GOODRAM Announces Entry-Level PX500 SSDs: Bringing NVMe to Budget Drives
by Anton Shilov on March 24, 2020 4:00 PM EST
As more SSD manufacturers introduce their inexpensive NVMe PCIe drives, the market of entry-level SSDs is slowly but surely moving away from SATA altogether. Case in point this week is GOODRAM, yet another SSD manufacturer who is launching a family of entry-level NVMe SSDs that are priced to compete with their SATA counterparts.
GOODRAM’s PX500-series SSDs are based on Silicon Motion’s SM2263XT controller and come with 256 GB, 512 GB, or 1 TB of usable 3D TLC NAND memory. The entry-level drives fully support modern SSD features like the NVMe 1.3a protocol, end-to-end data protection, L1.2 low power mode, and AES-256 encryption. What's also notable is that the manufacturer is specifically designing the M.2 2280 form-factor drives with laptop compatibility in mind; so rather than using a large metal heatsink, the drives are covered by a thin heat spreader made of plastic-like material so that they fit into the tight spaces afforded by laptops.
When it comes to performance, GOODRAM rates the new PX500-series SSDs for up to 2050 MB/s sequential read speeds, up to 1650 MB/s sequential write speeds, and up to 240,000/280,000 random read/write IOPS, which is in line with the capabilities of the controller and performance levels offered by competing drives.
| General Specifications of GOODRAM's PX500 SSDs | |||
| Capacity | 256 GB | 512 GB | 1 TB |
| Model Number | SSDPR-PX500-256-80 | SSDPR-PX500-512-80 | SSDPR-PX500-01T-80 |
| Controller | Silicon Motion SM2263XT | ||
| NAND Flash | 3D TLC NAND | ||
| Form-Factor, Interface | M.2-2280, PCIe 3.0 x4, NVMe 1.3a | ||
| Sequential Read | 1850 MB/s | 2000 MB/s | 2050 MB/s |
| Sequential Write | 950 MB/s | 1600 MB/s | 1650 MB/s |
| Random Read IOPS | ~102K IOPS | ~173K IOPS | ~240K IOPS |
| Random Write IOPS | ~230K IOPS | ~140K IOPS | ~280K IOPS |
| Pseudo-SLC Caching | Supported | ||
| DRAM Buffer | No | ||
| TCG Opal Encryption | No | ||
| Power Management | L1.2 power mode support for ultra-low power consumption Idle: ? W Active: ? W |
||
| Warranty | 3 years | ||
| MTBF | 1,500,000 hours (?) | ||
| TBW | ? | ? | ? |
| Additional Information | Link | ||
| Launch Price | ? | ? | ? |
Wilk Electronik SA, the owner of the GOODRAM brand, has not announced official MSRPs for its PX500 SSDs, but the general principle here is that they are supposed to launch at prices that are close to those for M.2 SATA SSDs.
Related Reading:
- Patriot Releases Cheap P300 M.2 PCIe SSDs: Two Products, Same Name
- Biostar Launches M700 SSDs: Entry-Level PCIe SSDs
- Team Group Unveils MP33 SSDs: Entry-Level PCIe Drives
- Mushkin’s Helix-L SSDs Available: Pushing the Price of 3D TLC
Source: GOODRAM
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
13 Comments
View All Comments
kpb321 - Tuesday, March 24, 2020 - link
We'll have to see how the price ends up being on these but historically I've never found the price different between these types of drives and things like the HP EX920 or other various drives based on the same controller or other similar controllers. It's probably going to be pretty easy to pick up a drive with 3k+ read and 2k+ write for a slight premium over this which makes it a bad deal overall.DanNeely - Tuesday, March 24, 2020 - link
You probably will be able to do so; but the intended market for these drives is people/oems who will chose a sata drive if it's a few dollars cheaper. We may think they're making a poor judgement call in doing so; but that doesn't mean they don't exist. These drives should still be a solid upgrade from SATA even if $5-10 more would get you another large increment of performance.PaulHoule - Tuesday, March 24, 2020 - link
DRAMless... It should better be cheap.loony - Tuesday, March 24, 2020 - link
With HMB, dramless really isn't that horrible in most usecases.HideOut - Tuesday, March 24, 2020 - link
Back in feb I purchased a 500gb M2 NVME and it was cheaper t han almost all the sata M2's. Maybe 4$ more than sata's cheapest offereing. Just gotta watch sales.levimar - Tuesday, March 24, 2020 - link
The prices are out in Poland already 1TB [ including VAT ] costs 192$512GB - 104$
240GB - 45$
source: https://www.x-kom.pl/g-5/c/1779-dyski-ssd.html?f%5...
kissiel - Wednesday, March 25, 2020 - link
Those prices include 23% VAT. Without VAT its $84 for 512GB.InTheMidstOfTheInBeforeCrowd - Wednesday, March 25, 2020 - link
Ugh, that looks expensive... If you are in Poland, you can probably feel lucky because you should be able to order from some Teutonic barbarians. There, a budget-oriented 1 TB Nvme TLC gumstick goes for roughly EUR 130..150 (PLN 600..700; incl. 19% VAT).Tomatotech - Tuesday, March 24, 2020 - link
Make sure you buy from GOODRAM, not their nefarious competitor BADRAM.Some may prefer to purchase from the Dark Knight supplier, GOTHRAM. However, I should inform you that CAKERAM is a lie.
fmcjw - Wednesday, March 25, 2020 - link
noram is goodram