LAS VEGAS, NV -- Yesterday we told you about SSD manufacturers staying clear of 64-layer 256Gb products in hopes of hitting a home run with 512Gbit die later in the year. Today we found out that Adata's gamer product division, XPG, will take advantage of the 256Gb supply to update the aging SX8x00 series.
The new SX8200 uses Silicon Motion's SM2262 8-channel controller with a PCie 3.0 x4 interface and the same flash memory mounted in the speedy Crucial MX500 SATA SSD. The combination gives users up to 3,200 MB/s sequential read and 1,700 MB/s sequential write speeds. Adata didn't divulge any random performance details other than a canned screenshot of CrystalDisk Mark showing 76.97 MB/s 4KB read and 232 MB/s 4KB writes. We don't use the software to test in the lab, but the results are very quick in comparison to others we've seen at CES 2018.
The SX8200 will ship in the standard sizes we usually see, 240GB, 480GB, and 960GB. There will also be a 2TB model available with 1.92TB of user addressable space after overprovisioning. The SX8200 will join the Samsung 960 Pro in the 2TB realm, and others are sure to follow.
XPG plans to bring the SX8200 to market in the coming weeks and we may have the series to test by early February. We spoke with the company extensively about other NVMe products in the works using Silicon Motion and alternative controller technology. Adata plans to replace most existing M.2 SSDs around June, just in time for Computex. The timeline fits with what we heard from other SSDs manufacturers that buy, rather than produce, NAND flash.
XPG placing the SM2262 controller in an 8000 series product leaves room for the faster SM2262EN controller for the 9000 series. The two controllers are physically the same but the SM2262EN uses advanced cache technology to increase performance even further. We've yet to see a SM2262EN at CES 2018, but we'll meet with Silicon Motion later in the week.
