PNY has unveiled the CS3250, the company's latest PCIe 5.0 SSD, engineered to compete with the best SSDs on the market. The M.2 2280 drive boasts transfer speeds of up to 14.900 MB/s, making it a likely direct contender to the TeamGroup Z54E.
The company is keeping its lips tight regarding the ingredients of the CS3250. Given the release timeframe and the rated performance, it could be using Phison's latest E28 PCIe 5.0 SSD controller. On the NAND side, it's likely BiCS8 218-layer TLC flash, either from Sandisk or Kioxia. These are our speculations, which we won't be able to confirm until we review the unit. However, our sources have told us the E28 drives are favoring Sandisk BiCS8 flash, because although the flash is the same as the Kioxia one, the performance isn't.
PNY CS3250 Specifications
Capacity | Sequential Read (MB/s) | Sequential Write (MB/s) | DRAM Cache (GB) | Endurance (TBW) | Part Number |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
4TB | ? | ? | 4 | ? | M280CS3250-4TB-TB |
2TB | 14,900 | 14,000 | 2 | 1,200 | M280CS3250-2TB-TB |
1TB | 14,900 | 13,500 | 1 | 600 | M280CS3250-1TB-TB |
As with all SSDs, performance varies in accordance with capacity. The CS3250 2TB is currently the most capable SKU, with sequential read and write speeds reaching up to 14,900 MB/s and 14,000 MB/s, respectively. While the 1TB version sustains high read speeds, its write speeds are approximately 4% lower. PNY added a thermal coating to the controller to improve heat dissipation and maintain peak performance on the drive.
Assuming PNY's recipe is the same as TeamGroup's, the CS3250 should leverage 1GB of DRAM cache per 1TB of storage. That means 1GB for the 1TB SKU, 2GB for the 2TB SKU, and so on. Similar to TeamGroup, PNY has not disclosed the CS3250's random performance metrics, a practice that appears to be prevalent among vendors announcing E28-based SSDs.
The CS3250 comes with a standard five-year warranty. PNY didn't provide the endurance numbers for the PCIe 5.0 SSD. Based on the assumption that it's employing similar hardware as the Z54E, we could be looking at 600 TBW and 1,200 TBW for the 1TB and 2TB drives, respectively.
Although TeamGroup announced its product before PNY, the CS3250 model is currently in stock, whereas there is no information on the Z54E's availability or pricing. The 1TB version of the CS3250 is presently selling for $125.99 on Amazon, which equates to approximately 13 cents per GB. Conversely, the 2TB variant retails at $219.99, which corresponds to approximately 11 cents per GB.
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