Phison breaks Windows kernel with mind-bending 113GB/sec reads using 32 x E28 Gen5 SSDs

Phison teased its new E28 Gen5 SSD at Computex 2025, with a single drive pushing up to 14.8GB/sec reads, but the company used 32 of them inside of a Gen5 AIC card and pushing -- and yeah, wait for this -- 113GB/sec (that's 113,000MB/sec).

7

A single Phison E28-based SSD will pump 14.8GB/sec, but the company installed 32 x Phison E28 Gen5 SSDs across 3 separate Apex Storage X16 Gen5 AICs in a high-end workstation PC running an ASUS PRO WS WRX90E-SAGE SE motherboard using an AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7985WX processor.

7

Once installed, those 32 x Phison E28 Gen5 SSDs were pumping speeds so fast that the company was actually hitting the absolute limits of the Windows kernel itself, with maxed-out speeds reaching 113GB/sec (or 113,601MB/sec to be exact) reads, and an equally as impressive 104GB/sec (or 104,628MB/sec to be exact) for writes. Mix loads saw an even more impressive 146GB/sec (or 146,454MB/sec to be exact).

7

I had to take a selfie with what has to be the world's biggest Gen5 SSD, too... fun times!

The new Phison E28 Gen5 SSD controller is fabbed on the TSMC 6nm process node, with 8-channel with 32 CEs, and capacities of up to a gigantic 32TB. We've got a quad-CPU architecture, support for 3D TLC, the Phison 8th Gen LDPC and RAID ECC, and falls into the M.2 2280 form factor.

Phison's Chris Ramseyer confirmed that the mind-boggling 113GB/sec reads using its new Phison E28 Gen5 SSDs inside of those 3 x Apex Storage X16 Gen5 AICs was hitting the actual limit of the Windows kernel, or we'd be seeing over 150GB/sec (which would be NUTS).

Totally geeked out seeing this today, nerd heaven!