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The Addlink S90 Lite is a middle-of-the-road, budget PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD that’s best at 2TB. It does not excel in any area but general performance is satisfactory, aside from sustained. It runs sufficiently cool and efficiently for laptop use.
Reasons to buy
+
Reasonably priced for 2TB
+
Stays fairly cool and is not inefficient
+
Should provide a “good enough” experience
Reasons to avoid
-
It’s a harder sell for 512GB and 1TB
-
Very poor sustained performance
-
Could swap to QLC at 2TB
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The Addlink S90 Lite is a mid-range PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD that offers nothing new but provides a satisfactory experience at 2TB without breaking the bank. It’s efficient and cool-running enough for laptop and PlayStation 5 use, and also would be a good way to add extra storage to your desktop. It’s very similar to the Corsair MP600 GS but is easier to find at 2TB and its price is competitive with other options. In some cases you could go cheaper with QLC or potentially pay more for the better-performing, TLC-based WD Black SN770. The S90 Lite is somewhere in-between, but nowhere near the performance or value of the best SSDs on the market.
Although unexceptional, the S90 Lite does have some quirks. At 2TB it has an overabundance of NAND flash dies which negatively impacts its performance, giving the Black SN770 an edge. It also has a different pSLC cache response than the MP600 GS which makes it a lot less useful for sustained workloads, although on the bright side that prevents the drive from overheating. Some drives in this class, like the Silicon Power UD90 and Team Group MP44L, have swapped to QLC at high capacity, and that’s also possible for the S90 Lite. Such a configuration would be more comparable to the Solidigm P41 Plus or Crucial P3 Plus, so beware.
Specifications
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Product
512GB
1TB
2TB
4TB
Pricing
$38.88
$59.88
$109.99
N/A
Form Factor
M.2 2280
M.2 2280
M.2 2280
M.2 2280
Interface / Protocol
PCIe 4.0 x4
PCIe 4.0 x4
PCIe 4.0 x4
PCIe 4.0 x4
Controller
E21T
E21T
E21T
E21T
DRAM
N/A (HMB)
N/A (HMB)
N/A (HMB)
N/A (HMB)
Flash Memory
Micron 176-Layer TLC
Micron 176-Layer TLC
Micron 176-Layer TLC
Micron 176-Layer TLC
Sequential Read
5,000 MBps
5,000 MBps
5,000 MBps
5,000 MBps
Sequential Write
2,500 MBps
4,000 MBps
4,000 MBps
4,200 MBps
Random Read
250K
500K
780K
780K
Random Write
350K
700K
800K
800K
Security
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
Endurance (TBW)
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
Part Number
ad512GBS90LTM2P
ad1TBS90LTM2P
ad2TBS90M2P
N/A
Warranty
5-Year
5-Year
5-Year
5-Year
The Addlink S90 Lite comes in the 512GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities, although the 4TB model seems difficult to find. At the time of review these are on sale for $38.88, $59.88, and $109.99, respectively. This is competitive with similar drives like the Silicon Power UD90, the Team Group MP44L, and the WD Black SN770, to name a few. Some drives in this class have moved to QLC at 2TB while our S90 Lite sample has TLC, which makes this drive most attractive at that capacity.
The S90 Lite is capable of up to 5,000/4,200 MBps for sequential reads and writes, and 780K/800K IOPS for random reads and writes. There is no official TBW but Addlink indicates the warranty is based on “percentage used” by SMART. The warranty is good for five years.
Software and Accessories
Addlink provides an SSD toolbox which displays various information including drive specifications, SMART status, and firmware revision. The toolbox is capable of performing a secure erase.
The 2TB Addlink S90 Lite uses a simple, single-sided design. Under the basic label there is a controller flanked on each side by two NAND packages. Placing the controller in the middle can provide advantages with heat spreading.
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)
The Phison E21T controller has shown up on a lot of great budget drives. It’s proven to be a winner in that regard, offering excellent performance for a DRAM-less design. Its primary competition is WD’s proprietary controller in the Black SN770 and, as an alternative with QLC, the Solidigm P41 Plus's SM2269XT. It’s fine with either TLC or QLC and many models come with both depending on capacity.
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(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)
The IA8HG94AYA NAND packages are Micron’s 176-Layer TLC, or B47R. The use of four packages for 2TB of flash implies each package is 512GB. As this flash uses 64GB dies, each package has eight dies in an 8DP configuration. Single-sided drives are ideal as they can fit in a wide range of devices and may be easier to rig for cooling.
I don't understand the push for "cheaper" DRAM-less options. It's usually all of a $10-15 difference to get a drive with dram and a higher quality brand as well these days. Plus always need to check to be sure the dramless drive has HBM. In addition, unless things have changed insanely recently, serious drawbacks if you want to use dramless in a external enclosure as HBM is not used over USB. And writing large files is another area where dramless takes a hit. People like to talk down about how most people won't notice, but 4K video file moves is going to tell, much less if you are doing any type of video editing. That said, if its just a boot drive, or holding games, save the few bucks, if its a QLC drive, may hvae even more profound slowing when the drive gets closer to full since its using the drive nand as SLC cache facade. Price of nvmes is just too competitive to get hung up on the small price difference...especially when they won't tell you what the TBW warranty is, as SMART is always such a reliable and dependable measure and truthful reporter of what the drives up to...
