Solidigm P44 Pro SSD Review: Platinum P41, Take Two (Updated)

More of a good thing

Solidigm P44 Pro
Editor's Choice
(Image: © Tom's Hardware)

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Solidigm P44 Pro SSD (2TB)

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

RATING: ★★★★ ½ (4 ½ Stars)

PROS

+ Excellent all-around performance
+ Strong sustained performance
+ Power-efficient
+ Good support
+ Better MSRP

CONS

-
Could use a heatsink
-
No 4TB option

OUR VERDICT
The 2TB Solidigm P44 Pro is a top-tier PCIe 4.0 SSD that matches or exceeds the fastest drives on the market. It also has the advantages of better pricing and availability, along with Solidigm’s software support.

Comparison Products (2TB)

The 2TB Solidigm P44 Pro is up against the best drives we’ve tested, which includes the WD Black SN850X, the Samsung 990 Pro, the SK hynix Platinum P41, the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus-G, and the Kingston KC3000. The Crucial P5 Plus is also here, but it tends to fall behind the other high-end PCIe 4.0 SSDs. Lastly we have the Solidigm P41 Plus, which is more budget-oriented, to show the gap in Solidigm’s product stack.

Trace Testing - 3DMark Storage Benchmark

Built for gamers, 3DMark’s Storage Benchmark focuses on real-world gaming performance. Each round in this benchmark stresses storage based on gaming activities including loading games, saving progress, installing game files, and recording gameplay video streams.

We see excellent results from the P44 Pro in 3DMark. It edges out the Platinum P41 and Black SN850X, only falling short of the 990 Pro.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices.

The P44 Pro is again nipping at the heels of the 990 Pro in PCMark 10. A Solidigm representative did suggest that there have been some minor firmware optimizations on this drive, which may have better tuned it for these types of workloads than the Platinum P41 is.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom, 50GB dataset. We copy 31,227 files of various types, such as pictures, PDFs, and videos to a new folder and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file.

The P44 Pro copies faster than any other drive we’ve tested, although the differences are small between the top drives.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that SSD vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes.

The P44 Pro closely matches the Platinum P41 in ATTO, as expected. There are minor improvements at most block sizes. The P44 Pro doesn’t quite peak as high as some other drives, though. CDM sequential performance looks good, aside from a bit of a gap with the QD1 write. Random 4KB QD1 performance remains strong with only a small edge for the 990 Pro.

The P41 Plus does pretty well with random 4KB QD1 writes, in particular, which may seem surprising for QLC. Random writes should be and usually are buffered with pSLC. Reads may be a different story if they come from the native flash, which is usually the case. This is one reason Solidigm allows for read caching from pSLC on the P41 Plus, but only when the drive is less than half full.

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data.  Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use Iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

Sustained write performance for the 2TB P44 Pro is incredibly similar to that of the 2TB Platinum P41. The pSLC write speed is a bit above 6.6 GBps with a cache of about 320GB. Native or TLC performance is about 1.75 GBps, although there is some minor folding going on in the background. 

These results are excellent even if the P44 Pro cannot outwrite a drive like the Rocket 4 Plus-G. The hybrid cache recovers fast in the static portion but slow in the dynamic. Solidigm has opted to keep the Platinum P41’s consistent design.

Power Consumption and Temperature

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade as even the best ultrabooks can have mediocre storage.

Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state more quickly, ultimately saving energy.

Temperatures are gauged at both idle and load states via sensor and an infrared thermometer. The typical ambient temperature is at 24C. The load state involves sustained writes at maximum speed with measurement ensuing if and until throttling is demonstrated to discover the equilibrium temperature.

The P44 Pro is incredibly efficient, being the most efficient drive we’ve ever tested by edging out the Platinum P41. It’s possible that the minor firmware changes have allowed it to eke out a bit more performance with the same power draw. The P41 Plus is less efficient on the whole, but it also pulls less absolute power. That may make it a better choice for some laptops due to less thermal overhead.

Our expectations are that the P44 Pro should welcome a heatsink under an extended load, as with the Platinum P41. This proved to be the case. The drive idled at about 41C and hit a throttling temperature of approximately 82C after 450GB of writes, a bit more writing than the Platinum P41 allowed. Performance then dropped to 925 MBps, which is still considerable. We would recommend a heatsink for this drive.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

Swipe to scroll horizontally
CPUIntel Core i9-12900K
MotherboardASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Formula
Memory2x16GB Corsair Dominator DDR5 5600 CL36
GraphicsIntel Iris Xe UHD Graphics 770
CPU CoolingArctic Liquid Freezer II - 420
CaseStreacom BC1 Open Benchtable
Power SupplyCorsair SF750 Platinum
OS StorageSabrent Rocket 4 Plus 2TB
Operating SystemWindows 11 Pro

We use an Alder Lake platform with most background applications such as indexing, windows updates, and anti-virus disabled in the OS to reduce run-to-run variability. Each SSD is prefilled to 50% capacity and tested as a secondary device. Unless noted, we use active cooling for all SSD.

Conclusion

The Solidigm P44 Pro is not a particularly exciting SSD, but it is an excellent one. It’s built on the winning formula of the SK hynix Platinum P41, one of the best SSDs we’ve ever tested, with only beneficial changes. It has the same specifications but now has Solidigm’s software support. Its price has also been lowered, despite the Platinum P41 already being competitive soon after its launch. Availability also promises to be better which is good news if you’ve been lamenting the difficulty in getting SK hynix drives in your particular area.

Some adjustment is required to get used to seeing Solidigm as a major market force. Drive naming conventions that cross over to SK hynix have also been a little confusing. In time, all of this will no doubt coalesce into some exciting products. We dinged the P41 Plus partly for its high MSRP and Solidigm quickly brought the price down on the coveted 2TB SKU. Now, the Platinum P41 can be had more cheaply and more widely with the P44 Pro. It’s also supported by software and documentation from Solidigm which demonstrates a strong market strategy.

Our complaints about the P44 Pro are, like for the Platinum P41, few in number. Drives of this caliber really should have a heatsink variant, although we can understand the reasons why they would forego it. We would also like to see a 4TB option, as the WD SN850X has and the Samsung 990 Pro is expected to get. Still, the overall package here is exemplary with consistently high performance matched with excellent efficiency. You can’t go wrong with the P44 Pro.

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Shane Downing
Freelance Reviewer

Shane Downing is a Freelance Reviewer for Tom’s Hardware US, covering consumer storage hardware.

  • cyrusfox
    Refreshing to see a top end drive from Solidigm, although odd. As this is the P41 with Solidigm software and controller tuning. I would have thought they would repurpose their own NAND rather than used Hynix.

    Nice aggressive initial pricing as well for a top tier drive, this should be able to be found cheaper than the other 3 tops contenders (Sn850, 990 pro, & P41). Whatever happened to Kioxia(Toshiba) or Micron, they seem absent from the top of the line consumer pcie gen 4 ssd competition. Crucial P5 can't compete, not seeing any entries from Kioxia.
    Reply
  • anonymousdude
    cyrusfox said:
    Refreshing to see a top end drive from Solidigm, although odd. As this is the P41 with Solidigm software and controller tuning. I would have thought they would repurpose their own NAND rather than used Hynix.

    Nice aggressive initial pricing as well for a top tier drive, this should be able to be found cheaper than the other 3 tops contenders (Sn850, 990 pro, & P41). Whatever happened to Kioxia(Toshiba) or Micron, they seem absent from the top of the line consumer pcie gen 4 ssd competition. Crucial P5 can't compete, not seeing any entries from Kioxia.

    I think you may be misunderstanding the relationship between some of these companies. Solidigm is a subsidiary of SK Hynix created as a result of acquiring Intel's flash and ssd division, which to my knowledge was only making QLC NAND and Optane anyways. No controller either. So it's not weird at all that they use TLC Hynix flash and controller.

    As for pricing, it is very competitive. The closest one at msrp is the P41 and that's $260. Granted these go on sale fairly frequently. Like the 2TB SN850x and P41 were $160 or so during Black Friday. I see the P41 pop up for around $210 too.

    Kioxia doesn't really release to retail like this much anymore. They do have retail products, just not in high volume nor are competitively priced. Their history is fun too. WD acquired SanDisk back in 2016, who had a joint venture with Toshiba (Kioxia) for NAND fabrication and development which continues to this day. So WD drives have a custom controller with Kioxia's BICs NAND. You'll see the Kioxia name often though in pre-builts and laptops cause that's their target market.

    Micron (Crucial) released the P5 Plus last year and it targeted the top 4.0 drives at that time. So the 980 Pro, SN850, and your pick of Phison E18 drive. It was competitive at that time and with its recent pricing is still a great value. It just so happens that everyone updated their drives this year. Samsung 990 Pro and WD SN850x. SK Hynix releases the P41 beginning of the year and now Solidigm with the P44. So mostly a case of bad timing on Micron's part is what gives you that feeling.
    Reply
  • thestryker
    It's not clear in the review whether or not the Solidigm Driver is used on the test system. Assuming it was were any tests done without it to see if it has an impact (or if it wasn't were any done with it)? I generally don't install storage drivers/software unless there's a specific reason to and was considering getting one of these.

    It is interesting to see where PCIe 4.0 drive performance has landed. Seems like this, the 990 and P41 will likely be the best choice of drive for some time even with PCIe 5.0 drives coming.

    One note on Kioxia: they've been having financial and legal issues which seems to have impacted several of their latest technologies. I don't believe there are any gen1 XL-Flash devices on the market despite having their own line and one from Dapustor. They've even announced a second generation of XL-Flash without any products.
    Reply
  • Udyr
    I don't know why or how you're getting such high idle temps. My 1TB P41 idles at 27C, with an ambient temp of 24C, sandwiched between the CPU and GPU and no additional airflow other than the front fans.. When I had to transfer all my backup data (~700GB) from my trusty old HDD, the temperature went up by 12-13C, even after a couple hours of activity. Granted, I didn't run any synthetic benchmark, but seems odd the test yielded such high numbers.
    Reply
  • DavidLejdar
    Nice. I have only one M.2 slot left, and looking to use that for a 4 TB drive eventually. But the test results seem to say that one shouldn't really see a difference between P44 Pro and i.e. 990 Pro in everyday use.

    And the cheaper price makes upgrading more affordable, which in turn means proliferation, which in turn means even more game devs making use of NVMe bandwidth, which in turn means that I may benefit too. :)

    Udyr said:
    I don't know why or how you're getting such high idle temps. My 1TB P41 idles at 27C, with an ambient temp of 24C, sandwiched between the CPU and GPU and no additional airflow other than the front fans.. When I had to transfer all my backup data (~700GB) from my trusty old HDD, the temperature went up by 12-13C, even after a couple hours of activity. Granted, I didn't run any synthetic benchmark, but seems odd the test yielded such high numbers.

    Even an active cooling for SSD may rely on there being air flow, like in a wind tunnel, which the test-rig apparently didn't have. And the heat-buildup near a SSD without such air flow, it may not really be that large for some convective heat dissipation to be going on. Well, at least that would be my guess about what could be a factor in regard to idle temperature. As for operating temperature, HDD can do around 100 MB/s (plusminus), and that's not really pushing a NVMe SSD, even if it took some time to move all that data.
    Reply
  • ReallyBigMistake
    solidigm is pronounced saa-luh-dime]I would have never figured that out
    I can't wait for PCIe 5.0 SSDs to finally come out.
    Reply
  • DVDRDog
    I have to question where Shane got his specs for the Solidgn SSD's. For example he states warranty TBW. That seems to be the biggest secret on the Internet. Not even on the manufacturer's site is the warranted TBW for their Intel inherited SSD line. Does Shane Downing have some spiritual connection with SK Hynix and he has uncovered the big secret or is he fudging the numbers? I challenge Shane to back up his info with something legally binding in writing from the manufacturer or save this kind of speculation to social media where it belongs.
    Reply
  • TesseractOrion
    Would a heatsink be recommended for a well ventilated case? I have six fans on various sides (front, top, bottom & back), but the NvME 4.0 slot is next to CPU and under GPU (though could move that).

    I have an AMD 5700X but only a Radeon 580X paired with it.
    Reply