INTRODUCTION

   With read and write performance levels all the way up to 7000MB/s M.2 PCIe Gen 4x4 Rev.2 NVMe solid state drives may currently hold the title of the fastest ones in the market but since less than 1% of PC users out there actually has a Gen 4x4 compatible motherboard Gen 3x4 models are still by far the most popular ones. So the fact that most manufacturers still focus the majority (if not the entirety) of their resources into the development and manufacture of M.2 PCIe Gen 3x4 NVMe SSDs is really not a surprise. Among those manufacturers is none other than Silicon Power and after their very successful UD70 (review here) line of M.2 Gen 3x4 NVMe SSDs they just released yet another one, the XPower XD80.

   Founded in 2003 by a group of enthusiastic data storage industry experts, Silicon Power is committed to delivering outstanding product and service quality. Headquartered and with our own state-of-the-art production site in Taipei, we have become a leading manufacturer of flash memory cards, USB flash drives, portable hard drives, solid state drives, DRAM modules and industrial-grade products. As an international player with four branch offices around the globe, we continuously strive to offer the perfect data storage solution for all requirements of modern digitalized life. With a strong focus on combining innovative technology and award-winning design, we live up to our brand promise to reliably preserve and protect your most valuable data. Because memory is personal.

   The brand new XPower XD80 line of M.2 Gen 3x4 NVMe SSDs is currently available in 256GB/512GB/1TB/2TB capacities (i have the 2TB variant with me today) and just like previous models it's based on the E12S high performance controller by Phison (PS5012-E12S / Gen3x4 NVMe 1.3 interface) which Silicon Power has paired with Toshiba 96-layer BiCS3 3D TLC NAND flash and 512MB DDR3L SDRAM by UnilC, a combination which allows the drive to reach read and write numbers of 3400MB/s and 3000MB/s respectively. The Phison PS5012-E12S controller features a total of eight NAND channels with 32 CE targets, supports up to 8TB of NAND, is Toggle 3.0 & ONFi 4.0 compliant and packs several technologies aimed at both high performance and reliability including StrongECC, SmartRefresh, SmartFlush, end-to-end data protection, thermal monitoring, AES-256 encryption, SLC caching and TCG Pyrite/OPAL support. As for endurance Silicon Power reports an MTTF (mean time to failure) of 2 million hours and as expected covers the entire XD80 line with a limited 5-year warranty.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

THE XPOWER XD80 2TB

Silicon Power packs their XD80 line of M.2 NVMe SSDs inside a blister package from where you can actually take a look at the drive itself.

At the rear of the package, we find the serial numbers and barcodes, some of the product's main features and contact information for Silicon Power.

Once again, we see a single side M.2 SSD following the 2280 standard (22mm in width and 80mm in length), this time over however this model comes with an aluminum heatspreader on it (according to Silicon Power this reduces temperatures by up to 20%).

Beneath the heatspreader we find the Phison E12S NAND flash controller, the UnilC 512MB DDR3L SDRAM and 4 Toshiba 96-layer BiCS3 3D TLC modules.

Since this is a single side M.2 NVMe SSD model the other side of the PCB is empty.

TEST BED

TESTING METHODOLOGY

   After almost 13 years of testing solid state drives, I’ve concluded that it's almost impossible for any single benchmark suite to accurately measure their performance and that's why in certain benchmark suites we see amazing read/write performance numbers with some drives while in others things are quite different. The reason behind this is that some benchmarking suites are configured to read and write random chunks of data while others read and write constant (sequential) ones. So that's why i always use a very wide selection of benchmarking suites including AIDA64, HD Tach RW, HD Tune Pro, Crystal Disk Mark, Sisoftware Sandra Pro, AS SSD, IOmeter and ATTO. To get the most accurate results each test gets repeated a total of 6 times with the average performance numbers recorded into our charts*. Also, as of February 25th 2015 our results will also include the Storage Networking Industry Association’s (SNIA) IOMeter tests. These tests include a 12 Hour write test used to “simulate” performance degradation over time and a mixed workload test which basically shows what you can expect when using an SSD continuously for roughly two hours. Unfortunately, due to the time required for these tests we repeat them a total of 3 times and not 6 as the above.

   Many people have made inquiries about our charts in the past so once again please do keep in mind that the Charts have the average performance numbers of each drive recorded and not the peak (highest) ones. Also, although every single one of these programs can help potential buyers choose the right drive for their needs you should also remember that from any kind of benchmark up to real world usage the gap is not small (and usually most differences will go unnoticed by most people). All tests were performed in a fresh Windows 10 Pro x64 installation complete with every update up to the date of this review.

* Since November 2018 the SSD comparison charts have been divided to 2.5” and M.2 models to reduce their growing size.
** Unless stated otherwise the Ryzen 9 3950x based Test Rig used for M.2 Gen 4 SSD reviews is not located in the lab.
*** As of January 2021, for Gen 3x4 models I’ll be using the Core i9-7980XE test rig (after numerous tests the up to 6% difference in read & write performance compared to the i7-6700 system simply wasn’t enough to justify having an extra test rig around)

TEST RESULTS - AIDA64 / ATTO

TEST RESULTS - HD TACH RW / HD TUNE PRO

TEST RESULTS - SISOFTWARE SANDRA PRO / CRYSTAL DISK MARK

TEST RESULTS - AS SSD / IOMETER

TEST RESULTS - IOMETER SNIA

CONCLUSION

   As you can all easily tell by just looking at the charts even though the XPower XD80 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD by Silicon Power is not be the fastest Gen 3x4 model to ever pass through the lab it does perform very well, especially for a model with just 512MB of DDR3L DRAM on it (I had to double check with this with Silicon Power since I was expecting at least twice that amount). The heatsink also does make a relatively significant difference in most tests, however when it comes to the 12 hour SNIA test there was quite a bit of throttling especially after the first 2 hours (as expected from such an intense workload test). Unfortunately to date Silicon Power still hasn’t expanded their SSD lines to include models with capacities surpassing 2TB something which I really hope they do soon.

   With an MSRP set at around USD240/240Euros (not available at the time of this review so I can’t list retail prices) the Silicon Power XPower XD80 2TB M.2 PCIe Gen 3x4 NVMe solid state drive is priced just as you’d expect by a model with its specifications and performance. All said and done the XPower XD80 2TB is a very good SSD, yes it may not be as fast as some of its direct competition but it’s still very fast, is covered by a 5-year limited warranty, features great endurance numbers and comes ready with a rather thick aluminum heatspreader and for all of these it gets the Golden Award.

PROS

- Very Good Overall Performance
- Heatspreader (Up To 20% Reduced Temperatures)
- Endurance Numbers (2.000.000 MTTF)
- 5 Years Limited Warranty
- Price (For Some)

CONS

- Thermal Throttling (12 Hour SNIA Test)
- Available Capacities (Only Up To 2TB)