KIOXIA introduces new mainstream PCIe Gen5 BG8 Series SSDs for PC OEMs

The current DRAM and flash memory crisis, which has seen massive price increases and shortages of consumer-facing products like DDR5 memory and SSDs, has been ongoing for months. It's all thanks to the current AI boom and hardware makers trying to keep up with the demand from data centers.

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Now, this isn't another "everything's bad" story, but rather a follow-up to KIOXIA's recent announcement that it was launching a new affordable, value-focused series of SSDs for PC OEMs. Today, KIOXIA is expanding its consumer, client, and PC OEM lineup with the high-performance KIOXIA BG8 Series of SSDs, poised to deliver "PCIe 5.0 speed to the mainstream segment," and it's arriving at the perfect time.

KIOXIA is not only a leader in flash memory technology but also its inventor. The DRAM-less KIOXIA BG8 Series incorporates the company's impressive 8th-generation BiCS FLASH 3D flash memory with its innovative CBA (CMOS directly Bonded to Array) technology, delivering a 47% improvement in sequential read speeds and a 67% improvement in sequential write speeds. With read and write speeds of up to 10,300 MB/s and 10,000 MB/s, the new KIOXIA BG8 Series is poised to deliver Gen5 performance to the mainstream PC market.

In addition to the impressive sequential read and write performance for a mainstream SSD, the KIOXIA BG8 Series delivers up to 1.4 million IOPS and supports a mature Host Memory Buffer (HMB) feature to improve efficiency and help keep overall costs down. Like the affordable KIOXIA EG7 Series announced yesterday, the BG8 Series will be available in multiple M.2 form factors, including 2230, 2242, and 2280, and capacities of up to 2TB. This means it's primed and ready for mobile devices, laptops, and desktops.

"Bringing PCIe 5.0 to the mainstream client segment is a key step forward for the industry," said Maulik Sompura, director of product management, SSD business unit, KIOXIA America, Inc. "The KIOXIA BG8 Series delivers substantial performance improvements across both sequential and random workloads, giving OEMs the ability to design systems that are faster, more responsive, and better aligned with evolving user expectations."

KIOXIA notes that it's currently sampling the BG8 Series to select PC OEM customers with systems equipped with these new SSDs, and that these SSDs are expected to begin shipping sometime in Q2 2026. Hopefully, this means the BG8 Series will also make its way to retail shelves, too, to help fill the void left by Micron's Crucial brand exiting the consumer market.