Essential is unveiling its newest addition to its Gen4 client NVMe SSD lineup immediately – the T500 PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 NVMe SSD. It takes over flagship duties from the Essential P5 Plus on this class. The corporate had began to place deal with the high-end client SSD section earlier this yr with the launch of the T700 Gen5 NVMe SSD – it was one of many first to supply greater than 12 GBps learn speeds. The corporate is now introducing a T-series drive within the Gen4 section with comparable flagship credentials – sequential learn and write speeds of 7400 / 7000 MBps.
The Essential T500 is likely one of the first client SSDs to make the most of the Phison E25 controller launched final yr. The Micron 232L 3D TLC NAND within the SSD has been in mass manufacturing for just a few quarters now, permitting the corporate to cost the product competitively. Just like the T700, this drive is focused in the direction of players, content material creators, {and professional} customers. Whereas PCIe 5.0 SSDs are slowly getting launched into the market, Gen4 items are nonetheless a candy spot by way of system compatibility, worth, and efficiency for a lot of use-cases.
The T500 is launching in three capacities and two variants – a heatsink and non-heatsink one. The 500GB model is available in a non-heatsink SKU solely, whereas the 1TB and 2TB ones are available each variants. Essential is promising a 4TB model subsequent yr. The corporate indicated that the heatsink SKUs is low-profile sufficient to be be used within the PlayStation 5.
Phison has been pushing DirectStorage optimizations in its high-end controllers, and it’s no shock that the T500 advertises the usage of Phison’s ‘I/O+ Expertise’ to enchantment to players. Given its high-performance nature, it’s no shock that the E25 controller must be outfitted with DRAM for managing the flash translation layer (FTL). Essential is utilizing Micron LPDDR4 DRAM (1GB / TB of flash) within the T500 for this objective.
| Essential T500 Gen4 NVMe SSD Specs | ||||
| Capability | 500 GB | 1 TB | 2 TB | |
| Controller | Phison PS5025-E25 | |||
| NAND Flash | Micron 232L 3D TLC NAND | |||
| Type-Issue, Interface | Single-Sided M.2-2280, PCIe 4.0 x4, NVMe 2.0 | |||
| Sequential Learn | 7200 MB/s | 7300 MB/s | 7400 MB/s | |
| Sequential Write | 5700 MB/s | 6800 MB/s | 7050 MB/s | |
| Random Learn IOPS | 800K | 1150K | 1180K | |
| Random Write IOPS | 300K | 600K | 1200K | |
| SLC Caching | Static / Dynamic (as much as 20% of person capability) | |||
| TCG Opal Encryption | Sure | |||
| Guarantee | 5 years | |||
| Write Endurance | 300 TBW 0.33 DWPD |
600 TBW 0.33 DWPD |
1200 TBW 0.33 DWPD |
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| MSRP | $90 (18¢/GB) | $120 (Non-Heatsink) (12¢/GB) $130 (Heatsink) (13¢/GB) |
$170 (Non-Heatsink) (8.5¢/GB) $180 (Heatsink) (9¢/GB) |
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Flash pricing is sort of low, with the reminiscence business being caught up in certainly one of its downturns presently. Whereas this has not been variety to the income numbers for the NAND flash / DRAM distributors, it has translated to wonderful launch pricing for even flagship SSDs such because the Essential T500 – ranging from as little as 8.5¢/GB for the 2TB non-heatsink SKU.
