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 (this is indeed for better heat dissipation in server racks).

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.