Gigabyte M.2 NVMe SSD GP-GSM2NE3512GNTD 512 GB

Between two fires

For SSD drives, the SATA bus has become a hard limiter that keeps their potential in check, preventing them from accelerating to their full capacity. Yes, being “5 times faster than a regular HDD” was once cool, but time does not stand still. Current progress has brought us to an interesting point in history, when regular SATA SSD and large-capacity M.2 SSD are almost equal in price. A great illustration of this fact is the Gigabyte M.2 2080, which can now be found for a modest $83. This is slightly more expensive than popular SATA SSDs like the Patriot P200 and Samsung 860 EVO.

The price tag is at the same level as regular SATA SSDs, the speed is much higher

Yes, it does not tear the veins when it comes to linear read and write operations, that is, when copying large and very large files. In the case of reading, we are talking about 1700 MB/s, and writing is carried out at a speed of 1550 MB/s. According to these indicators, it is 3 times faster than a regular SATA SSD, but 2 times slower than reference M.2 SSDs such as Samsung EVO. However, Samsung is much more expensive, so the comparison is not entirely relevant. But when it comes to non-linear recording of many small files, then the SSD from Gigabyte forces itself to be respected. The write IOPS is 340 thousand, the read IOPS is 270 thousand. These figures are close to the reference ones, which is good news considering the price.

Five-year warranty

The key element in the drive is the four-channel Phison PS5008-E8-10 controller. This 40 nm controller is used in budget-level drives, so it was not a surprise to see it here. It is not a surprise that the Gigabyte M.2 PCIe SSD 256 GB and the use of TLC memory are not surprising. Actually, it was precisely this combination that provided the drive with an affordable price tag. But what came as a surprise was that in all benchmarks without exception, it showed figures close to those declared by the manufacturer on the box. For budget controllers the picture is often the opposite. Another pleasant surprise was the five-year warranty, which is usually given for SSDs of a higher class, but for budget models it is limited to two to three years.