INTRODUCTION

   PCIe 5.0 Gen5 M.2 NVMe SSDs may hold the crown for the fastest consumer storage media currently but due to both the somewhat limited number of compatible motherboards in the market and the evident temperature issues under certain scenarios (upcoming NAND controllers may get that fully resolved) it will take a while for them to surpass their PCIe 4.0 Gen4 brothers in both popularity and sales. Even so with performance numbers easily surpassing 10.000MB/s in both reads and writes (and in some cases 12.000MB/s) there's a clear benefit for demanding users and professionals alike. Crucial released their T700 series of Gen5 M.2 NVMe SSDs a few months back and after having already reviewed the 2TB heatsink variant (review here) today I’ll be taking a thorough look on the 4TB heatsink variant.

   We are an industry leader in innovative memory and storage solutions, transforming how the world uses information to enrich life for all. With a relentless focus on our customers, technology leadership and manufacturing and operational excellence, Micron delivers a rich portfolio of high-performance DRAM, NAND and NOR memory and storage products through our Micron® and Crucial® brands. Every day, the innovations that our people create fuel the data economy, enabling advances in artificial intelligence and 5G applications that unleash opportunities — from the data center to the intelligent edge and across the client and mobile user experience. To learn more about Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU), visit micron.com. http://www.micron.com/

   Once again, the T700 line of PCIe 5.0 Gen5 M.2 NVMe SSDs by Crucial is currently available in 2 versions (with and without a large aluminum and nickel plated copper heatsink) and 3 different capacities (1/2/4TB). The entire line is based on the latest client-grade PS5026 (E26) PCIe 5.0 Gen5x4 NAND flash controller by PHISON which supports data throughput of up to 14GB/s. The NVMe 2.0 compliant PS5026 is an 8-channel (32 CEs) dual-CPU (ARM Cortex-R5) controller which features Phison's 5th generation LDPC ECC & RAID ECC together with SmartECC (RAID ECC), End-To-End Data Path Protection, TRIM and AES 256-bit encryption (with SHA 512 and RSA 4096) and is compliant with Toggle 5.0, ONFi 5.0 and TCG Opal 2.0. Needless to say, in order to achieve optimal results (up to 12400MB/s) Crucial (Micron) has paired the PS5026 NAND controller with their very own 232-layer 3D TLC NAND flash together with 8GB of LPDDR4-4266 DRAM for the 4TB variant (4GB for the 2TB variant and 2GB for the 1TB variant). Finally Crucial covers the entire T700 line of Gen5 SSDs with a 5-year limited warranty and reports a TBW (Terra Bytes Written) of 600 for the 1TB model, 1200 for the 2TB model and 2400 for the 4TB model. Well time to see what the 4TB variant of the T700 is capable of.