Silicon Power US70 M.2 NVMe SSD Review: The Ultra-Value M.2 Stick

An SSD for the penny pinchers

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Top-tier SSDs like Samsung’s 980 Pro or WD’s Black SN850 perform at another level due to their new grounds-up designs and even faster flash. Even so, Silicon Power’s US70 is a fast PCIe 4.0 x4 SSD that delivers responsive speeds for its price point.

Compared to the Samsung or WD Black, the US70 is an excellent value for those who don’t necessarily need bleeding-edge performance but still want responsive performance and the ability to brag about their PCIe Gen4 SSD. The US70 is a perfect match if you're looking for a new scratch disk to edit your 4K and 8K media, and it's also a great fit for gamers.

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Silicon Power’s US70 traded blows with other Phison E16 competitors at an average of $25 cheaper for the 1TB model, and a substantial $80 cheaper than a drive like Sabrent’s 2TB Rocket NVMe 4.0. Not only does it offer the same level of performance as those more expensive models, but it also offers the same level of endurance. 

In fact, the 1TB drive can withstand up to 1.8 petabytes of writes, and the 2TB model can absorb a staggering 3.6 petabytes, all within the no-strings-attached five-year warranty. As such, the US70's reliability rating beats both Samsung and WD, and you don’t need to register your device for warranty coverage like you have to with Sabrent’s SSDs.

For those looking to save a few bucks over the best, the US70 makes a great alternative pick, but if you're looking to save even more, Adata’s XPG Gammix S50 Lite is also a great pick that can’t be overlooked. The Adata is still our top value pick, but Silicon Power’s US70 makes that choice hard. At $140 for the 1TB model and $260 for the 2TB model, the Adata is much cheaper, and it's high-speed random performance even outperformed the US70 in SPECworkstation 3’s testing, but at a much lower price point. In the end, the amount of money you spend dictates the amount of speed you get.

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Sean Webster
Sean Webster
Storage Reviewer

Sean is a Contributing Editor at Tom’s Hardware US, covering storage hardware.

17 Comments Comment from the forums
  • linuxdude
    I'll never understand why tomshardware thinks a "blue PCB" or "boring looks" are of any importance for an SSD.
    Reply
  • SeanSkiVT
    linuxdude said:
    I'll never understand why tomshardware thinks a "blue PCB" or "boring looks" are of any importance for an SSD.

    Agreed, I don't understand how this is even remotely relevant. The drive is most likely going to be slammed into a laptop, or placed under a heat spreader on a desktop motherboard. Nobody's ever going to see the thing.

    And it's not like it got referenced once, it was referenced several times within the article.
    Reply
  • RedCat888 (HIGUYS9090)
    same
    Reply
  • ajr1775
    I find the Pioneer APS SE20G to be a better value. Just built a 5600X/MSI B550 Gaming Carbon WiFi using this NVME.
    Reply
  • Co BIY
    Title underrates subject compared to the article.

    Seems like the testing indicates a new value leader in PCIe 4.0 SSDs. Just below the leaders for much less.

    "Penny-pinching" is negative and implies the bad side of being cheap.

    Should definitely be moved to the value spot over the Adata. Adata needs to be placed in the review penalty box for the XPG fraud.

    Adata damaged their reputation and that of all reviews on Tom's (and elsewhere).
    Reply
  • NP
    Co BIY said:
    Title underrates subject compared to the article.

    Seems like the testing indicates a new value leader in PCIe 4.0 SSDs. Just below the leaders for much less.


    Even so, this is still not good value. The class "PCIe 4.0 SSDs" is also quite arbitrary. It's a bit similar to a hypothetical class of "PCI 4.0 GPUs" in that it makes no sense as a review object delimiting criterion. Price, capacity and performance are meaningful criteria for identifying value in SSD. Or some technique or feature that creates added capabilities in a qualitative sense, like DLSS2.0 or encryption. Wider bus is not such capability, because it be reduced into the primary criterion of performance, which we are already considering for every equipment.

    With these considerations in mind, the value leader in 1TB nor 2TB SSDs this one is clearly not. Current value leaders in 1TB-2TB range would be Intel's 665p and Pioneer APS SE20G.

    In those (relatively niche) cases where you REALLY must have the extra performance, you are almost always better off purchasing a Samsung's 980 or similar level SSD, which this one is not. So basically, regardless of what you want, there is a better SSD option available for you. Because of this, it would be more accurate to say that this is not the (value) leader in any meaningful category of SSDs.
    Reply
  • OriginFree
    linuxdude said:
    I'll never understand why tomshardware thinks a "blue PCB" or "boring looks" are of any importance for an SSD.

    Well Tom's knows that black PCBs make the SSDs faster than the blue ones. ;-)
    Reply
  • mrv_co
    SeanSkiVT said:
    Agreed, I don't understand how this is even remotely relevant. The drive is most likely going to be slammed into a laptop, or placed under a heat spreader on a desktop motherboard. Nobody's ever going to see the thing.

    And it's not like it got referenced once, it was referenced several times within the article.

    ditto, makes zero sense.
    Reply
  • seanwebster
    linuxdude said:
    I'll never understand why tomshardware thinks a "blue PCB" or "boring looks" are of any importance for an SSD.
    SeanSkiVT said:
    Agreed, I don't understand how this is even remotely relevant. The drive is most likely going to be slammed into a laptop, or placed under a heat spreader on a desktop motherboard. Nobody's ever going to see the thing.

    And it's not like it got referenced once, it was referenced several times within the article.
    mrv_co said:
    ditto, makes zero sense.
    Strange, I don't understand why someone would want an all blue or green PCB when black PCBs are available. Imagine if all the motherboards in the market still had green or blue PCBs - non-blacked out expansion slots, etc. Many motherboards still don't even come with M.2 heatsinks, so unappealing designs and colorful PCBs don't blend into an aesthetics-focused build - something many enthusiasts are sensitive to. Even sub $100 1TB M.2 NVMe SSDs have black PCBs.
    Reply
  • Oshyan
    What the heck does Tom's have against this drive? Or why the hard-on for the Gammix S50?

    I took a few minutes to put together a spreadsheet of where each drive ranks (1-10 of the 10 compared) for all of the quantitative benchmarks (i.e. the ones with a score). The US70 had an average placement (rank) of 2.91, so basically it placed 3rd of 10 tested drives, on average. The S50? 4.95! (higher is obviously better) So at best the S50 is, according to Tom's Hardware's own tests, "middle of the road" (almost precisely), whereas the S70 is "better than average".

    Factor pricing into it and the S70 beats the pants off the S50 with both a higher rank and lower price, whether at retail or, even more so, at actual market prices, since the S70 is currently on sale (on Amazon, at least). US70 is $175 retail and $148.00 street right now. S50 is $180 retail or $165 street (Amazon with a $15 coupon). The US70 should be the very clear budget performance pick, and yet... it's not. For reasons that are entirely unclear, except uh maybe the color of the PCB and lack of encryption?

    WTF Tom's?

    Update: my pricing on the S50 Lite is incorrect above. See my reply below where I address this in context.
    Reply