Phison at CES 2020, up to 8TB M.2 along with 16TB SATA QLC powered SSD

CES 2020 - Phison is one of those brands that you may have heard uttered during the AMD Ryzen 3000 and X570 chipset launch as it was the primary driving force behind the first run of PCIe generation 4 NVMe SSD's or PCIe 4x4. Phison, however, was at CES showing their QLC enablement on various platforms from the newest and fastest Gen 4x4 to 3x4 and even SATA technology which, when mixed with proper QLC based NAND, they have been able to achieve some surprising densities.

Here we have both the M.2 variant and the 2.5" SATA models with capacities of 8TB and 16TB, respectively. The Phison PS5012-E12S controller powers the M.2 at 8TB while the 2.5" SATA variant is shown as working and capable os up to 16TB capacities using the Phison PS3112-S12 controller. Both of these drives are outfitted with Micron M28, 96-layer QLC NAND.

Here we have some results displayed at the Phison suite at CES 2020, showing S12, S13, and E12 controllers and their relative performance with QLC equipped.

Phison was also showing their storage enablement solutions for SATA with both the Micron NAND along with Kioxia (Formally Toshiba) BiCS4 NAND powering a 1920GB test sample. A Phison PS3113-S13 controller powered the Kioxia powered unit.

Phison was not merely showing "in-system" solutions, as they also had a Thunderbolt 3 evaluation sample clocking in at 8TB capacity and powered by Phison's new PT32 Thunderbolt 3 certified E12 based solution. This will likely be very popular soon as external high-speed options grow in capacity and performance for users such as content creators and mobile digital editors.

Here we can see the performance of the PT32 Thunderbolt interface, and it is hitting 2.8GB/s+ sequential reads and 2.1GB/s+ sequential writes. This could be some seriously high density and performance storage for users who need mobility and performance for their workloads.

Another solution Phison was showing is the PUY31, which is a USB 3.2 gen 2x2 for external application which does not have the much faster Thunderbolt 3 interface. While I would have loved to have seen the unit at full speed, it was only tested at x1, so half of the theoretical performance you could expect.

Here we have the previously mentioned PU31 USB 3.2 interface running at half bandwidth on USB 3.2. As you can see, even at half bandwidth, it does offer some strong performance across the board.

Here are the Phison gen 4x4 powered M.2 coming in at 4TB used for comparison above.

I think With Phison pushing the boundaries of density and performance of virtually all storage interfaces means that we will have some fascinating new storage devices to check out and play with, soon.

Stay tuned as we get hands-on with some of the newest Phison powered storage devices in-house and check out what you can have in your next custom rig or workhorse system.