Gigabyte's new AI SSD stays true to the "Ultra Durable" monicker with a 100,000+ TBW endurance rating — AI TOP UD SSD is a budget version of the AI TOP 100E series

Gigabyte AI TOP UD SSD
(Image credit: Gigabyte)

Gigabyte is expanding its AI-focused SSD lineup to incorporate its Ultra Durable (UD) sub-branding for lower-tier products. The AI TOP UD SSD 1TB is an all-new lower-end version of the AI TOP 100E SSD series, featuring less performance and lower endurance but still achieving over 100,000 TBW.

The AI TOP UD SSD is a PCIe 4.0 drive with a sequential read speed of up to 6,500 MB/s and a sequential write speed of up to 5,700 MB/s. Its endurance is rated at 109,500 TBW, and it comes with a five-year warranty. The drive fits inside a standard M.2 2280 form factor, making it compatible with most laptops and desktops.

Compared to the 100E series, the AI TOP UD SSD features noticeably inferior performance and endurance. Sequential read speeds are up to 700 MB/s lower, and writes are up to 800 MB/s lower. Endurance is also cut in half from the 100E series, from 219,000 to 109,500 TBW — though the drive still manages to match the 1TB version of the 100E in endurance.

Swipe to scroll horizontally
SSDCapacity (TB)Sequential Read (MB/s)Sequential Write (MB/s)Random Read (IOPS)Random Write (IOPS)DRAM Cache (GB)Endurance (TBW)
AI100E2TB27,0005,900??2219,000
AI100E1TB17,2006,500??1109,500
AITOPUD1TB-G 16,5005,700???109,500

For a PCIe 4.0 drive, the AI TOP UD SSD is far from the top performers, such as the Samsung 990 Pro, which can completely max out the PCIe 4.0 x4 interface at over 7,000 MB/s. However, Gigabyte's AI-focused drives are not designed around raw performance. Gigabyte prioritizes raw endurance over everything else because its AI drive focuses on AI workloads. The name is not as gimmicky as it sounds; these drives are legitimately aimed at AI workloads, with Gigabyte featuring an "AI TOP" utility that offloads the processing work of large datasets from a GPU's VRAM or DRAM to its AI SSDs.

Gigabyte's high endurance ratings help these SSDs sustain AI workloads for long periods. This workload is incredibly stressful on an SSD, as it constantly reads and writes to the drive. With over 100,000 TBW, the AI TOP UD SSD blows away all of the best consumer SSDs on the market by an absurd margin in terms of endurance. Its endurance rating rivals some of the enterprise and data center-grade SSDs. By comparison, the Samsung 990 Pro, widely regarded to be one of the best PCIe 4.0 consumer drives on the market, has an endurance rating of "just" 2,400 TBW on the 4TB model, which is 41 times less endurance than that of the AI TOP UD SSD.

Pricing has yet to be disclosed, but given the specifications, it should be cheaper than the AI TOP 100E 1TB, which retails over $2,600 at some retailers.

Aaron Klotz
Contributing Writer

Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

  • froggx
    "Endurance is also cut in half from the 100E series, from 219,000 to 109,500 TBW — though the drive still manages to match the 1TB version of the 100E in endurance."

    That's technically misleading, kinda like a red apples to green apples comparison. The actual chips have identical endurance per TB. Doubling the size of an SSD doubles the amount of space to write to doubles the endurance.
    Reply
  • JamesJones44
    froggx said:
    "Endurance is also cut in half from the 100E series, from 219,000 to 109,500 TBW — though the drive still manages to match the 1TB version of the 100E in endurance."

    That's technically misleading, kinda like a red apples to green apples comparison. The actual chips have identical endurance per TB. Doubling the size of an SSD doubles the amount of space to write to doubles the endurance.
    This is a common practice for all SSDs I've seen in the consumer market
    Reply
  • usertests
    How is it getting to that TBW, by using SLC NAND?
    Reply
  • JamesJones44
    usertests said:
    How is it getting to that TBW, by using SLC NAND?
    All their spec sheet says is 3D NAND, which doesn't tell us much. SLC would definitely give a cycle of 100,000, but maybe the are just way over provisioning with TLC (which would seem unlikely). I couldn't find any concrete information beyond their sites spec sheet.
    Reply
  • sjkpublic
    Something is very odd here. The current TBW for regular NVME drives is between 600 to 1200 times the size. This is 100,000 times the size. And if true is a quantum leap forward.
    Reply
  • stuff and nonesense
    usertests said:
    How is it getting to that TBW, by using SLC NAND?
    https://www.techpowerup.com/ssd-specs/gigabyte-ai-top-100e-1-tb.d2050
    Apparently it uses pSLC, quoted within the article is 3000p/e cycles, 100,000p/e cycles in SLC mode.

    From Cactus
    “Industrial pSLC products are based on pSLC NAND, which stands for Pseudo Single Level Cell NAND and is the same MLC NAND as used in Industrial MLC. The difference is the MLC NAND is set in a mode which only the top and bottom states are used, thereby cutting the capacity in half but increase the endurance by 6 times the MLC”
    Reply
  • JamesJones44
    sjkpublic said:
    Something is very odd here. The current TBW for regular NVME drives is between 600 to 1200 times the size. This is 100,000 times the size. And if true is a quantum leap forward.
    That is due to most consumer drives using TLC or QLC NAND which has far less durability than SLC or MLC. The trade off is SLC and MLC cost more per GB than TLC or QLC does.
    Reply