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The Silicon Power UD70 NVMe SSD is based on the newest Micron QLC NAND flash memory and it fits right in. That is a pretty big statement considering there was a point when nobody thought QLC memory could stand up to the performance of previous gen TLC memory. But then again, the same was said of TLC memory in comparing it to MLC, and MLC to SLC… This has gone on for some 13 years now and, through this time, manufacturers have pushed tooth and nail to provide the consumer, business and enterprise with faster more value oriented flash media in larger capacities…that would last.
But has it replaced the hard drive yet? No. Nevertheless, flash media has done a pretty good job of becoming the chosen one. Without it, that smartphone you rely on so much wouldn’t look, feel or work anything like it does now, nor would you ever see an ultrabook as small as we are seeing today. SSDs are smaller and faster than hard drives. They are completely silent, much cooler, use less power and increase the performance of computers incredibly. So today, we are looking at a brand spanking new example of flash media, the Silicon Power UD70 2TB NVMe SSD. It is so new that we haven’t even got a price or date of release for you yet…but it will be soon.
The Silicon Power UD70 is a M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 (four lane) SSD that uses the latest NVMe 1.3 protocol. It’s form factor is that of 2280, meaning that it is only 80mm in length. It is the size of a stick of Juicy Fruit gum and weighs about 10 grams. Do they still sell gum in sticks? In any case, it will be available in 500GB, 1TB and 2TB capacities and performance is listed at 3400MB/s read and 3000MB/s write for the 2TB version we are testing today.
This is a brand new product which we are seeing for $189.99 (2TB) at the Silicon Power website, but nowhere else at the time of this report. Check Amazon for its availability and pricing (link).
The UD70 is built on a blue PCB (printed circuit board) that contains the Phison E12 8-channel NVMe controller, four pieces of Micron’s latest 96-layer QLC NAND flash memory, as well as a Kingston branded DRAM cache buffer memory chip. The UD70 also has AES 256-bit encryption and comes with a 5-year limited warranty.
This SSD is a single-sided SSD which actually shows the beauty of QLC; it has a much smaller footprint than previous generations. If Silicon Power wanted to, they could simply slap four more memory chips on the bottom and this would become a 4TB SSD. Better yet, they could increase each chip to 1TB RAW value and you now have a 8TB SSD.
Silicon Power went a step further though and we validated this in our testing. It is one of the coolest SSDs we have had in our system and Silicon Power credits this to there Dual Self-Cooling System via operations within the Active System Power Management (ASPM) and Autonomous Power State Transition (APST). This SSD also has thermal throttling to ensure that, if it ever does overheat, the components and your data are safe.