THE PBLAZE7 7940 3.84TB U.2

As expected, my sample arrived inside a clear plastic clamshell package.

The U.2 form factor of the PBlaze7 7940 is 2.5-inches in size and the enclosure is made out of aluminum (heat dissipation).

At the front of the aluminum enclosure, we find a debug port (UART/JTAG).

The U.2 connector is located at the rear of the drive and even though it's similar to SAS/SATA it makes use of up to 4 PCIe lanes.

Aside the mounting holes at its base the enclosure is also shaped strangely (perhaps for better heat dissipation?).

Opening the drive was easy and a must for everyone curious as to how the interior is populated.

Aside the large Nichicon aluminum electrolytic capacitor what stands out from the top side of the PCB are the 5 Nanya DRAM modules and the 4 Micron NAND flash modules.

Turning the PCB over we find the Marvell Bravera SC5 (MVB-SS1333) NAND flash controller, 4 Nanya DRAM modules, 4 Micron NAND flash modules and the multi-channel power management IC by Renesas Electronics.

For my review Memblaze decided to provide me with a PCIe card (instead of an M.2 NVMe PCIe adapter) and so this is what I used.

I was going to use my Intel Z890 test rig for this review, but I doubt it would produce different results compared to my X670E one.

Strangely enough even though my Z790 had issues detecting the drive the X670E worked flawlessly.