Tom's Hardware Verdict

The 2TB PNY CS3140 is not a compelling SSD in the current market, with or without its heatsink. The switch to slower flash and its general pricing makes it uncompetitive, although otherwise it would be an acceptable choice for the PS5.

Pros

+
Consistent performance
+
Strong peak and all-around performance
+
Power-efficient
+
Good PlayStation 5 option from PNY

Cons

-
Pricing

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Features and Specifications

August 25, 2023 Update: We've added new testing for the 2TB PNY XLR8 CS3140 SSD on page 2.

Original Review published June 22, 2022:

PNY has been around for a long time, known in particular for its flash-based products, but also for its memory and GPUs. The company's new XLR8 CS3140 SSD tops out at 7,500/6,850 MBps of sequential read/write throughput for the 2TB and larger models, and it's also flexible in that it has both a version with a heatsink and one without, and you can also use a separate PlayStation 5 heatsink for the latter.

We tested the new 1TB XLR8 CS3140 model, which is a good starting capacity, but the 2TB model offers better peak performance because it is packed with more flash dies. Naturally, the 4TB is even more compelling if you're after more raw capacity. However, a basic primary drive is quite fine at 1TB, especially when coupled with strong hardware and a good SLC caching scheme like we see with the previous-gen CS3140. Let's see how the PNY CS3140 fares in our test suite.

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Product	1TB	2TB	4TB
Pricing	$139.99	$269.99	$674.99
Capacity (User / Raw)	1000GB / 1024GB	2000GB / 2048GB	4000GB / 4096GB
Form Factor	M.2 2280	M.2 2280	M.2 2280
Interface / Protocol	PCIe 4.0 x4	PCIe 4.0 x4	PCIe 4.0 x4
Controller	Phison PS5018-E18	Phison PS5018-E18	Phison PS5018-E18
DRAM	DDR4	DDR4	DDR4
Flash Memory	176-Layer Micron TLC (B47R)	176-Layer Micron TLC (B47R)	176-Layer Micron TLC (B47R)
Sequential Read	7,500 MBps	7,500 MBps	7,500 MBps
Sequential Write	5,650 MBps	6,850 MBps	6,850 MBps
Random Read	N/A	N/A	N/A
Random Write	N/A	N/A	N/A
Security	AES256	AES256	AES256
Endurance (TBW)	700TBW	1400TBW	3000TBW
Part Number	M280CS3140-1TB-RB	M280CS3140-2TB-RB	M280CS3140-4TB-RB
Warranty	5-Year	5-Year	5-Year

The PNY CS3140 is available in the 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities. These all have a five-year warranty backed up by 700TBW, 1400TBW, and 3000TBW of write endurance, respectively. Performance tops out at 7,500/6,850 MBps of sequential read/write throughput for the 2TB and larger models.

PNY doesn't officially list the IOPS measurements, but we can guess that this drive would be similar to other SSDs that have the same hardware combination. We had to dig up the endurance numbers on PNY's Taiwanese site, and the company seems to operate on the principle of “the less the information, the better.” That does make some sense in an era where SSD manufacturers often change the SSD's hardware after launch, but you'll need to do your homework to find concrete specs for these drives.

The Phison E18 controller needs no introduction - it’s been used on a wide variety of drives to good effect. It tends to be optimized for peak performance, specifically in sequential work, and it’s particularly good when paired with newer flash.

The DRAM is SK hynix’s H5AN8G6NCJR-VKC, which is 1GB of DDR4 in the 512M x 16b configuration. This would be C-die DRAM with the normal DRAM-to-NAND ratio, more than enough for any user. We can also spot the Phison power management package (PMIC) near the controller.