Lenovo's new PCIe 5 SSD hits 12.4 GB/s speeds, starts at $210 for 1TB

Lenovo SL7000 50E
Lenovo SL7000 50E (Image credit: JD.com)

In the China market only, Lenovo has released the SL7000 50E, a PCIe 5.0 SSD that can compete with the best SSDs. Rated for speeds up to 12.4 GB/s, the SL7000 50Ecan hang with the fastest PCIe 5.0 drives.

The SL7000 50E sticks to the conventional M.2 2280 form factor. It only comes in a bare drive presentation with a plain sticker, lacking the bulky heatsinks we've grown accustomed to on PCIe 5.0 SSDs. But that doesn't mean you should run the SL7000 50E without a heatsink. Lenovo probably didn't include a heatsink on the SL7000 50E to keep the cost of the drive as low as possible, but it shouldn't be too much of an issue since modern motherboards generally have M.2 slots with included heatsinks.

The SL7000 50E delivers sequential read and write speeds up to 12.4 GB/s. Lenovo's drive is right up there with the Crucial T700, Galax HOF Extreme 50S, and Teamgroup Cardea Z540. The company didn't reveal the drive's random performance for the SL7000 50E. The E26-powered SSD is available in four capacities: 512GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB. Most companies don't bother releasing PCIe 5.0 SSDs below 1TB. Lenovo, however, offers the SL7000 50E with a 512GB capacity.

Zhiye Liu
News Editor, RAM Reviewer & SSD Technician

Zhiye Liu is a news editor, memory reviewer, and SSD tester at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.