Solidigm P41 Plus SSD Review: Born in the Purple (Updated)

A capable 670p successor with big shoes to fill.

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Solidigm P41 Plus SSD
(Image credit: © Tom's Hardware)

Tom's Hardware Verdict

The Solidigm P41 Plus 1TB is a competent first effort that yields a capable mid-range PCIe 4.0 SSD built on QLC. The hybrid cache makes it attractive, especially because the SSD runs cool, but the market is crowded, and its performance is largely average. If priced right, it’s a good budget primary SSD.

Reasons to buy

  • +

    Good support with a reasonable warranty

  • +

    Hybrid pSLC cache with read capability

Reasons to avoid

  • -

    DRAM-less with largely mediocre performance

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November 18, 2022 Update: We've updated this article with new testing for the 1TB Solidigm P41 Plus SSD on page 2.

Original Review published October 17, 2022:

Shane Downing
Shane Downing
Contributing Writer

Shane Downing is a Contributing Writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering consumer storage, PC hardware, and AI.

14 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Co BIY
    Any reason it is called the P41 other than to create confusion with it's high performance stablemate from SK Hynix ?

    It doesn't use the same controller, flash or even brand name.

    I knew they were different and it was still confusing.

    Well done review. It was very clear about the background and provenance of the company and the tech.
    Reply
  • twotwotwo
    Like the other commenter: imagine the meeting that led to the naming. 680p probably would make sense to consumers, because people know the 670p's positioning and it's a satisfactory followup to that. And if they're going to combine branding, they should just do that and call it Hynix P41. I'm not sure if "P41 Plus" communicates that it's the value option well enough, but also, I pay too much attention to SSDs to have a good intuition for how normal people will see it. (Maybe use previous gen's brand, P31 Max/SE/???)

    But seems great that this exists--8 cents a gig at 2TB with performance that's plenty for many people's use cases.
    Reply
  • PiranhaTech
    This is making me wonder if a QLC drive with a cache makes sense for a video game drive for a secondary (I still would prefer TLC for the OS drive right now). The cache might be large enough to hold the majority of a a few video games. Apparently the cache can be as large as 280GB in one report.

    I saw one benchmark for a mid-tier SSD, and what got me to get it was "here's the loading time. If you pay $50 more, you save... 2 seconds off your loading time" since it was a secondary SSD.
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    PiranhaTech said:
    This is making me wonder if a QLC drive with a cache makes sense for a video game drive for a secondary (I still would prefer TLC for the OS drive right now). The cache might be large enough to hold the majority of a a few video games. Apparently the cache can be as large as 280GB in one report.

    I saw one benchmark for a mid-tier SSD, and what got me to get it was "here's the loading time. If you pay $50 more, you save... 2 seconds off your loading time" since it was a secondary SSD.
    99% of people can't tell the difference between PCIe 3.0 and 4.0.
    Even though the sequential numbers for 4.0 are twice that of the 3.0.

    We are deep into diminishing returns here.

    4YoRKQy-UO4View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YoRKQy-UO4
    4DKLA7w9eeAView: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DKLA7w9eeA
    GQ9LyNXpsOoView: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ9LyNXpsOo
    Reply
  • jackt
    interesting efficiency ! I wish samsung 880 and skhyncs p31 were in the tests.
    Anyway i think people are waiting for samsung 890 and pcie5 ssds...
    Reply
  • PiranhaTech
    USAFRet said:
    99% of people can't tell the difference between PCIe 3.0 and 4.0.
    Even though the sequential numbers for 4.0 are twice that of the 3.0.

    We are deep into diminishing returns here.

    4YoRKQy-UO4View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YoRKQy-UO4
    4DKLA7w9eeAView: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DKLA7w9eeA
    GQ9LyNXpsOoView: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ9LyNXpsOo
    The other factor is if your PC has a lot of RAM, Windows might have parts of the game in RAM already. Windows I think will preload things based on the time of day.
    Reply
  • Co BIY
    When operating a PCIe 4.0 DRAM-less SSD on a 3.0 PCIe connection do they underperform more than expected because of the transfers required to system RAM?

    Does this change the recommendations for installing on a PCIe 3.0 limited system?


    I just purchased a Solidigm P41 Plus SSD 2TB from NewEgg for $109. I wish it came in a 4TB.

    I think the price promise of QLC is finally here.
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    Co BIY said:
    When operating a PCIe 4.0 DRAM-less SSD on a 3.0 PCIe connection do they underperform more than expected because of the transfers required to system RAM?

    Does this change the recommendations for installing on a PCIe 3.0 limited system?


    I just purchased a Solidigm P41 Plus SSD 2TB from NewEgg for $109. I wish it came in a 4TB.

    I think the price promise of QLC is finally here.
    The slowest device in the chain dictates performance.

    A PCIe 4.0 drive, in a PCIe 3.0 port, can only run at PCIe 3.0 speed.
    DRAM or not.

    The very fastest PCIe 4.0 or 5.0 drive in a PCIe 3.0 port....you get 3.0 speed.
    Period.
    Reply
  • PiranhaTech
    Co BIY said:
    When operating a PCIe 4.0 DRAM-less SSD on a 3.0 PCIe connection do they underperform more than expected because of the transfers required to system RAM?

    Does this change the recommendations for installing on a PCIe 3.0 limited system?

    I just purchased a Solidigm P41 Plus SSD 2TB from NewEgg for $109. I wish it came in a 4TB.

    I think the price promise of QLC is finally here.
    Will be running at PCIe 3.0, but you should consider one thing: 4k read. The PCIe 4.0 SSD might have faster 4k read, and often 4k read on a PCIe 4.0 drive won't be able to saturate PCIe 3.0. The faster drive can still have an impact.

    One of the best tools, ESPECIALLY for a secondary SSD, is to look at real-world benchmarks. Many video games don't have a difference off a slower SSD. I'm talking 0.1-2 seconds from a 12 second load
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    PiranhaTech said:
    Will be running at PCIe 3.0, but you should consider one thing: 4k read. The PCIe 4.0 SSD might have faster 4k read, and often 4k read on a PCIe 4.0 drive won't be able to saturate PCIe 3.0. The faster drive can still have an impact.

    One of the best tools, ESPECIALLY for a secondary SSD, is to look at real-world benchmarks. Many video games don't have a difference off a slower SSD. I'm talking 0.1-2 seconds from a 12 second load
    And in a blind test with any normal consumer use case, I defy anyone to tell the difference in any of these configurations.
    Reply