PNY Professional Elite V2 and Elite-X PRO Moveable SSDs Assessment: Efficiency on a Funds

PNY Applied sciences is well-known within the computing business for its NVIDIA-based graphics playing cards, however the firm additionally participates within the DRAM and flash-based storage merchandise markets. Within the latter, PNY markets a spread of USB flash drives, SD playing cards, and transportable SSDs underneath variations of the ‘Elite’ tag.

The corporate launched two new palm-sized transportable SSDs earlier this yr – the Pro Elite V2 USB 3.2 Gen 2 within the 10 Gbps class, and the EliteX-PRO USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 within the 20 Gbps class. Each merchandise are based mostly on Phison’s native USB flash drive (UFD) controllers. Each merchandise include a Sort-C interface. Whereas the Professional Elite V2 is obtainable solely within the 500 GB and 1 TB capability factors, the EliteX-PRO has 4 SKUs with capacities starting from 500 GB to 4 TB.

The Professional Elite V2 and the EliteX-PRO have an identical industrial designs and dimensions, with solely the product identify printed on the aluminum physique serving as a differentiator. The design is harking back to the Samsung Moveable SSD T5, however manages to retain a extra compact and glossy form-factor. This overview takes an in depth have a look at the efficiency and worth proposition of the 1 TB Professional Elite V2 and the 4 TB EliteX-PRO, with a selected give attention to how they stack up in opposition to the prevailing gamers within the phase.

Introduction and Product Impressions

Speedy developments in flash know-how (together with the event of 3D NAND and enhancements in TLC reliability) have been accompanied by the looks of sooner host interfaces for exterior gadgets within the final decade. Collectively, they’ve contributed to bus-powered direct-attached storage gadgets rising in each storage capability and speeds. The Sort-C commonplace has additionally achieved widespread acceptance within the shopper market. Protocols corresponding to USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 / USB4 and Thunderbolt using on prime of the Sort-C connector have enabled the introduction of palm-sized flash-based storage gadgets able to delivering 2GBps+ speeds.

One of many major challenges with high-speed storage gadgets is the thermal side. Bridge-based options with a number of protocol conversion chips are likely to dissipate extra energy because of the extra parts. Excessive-performance transportable SSDs previously have had no choice however to make use of them – first, with SATA bridges, after which with NVMe bridges. The introduction of native UFD controllers able to hitting 10 Gbps and 20 Gbps from Phison and Silicon Motion has opened up but an alternative choice on this class. The Essential X6, outfitted with the Phison U17, was reviewed in August 2021 and was one of many first retail merchandise to surpass the SATA speeds barrier by hitting 800 MBps speeds with out utilizing a NVMe bridge. Across the identical time, Silicon Movement’s SM2320 powered the Kingston XS2000 to twenty Gbps speeds and not using a bridge within the center.

Merchandise based mostly on Silicon Movement’s SM2320 have gained plenty of shopper mindshare as a result of they’ve sometimes been in a position to hit the interface velocity limits for sequential accesses in each the ten Gbps and 20 Gbps classes. Phison’s U17 and U18 had been launched with barely decrease peak efficiency numbers, and regardless of distributors like Essential choosing them up for the X6, the merchandise did not make any waves. The very best implementation of Phison’s U17, in our opinion, was seen within the OWC Envoy Pro Mini. The introduction of sooner flash has since allowed transportable SSDs (PSSDs) based mostly on the Phison’s native UFD controllers to hit greater speeds. Consequently, we have now seen an uptick of their adoption. Merchandise such because the Sabrent Rocket Nano v2 and the Corsair EX100U are based mostly on the Phison U18 controller. PNY has additionally hitched its wagon to the Phison camp for its play within the PSSD market

PNY’s 2023 PSSD lineup contains the Professional Elite V2 within the 10 Gbps class, and the EliteX-PRO within the 20 Gbps one. The galleries under current the packaging and teardown course of for the 2 PSSDs.

Each merchandise are comparable when it comes to packaging (all the way down to the size of the provided USB Sort-C to Sort-C and Sort-C to Sort-A cables) in addition to industrial design. The principle distinction is within the inside PCB.

PNY Professional Elite V2 Controller – Phison U17

PNY Professional Elite V2 Flash Package deal – HA7HG64AWA

The ten Gbps Professional Elite V2 is a Phison U17 design. There may be house for 4 flash packages on the PCB, however PNY has opted just for two packages within the product’s prime capability. The HA7HG64AWA is a NAND flash package deal with 128L 3D TLC from SK hynix. It has 8 x 512 Gbit dies for a complete of 512 GB per package deal. There may be one on both sides of the PCB.

PNY EliteX-PRO Controller – Phison U18

PNY EliteX-PRO Flash Package deal – HA8IG64AWA

The 20 Gbps EliteX-PRO is a Phison U18 design. There may be house for 4 flash packages on the PCB, and the 4 TB capability model has all 4 slots stuffed up. The HA8IG64AWA is a NAND flash package deal with 128L 3D TLC from SK hynix. The corporate’s 128L NAND had initially appeared within the type of 512 Gbit dies, however within the second half of 2021, 1 Tbit dies additionally began showing (for instance, within the 2 TB model of the SK hynix Gold P31). The HA8IG64AWA is probably going outfitted with 8 x 1 Tbit dies for a complete of 1 TB per package deal. There are two on both sides of the PCB within the 4 TB model.

There isn’t a particular thermal resolution for the controller or flash in both of the PSSDs. The SK hynix 128L 3D TLC NAND is famous for its energy effectivity, and that most likely performed a task in PNY’s choice. The attention-grabbing a part of the EliteX-PRO PCB is the presence of two TI DDR4000 ICs. These are 1:2 DDR switches / multiplexers. On this PCB, they’re used for high-speed sign switching to assist interface 4 flash packages with the two-channel U18 controller.

The economic design of the Professional Elite V2 and the EliteX-PRO isn’t distinctive, with many similarities to the Samsung Portable SSD T5. Fortunately, PNY has opted for an aluminum casing and this lends a stable feel and look to the PSSDs.

Since we’re coping with two completely different PSSD lessons / capability factors, this overview will embody separate comparability graphs and tables for every. CrystalDiskInfo supplies a fast overview of the capabilities of the interior storage gadget. Regardless of TRIM not being famous within the options record, we discovered NTFS volumes on each  PSSDs efficiently processing TRIM instructions from Home windows. All S.M.A.R.T options corresponding to temperature learn outs labored nicely.

S.M.A.R.T Passthrough for 1 TB PSSDs – CrystalDiskInfo
PNY Professional Elite V2 1TBKingston DTMAXA/1TBSamsung T7 Contact 1TBTranscend ESD310C 1TBOWC Envoy Professional Mini 1TBOWC Envoy Professional Elektron 1TBKingston DT Max 1TB	Kingston DTMAXA/1TBSamsung T7 Contact 1TBTranscend ESD310C 1TBOWC Envoy Professional Mini 1TBOWC Envoy Professional Elektron 1TBKingston DT Max 1TBPNY Professional Elite V2 1TB

S.M.A.R.T Passthrough for 4 TB PSSDs – CrystalDiskInfo
PNY EliteX-PRO 4TBSamsung T7 Protect 4TBSanDisk Excessive PRO v2 4TBEssential X6 4TB	Samsung T7 Protect 4TBSanDisk Excessive PRO v2 4TBEssential X6 4TBPNY EliteX-PRO 4TB

The desk under presents a comparative view of the specs of the completely different 1 TB PSSDs offered on this overview.

The equal comparability desk for the 4 TB PSSDs is offered under.

Previous to trying on the benchmark numbers, energy consumption, and thermal resolution effectiveness, an outline of the testbed setup and analysis methodology is offered.

Testbed Setup and Analysis Methodology

Direct-attached storage gadgets (together with thumb drives) are evaluated utilizing the Quartz Canyon NUC (basically, the Xeon / ECC model of the Ghost Canyon NUC) configured with 2x 16GB DDR4-2667 ECC SODIMMs and a PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe SSD – the IM2P33E8 1TB from ADATA.

Probably the most enticing side of the Quartz Canyon NUC is the presence of two PCIe slots (electrically, x16 and x4) for add-in playing cards. Within the absence of a discrete GPU – for which there is no such thing as a want in a DAS testbed – each slots can be found. Actually, we additionally added a spare SanDisk Excessive PRO M.2 NVMe SSD to the CPU direct-attached M.2 22110 slot within the baseboard in an effort to keep away from DMI bottlenecks when evaluating Thunderbolt 3 gadgets. This nonetheless permits for 2 add-in playing cards working at x8 (x16 electrical) and x4 (x4 electrical). For the reason that Quartz Canyon NUC would not have a local USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 port, Silverstone’s SST-ECU06 add-in card was put in within the x4 slot. All non-Thunderbolt gadgets are examined utilizing the Sort-C port enabled by the SST-ECU06.

The specs of the testbed are summarized within the desk under:

The testbed {hardware} is just one phase of the analysis. Over the previous couple of years, the everyday direct-attached storage workloads for reminiscence playing cards have additionally developed. Excessive bit-rate 4K movies at 60fps have develop into fairly widespread, and 8K movies are beginning to make an look. Sport set up sizes have additionally grown steadily even in transportable sport consoles, due to excessive decision textures and art work. Holding these in thoughts, our analysis scheme for transportable SSDs and UFDs includes a number of workloads that are described intimately within the corresponding sections.

• Artificial workloads utilizing CrystalDiskMark and ATTO
• Actual-world entry traces utilizing PCMark 10’s storage benchmark
• Customized robocopy workloads reflective of typical DAS utilization
• Sequential write stress check

Within the subsequent couple of sections, we have now an summary of the efficiency of the 2 PNY PSSDs in these benchmarks. Previous to offering concluding remarks, we have now some observations on the drives’ energy consumption numbers and thermal resolution additionally.