PNY CS2342 2TB SSD Review: High-Capacity TLC Performance In M.2 2230

M.2 2230 drives are a bit of a luxury, packing in high levels of performance in a small space. These drives always carried a premium, which makes for a challenging purchase decision, and the reasons for the premium have changed. Before, the premium was due to this form factor being a niche segment with few options, and now it’s due to a memory squeeze that makes high-capacity drives much more expensive. So when a drive like the PNY CS2342 comes along, which is available in 2TB at an accessible price, it’s worth paying attention.

The CS2342 has known, mature hardware that provides excellent performance without producing a lot of heat. This is important for this form factor. While it’s far from the most efficient drive we’ve tested, it’s good enough. You can get good flash with a 2TB drive in a single-sided form factor, which, with reasonable power efficiency, is all you need. There are drives that will perform better in some scenarios, there are more efficient drives, and there are drives that could be less expensive with QLC flash. However, if the goal is simply to acquire a competent, general-purpose drive, this model is an excellent choice.

PNY CS2342 Specifications

The PNY CS2342 is available at 1TB and 2TB, priced at $269.99 for the latter at the time of review. The 1TB was out of stock, but there are other options available if you’re willing to compromise on speed or flash type, like the Kingston NV3 (2230). The CS2324’s pricing at 2TB is good for what it is – a high-speed PCIe 4.0 SSD with TLC flash, in this form factor – but you can save some money by going with QLC. The Crucial P310 is still in stock for the intrepid.

If you are instead looking for an M.2 2242 solution – and you can extend an M.2 2230 drive if that makes more sense – then your options right now are also limited. The Corsair MP600 Micro, which is the M.2 2242 version of the MP600 Mini (E27T), is priced at $189.99+ on Amazon and is not a bad choice. Alternatively, the Transcend MTE410S, which we have not yet reviewed, is available at $183.90, and we would recommend this drive if you are primarily concerned with reliability or have a PCIe 3.0 device. It uses an SMI SM2269XT – see our Lexar Play (2230) review to get a feel for this controller – but the MTE410S uses older BiCS5 flash in comparison to other options. The CS2342 could still work here with an extender as a compromise.

For performance, the CS2342 can hit up to 7,300 / 6,000 MB/s for sequential reads and writes, with no IOPS specs given by the manufacturer, although we know this hardware can hit around 1 million IOPS. If you are interested in the latter, you can find details in the ATTO & CrystalDiskMark benchmarks on the following page. The drive has a standard five-year warranty with up to 600TB of writes per TB of capacity.

PNY CS2342 Software and Accessories

PNY’s website has two main downloads for its SSDs: an SSD Toolbox and Acronis software. The former is also touted as a firmware updater. SSDs toolboxes are applications that are designed to monitor and diagnose issues, support features for performance, which include testing, and act as a central point for storage management. These toolboxes can let you access secure erase and encryption functions on supported drives, but the firmware updating part is probably the most important. While some also include data management, Acronis provides OEM versions of its True Image software to handle cloning and backup when preparing your new drive. PNY covers both sides, which is nice if you prefer not to mess with random programs.

PNY CS2342: A Closer Look

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The PNY CS2342 is a single-sided drive in the M.2 2230 form factor. This means it has a DRAM-less controller and a single NAND flash package. Despite using TLC flash, which is faster with higher endurance than QLC but often means lower capacities, the drive can reach 2TB with no problems. This makes it good if you’re looking for the best of everything in this form factor. The drive’s label lists power draw at 3.3V/2.6A, which is below 9W, but the drive is rated at 5.70W peak via SMART and, in practice, will pull less than this.

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The drive has three primary components: the SSD controller, the NAND flash package, and the power management IC. The main downside to having an M.2 2230 SSD is that all of this componentry is smashed together, which can worsen issues with heat. This is especially true with newer drives because they are extremely fast. Luckily, most of the time the drive won’t be at full power, and this amount of heat can be handled with basic solutions. If your host device lacks cooling for the drive, we recommend going for thermal padding or a do-it-yourself solution.

We do not recommend throwing a slab of metal on it – many cheap M.2 2230 SSD heatsinks are a flat piece of metal – as while that works for heat spreading, it’s far more effective on M.2 2280 drives where you actually have distance between the components or more total component surface area. Transferring the heat away from the drive with thermal padding is a better solution. Some host devices may have enough headroom for low-profile heatsinks, which are even better.

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