonts on a black background:
We will be able to easily identify the drive by looking on the back, which does include a smaller sticker and the drive capacity, along with the product identification numbers, the firmware, the internal code name but also the power rating:
After removing the top sticker, we will note a central controller, but also four NAND ICs:
In terms of the controller, we’ve got the Phison PS5021-E21-48, which incorporates an ARM 32-bit Cortex-R5 architecture with a single CPU. For caching purposes, it does use HMB (Host Memory Buffer) and this time it is enabled for PCIe 4.0 data transfers. The controller does support up to 4 channels and a flash transfer rate up to 1600MT/s:
The NAND ICs identify as 3FC2D NYI66, a code quite similar to the NAND we noted on the T700 model, which does sport Micron 232L TLC chips, but the performance matches 1:1 of the Micron 176-layer QLC NAND one so we incline to think that we are dealing with this model instead. We have found absolutely zero documentation of this particular IC model online:
