SK hynix has entered the consumer NVMe SSD market with a gumstick format Gold P31 drive intended for designers, content creators and PC gamers.
The P31 looks to be a decently-priced, decently fast and decently long-lived drive. It is selling today on Amazon for $74.99 (500GB) and $134.99 (1TB) .
The P31 uses 128-layer 3D NAND, which makes its the first 100-plus layer consumer SSD. Its M.2 2280 card can hold 500GB or 1TB of flash and comes with a fast SLC cache to accelerate the slow TLC (3bits/cell) flash.
This is SK hynix’s second consumer SSD, following the 2.5-inch format S31 SATA-3 drive which launched last November. The S31 uses sk Hynix’s own 72-layer TLC 3D NAND and delivers 560/525 MB/sec sequential read/write bandwidth. It is sold in 250GB, 500GB and 1TB capacities.
The P31 rockets along at 3,500/3,200 MB/sec and up to 570,000/600,000 random read IOPS rating. The device slows down when the SLC cache is full; 500,000/370,000 random read/write IOPS.
Latency is 45us write, 90us read and endurance is 1.5 million hours before failure and 0.4 drive writes per day over the five-year warranty. That means 750TB written for the 1TB model.
How does it stack up against the competition? Intel’s 665P has 1TB and 2TB capacities and is slower: up to 250,000 random read/write IOPS and 2,000MB/sec sequential read/write bandwidth.
Micron’s 2210 has 512GB, 1TB and 2TB capacity points, and is slower too: up to 265,000/320,000 random read/write IOPS and 2,200/1,800 MB/sec sequential read/write bandwidth. IT supports 60TBW at the 1TB capacity point, so sk Hynix is better on that count.
The Micron 256GB, 512GB, 1TB and 2TB 2300 drive is faster – up to 430,000/500,000 random read/write IOPS with its SLC cache, and 3,300/2,700 MB/sec sequential readwrite bandwidth. It has the same 600TBW rating at a 1TB capacity point as the 2210.
