From Korea, we’re at the launch of the world’s first 128-layer 3D NAND-based consumer SSD, the SK Hynix Gold P31.
SK Hynix Gold P31 is the first NVMe SSD with 128-layer
Even proclaimed as “one of the fastest and most innovative consumer SSDs on the market,” SK Hynix claims that its new memory chips should offer better performance at a lower price and have a longer life.
SK Hynix, who is one of the industry giants, has been supplying high-quality DRAM and NAND products to its preferred technology companies for years, having already supplied some GDDR6 to Nvidia for its graphics cards, but is somewhat late to the bash when it comes to manufacturing its own SSDs. Last year, the company introduced the Gold S31, a fairly standard SATA SSD, but now it’s coming out with its first PCIe drive.
It may just be a PCIe 3.0 drive when we all look forward with excitement to the next generation of PCIe SSD 4.0, but it is the main market today. Nevertheless, SK Hynix has developed some revolutionary innovations in PCIe SSD, with its own controller and NAND flash memory to compete with top chips like the Samsung 970 EVO Plus 96 layer.
The SK Hynix Gold P31 is likely to have approximately the same level of performance as the Samsung device with predicted sequential read/write speeds of 3500 and 3200 MB/sec. It also predicts that the writing strength of its 1TB SSD will be around 750TBW. This is pretty good compared to the 600 TBW of the Samsung 970 EVO.
For now, the SK Hynix Gold P31 is available in 1TB and 500GB capacities, with a five-year warranty at an attractive $135 price for the larger unit, which is much cheaper than its Samsung competitors.