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Solidigm P44 Pro SSD (2TB)
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
| CPU | Intel Core i9-12900K |
| Motherboard | ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Formula |
| Memory | 2x16GB Corsair Dominator DDR5 5600 CL36 |
| Graphics | Intel Iris Xe UHD Graphics 770 |
| CPU Cooling | Arctic Liquid Freezer II - 420 |
| Case | Streacom BC1 Open Benchtable |
| Power Supply | Corsair SF750 Platinum |
| OS Storage | Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 2TB |
| Operating System | Windows 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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