At a imprint
Table of Contents
Educated’s Ranking
Professionals
- Very elegant on a usual foundation performer
- Huge affordable at the time of this writing
Cons
- Lagged somewhat all the arrangement by 450GB write
- TBW warranty files not displayed prominently.
Our Verdict
The CS2140 NVMe SSD performs love a mid-tier power, but is accessible for lowball costs. It’s a PCe 3/DRAM-less (Host Buffer Memory) assemble and a right reduce price, despite the incontrovertible truth that we wish the corporate would list TBW warranty info more prominently.
Price When Reviewed
$100
Most realistic possible Prices This day
$94.99
Free
$99.99
Free
NVMe SSD costs hang been progressively shedding, but we had been aloof stunned to peek the 1TB PNY CS2140 accessible for below $100. Suitable, it became simplest 5 bucks less than that, but that’s aloof a big imprint for a ultimate performing PCIe 3 SSD. It even sports a 5-365 days warranty, despite the incontrovertible truth that that’s offset considerably by low TBW scores. All instructed, this power is an infamous different for any individual taking a imprint to snag a stable on a usual foundation SSD at a big imprint.
This evaluate is section of our ongoing roundup of the ideal SSDs. Inch there for files on competing merchandise and the arrangement we examined them.
Construct and capabilities
The CS2140 is a PCIe 3 x4, M.2 2280, NVMe SSD using a Phison PS5019-E19-35 controller to pass files out and in of unspecified NAND. We researched the numbers on the chips to no avail and PNY wasn’t coming near near.
Excited referring to the efficiency, and that there hang been simplest two chips on one aspect of the PCB, with room for two more, we’d bet 130+ layer TLC. There’s no DRAM cache, and PNY confirmed that the facility is HMB (Host Memory Buffer), i.e. it makes spend of a pair of of your PC’s memory for main cache. The efficiency in our long copies means that there’s NAND as secondary cache being assigned dynamically.
Disclose that the Playstation5, and some older PC programs assemble not make stronger HBM. Slower efficiency may perhaps maybe well consequence.
PNY states clearly that the facility carries a 5-365 days warranty, but doesn’t make it easy to search out the TBW (TeraBytes Written) rating. It’s in a guaranty document that it is possible you’ll maybe well procure online at this link (scroll down to Warranties & Policies, magnify it, and open the PNY SSD Guarantee Assertion.)
Hurdle overcome, the TBW scores for the many capacities of the CS2140 are: 250GB/150TBW, 500GB/200TBW, 1TB/400TBW, 2TB/1200TBW. Most often, they scale evenly and we can simply voice 150TBW per 250GB of capability or some such. These are habitual to affirm the least.
Regardless, brooding referring to the pricing, they’re realistic, if comparatively low—very low, in the 500GB and 1TB diversifications. Own in mind that most customers won’t write even that much files in 5 years, and that reads are free. They place no place on on the facility.
Why is the TBW rating indispensable?
The motive we fuss is that SSD warranties are restricted by two components. One is the time frame, which is 5 years in this case. That’s big. The varied is the amount of files that’s been written to the facility, which is often measured in terabytes, or certain, TBW.
For occasion, if a power is warrantied for five years but rated for 150TBW, and as well you’ve written 175 terabytes, the warranty is void, despite the incontrovertible truth that it’s been simplest three years. PNY may perhaps maybe well aloof place this files the place it’s more uncomplicated to search out.
Efficiency
The CS2140 is a very elegant performer. It’s “simplest” PCIe 3, so you won’t procure lowering edge numbers over PCIe 4, but one in all the secrets and methods in the trade is that compare times remain largely the identical in spite of PCIe expertise. Lightning fleet compare times assemble as a minimum half of the NVMe trip.
Regardless, we when in contrast it to varied drives using DRAM-less, host buffer memory drives running over PCIe 3.
The CS2140 became elegant, if not spectacular in our 48GB transfers confirmed below.
Most load/put operations are very little and never grab income of PCIe 4’s doubled throughput. Even capabilities that load/put bigger (1GB to 10GB) chunks of files strengthen minimally with the more recent PCIe bus.
The place it is possible you’ll maybe well surely stare a incompatibility is in very long copies, such as our 450GB write (confirmed below) the place the increased bandwidth surely has time to component in.
All in all, despite the low imprint, there’s no right gotcha with the CS2140’s efficiency. Nice.
The PCIe 3 tests exhaust Windows 10 64-bit running on a Core i7-5820K/Asus X99 Deluxe machine with four 16GB Kingston 2666MHz DDR4 modules, a Zotac (Nvidia) GT 710 1GB x2 PCIe graphics card, and an Asmedia ASM3242 USB 3.2×2 card. It also accommodates a Gigabyte GC-Alpine Thunderbolt 3 card, and Softperfect Ramdisk 3.4.6 for the 48GB read and write tests.
Write efficiency will lower because the facility fills up. Furthermore, in rare cases, substances may perhaps maybe well exchange for the more severe. PNY says it goes to also exchange NAND because of the rather a form of components but the facility will always possess the efficiency on the kit and varied promoting. Our usual ask with all drives is that, if, given equivalent hardware, they assemble not operate as well as our take a look at unit, please let us know.
Conclusion
Unless you regularly write very good contiguous recordsdata, the PNY CS2140 is a big deal and a very elegant on daily foundation performer. That PNY isn’t fully forthright in displaying warranty files and component specs, alternatively, limits our enthusiasm.
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