Silicon Power US70 1TB NVme SSD Review
Silicon Power US70 – Low Priced Phison E16 Drive
Are you looking for a PCIe Gen 4.0 NVMe SSD to upgrade the drive in your PC or for a new system build? You’ve come to the right place as we’ve independently reviewed 30 solid-state drives for the consumer market in just 2020. Our 31st and final SSD review of the year will be on the Silicon Power US70 PCIe Gen4x4 M.2 SSD!
This drive is based on the Phison E16 controller with KIOXIA 96-Layer TLC NAND flash. Yes, this is yet another drive on the market that is based on the Phison E16 reference design. What makes this drive stand out from the crowd is that Silicon Power is selling them for cheap!
You can pick up the SP US70 1TB model for $147.99 shipped today from Amazon and for Prime members will still get it delivered in time for Christmas. That comes out to being just $0.15 per GB and that is the lowest that we’ve ever seen these go for.
The US70 is only available in 1TB and 2TB capacities and the performance numbers are impressive. On a platform that supports PCIe Gen 4.0, you’ll be able to reach up to 5,000 MB/s read and 4,400 MB/s write. The endurance rating is 1.8 PB on the 1TB model and 3.6 PB on the 2TB model, so these drives can be heavily used over their 5-year warranty period.
| Product | US70 1TB | US70 2TB |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | $147.99 (Amazon) | $319.99 (Amazon) |
| Price Per GB | $0.15 | $0.16 |
| Capacity | 1000GB | 2000GB |
| Form Factor | M.2 2280 | M.2 2280 |
| Interface / Protocol | PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.3 | PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.3 |
| Controller | Phison PS5016-E16 | Phison PS5016-E16 |
| DRAM | 1GB DDR4 | 2GB DDR4 |
| NAND Flash | KIOXIA 96L TLC | KIOXIA 96L TLC |
| Sequential Read | 5,000 MB/s | 5,000 MB/s |
| Sequential Write | 4,200 MB/s | 4,400 MB/s |
| Random Read | 750,000 IOPS | 750,000 IOPS |
| Random Write | 750,000 IOPS | 750,000 IOPS |
| Endurance (TBW) | 1800 TBW | 3600 TBW |
| AES Encryption | No | No |
| Part Number | SP01KGBP44US7005 | SP02KGBP44US7005 |
| Warranty | 5-Years | 5-Years |
Silicon Power sent over the US70 1TB drive to review on our AMD X570 test platform! This 1TB model is sold under part number SP01KGBP44US7005 and is a M.2 2280 ‘gum stick’ form factor SSD. The full color packaging is designed to be hung in retail and looks pretty good. It clearly states the capacity of the drive and that it comes with a 5-year warranty. It would have been nice to see some performance numbers on the front or at least make the fact that this is a PCIe Gen4 drive a little more noticeable.
Silicon Power is using the Phison E16 reference design for the US70 series and has kept things very simple. The trademark blue PCB can be seen under a simple label on the front of the drive. We’ve seen many companies use heat spreaders or thermally conductive labels on the reference drive in the past. Silicon Power skipped all that and just stuck a normal label on it.
On the back of the drive is a small label with two rows of numbers. These are likely internal lot and tracking numbers in the event that the drive ever gets returned under warranty.
Peeling the front label off was simple and you won’t risk pulling any components off the board as the adhesive is weak. With the label removed you can get a good look at the Phison PS5016-E16 8-channel controller and one of the two 512MB SKhynix DDR4 cache chips that make up the 1TB drives 1GB of DRAM buffer for FTL table mapping. Our test sample shipped with the latest Phison E16 firmware v13.0 and Silicon Power has chosen to turn off AES 256-bit support on the US70 series.
Silicon Power has their own SSD Toolbox that allows you to check drive health, run a simple diagnostic test and check the estimated remaining life of the drive.
Let’s take a look at the test system and then check out the performance benchmarks to see how the Silicon Power US70 1TB NVMe SSD performs!