This is the fastest SSD we've ever tested — Phison E26 Max14um 2TB performance preview

[Admin]

The Max14um shows that Phison really can hit 14 GB/s with some elbow grease. Performance is record-setting, although power and thermals remain looming problems.

This is the fastest SSD we've ever tested — Phison E26 Max14um 2TB performance preview : Read more

 

[Avro Arrow]

It's an amazing product, but as we can see from its active cooler, those super-fast SSDs give off heat like an nVidia Fermi. Sure, they're fast as hell but it's a very niche product as, for most situations, the actual difference between a PCIe3 NVMe and a PCIe5 NVMe for general PC operations (like gaming or as a system drive) isn't enough to be noticeable.

If you're transferring data from one drive to another all day, sure, this would be amazing but who does that?

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

Burst performance doesn’t get better than this, although the translation to real world applications is questionable. You need a high-end system with specific workloads to take advantage.

So why doesn't TH build a HEDT system and run the kinds of high I/O loads that drives like this are intended for?

 

[CelicaGT]

It's an amazing product, but as we can see from its active cooler, those super-fast SSDs give off heat like an nVidia Fermi. Sure, they're fast as hell but it's a very niche product as, for most situations, the actual difference between a PCIe3 NVMe and a PCIe5 NVMe for general PC operations (like gaming or as a system drive) isn't enough to be noticeable.

If you're transferring data from one drive to another all day, sure, this would be amazing but who does that?

Agreed. Only Random Reads/Writes matter for actual system performance and even lower spec drives are fast to the point where storage is almost never the performance limiter. I aim for the midrange PCIe gen 3/4 drives as they are often the best blend of features and GB/$.

 

[waltc3]

The heatsink would rule it out for me. Plus, I'm not sure of the value here as I'll wager running real applications or games would not provide any perceivable difference in performance over PCIe4 NVMe drives, as I discovered upon moving to PCIe4 from PCIe3. But then, there are people who do little aside from running benchmarks, and this would be a stellar product for them, certainly...

 

[USAFRet]

any perceivable difference in performance over PCIe4 NVMe drives

Or even 3.0.

 

[Tom Sunday]

Indeed the PCIe 5.0 SSDs do not yet achieve the maximum performance of the Phison's E26 controller. Goodie: At the 'Flash Memory Summit,' Phison demonstrated that more than 14 GB/s is possible with fast memory and good cooling. My take: “Why developing such rubbish, and why as a normal user, do I really need to work at such speeds on my home PC?” Especially since today's SSDs are already fast. Sorry Phison, but that won't work. Not many are interested in this DIY solution with an overpriced cooler. The controller is just not that good and the E16 was put together quickly to be the first on the market. The E18 was actually significantly more powerful and efficient. As a customer per say we simply need to wait for the next generation of controllers. The “want to have” factor is minimal today to say the least. PCIe 4.0 was still somewhat tempting, but hardly anyone can objectively use even higher data rates sensibly.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Agreed. Only Random Reads/Writes matter for actual system performance and even lower spec drives are fast to the point where storage is almost never the performance limiter. I aim for the midrange PCIe gen 3/4 drives as they are often the best blend of features and GB/$.

Absoutely! As you can see in my specs, I have two economy PCIe3 2TB (Team MP33) drives and one economy PCIe3 1TB (WD Blue) drive with a PCIe4 512GB (WD Black) as my OS drive. The only reason that I have the PCIe4 WD Black is because it was on sale for only $5CAD more than the PCIe3 version. It was impossible to say no to that.

 

[CelicaGT]

Absoutely! As you can see in my specs, I have two economy PCIe3 2TB (Team MP33) drives and one economy PCIe3 1TB (WD Blue) drive with a PCIe4 512GB (WD Black) as my OS drive. The only reason that I have the PCIe4 WD Black is because it was on sale for only $5CAD more than the PCIe3 version. It was impossible to say no to that.

HA! I have that exact same drive, and I think I got it on sale too!

 

[Avro Arrow]

HA! I have that exact same drive, and I think I got it on sale too!

You wouldn't happen to be Canadian, would you?

 

[CelicaGT]

You wouldn't happen to be Canadian, would you?

Guilty as charged.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Guilty as charged.

So you got it from Memory Express, eh?

Check out this deal at Canada Computers:

TeamGroup C155 128GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive Gold/Black - $8.50​

 

[CelicaGT]

So you got it from Memory Express, eh?

Check out this deal at Canada Computers:

TeamGroup C155 128GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive Gold/Black - $8.50​

Unfortunately I have to get almost all my stuff from Bezos Inc. I live in a tiny insignificant town about 4 hours good weather drive from the nearest urban centre. Fortunately, "Sold and Shipped by Amazon" typically has prices inline (sales etc) with almost all the major electronics retailers. Newegg used to be my main source but they lost me with all their scummyish tactics during the shortages and lockdown.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Unfortunately I have to get almost all my stuff from Bezos Inc. I live in a tiny insignificant town about 4 hours good weather drive from the nearest urban centre. Fortunately, "Sold and Shipped by Amazon" typically has prices inline (sales etc) with almost all the major electronics retailers. Newegg used to be my main source but they lost me with all their scummyish tactics during the shortages and lockdown.

Well, take heart because no company is scummier than Amazon so if you're willing to use them, don't feel bad about also using newegg. Four hours from the nearest urban centre, eh? Jeez, that's a good distance. I live in the GTA but my hometown is Montreal and that's not too different a drive, especially if you don't have the good weather that you're referring to.

Now I'm curious as to your province but I won't press. It's cool to see a fellow Canuck on here. Cheers, eh?

 

[CelicaGT]

Well, take heart because no company is scummier than Amazon so if you're willing to use them, don't feel bad about also using newegg. Four hours from the nearest urban centre, eh? Jeez, that's a good distance. I live in the GTA but my hometown is Montreal and that's not too different a drive, especially if you don't have the good weather that you're referring to.

Now I'm curious as to your province but I won't press. It's cool to see a fellow Canuck on here. Cheers, eh?

No worries and Cheers!

And ya, it's sorta like borrowing from Peter to pay Paul in regards to (insert online megacorp here) scumminess. I guess it comes down to who's been the most consistently good in pricing and getting me my stuff. I have other hobbies that allow me to buy local, or more local than scamazon, which is my preferred method. No PC shops here though.

*West.....waaaay out west ;P

 

[Avro Arrow]

No worries and Cheers!

And ya, it's sorta like borrowing from Peter to pay Paul in regards to (insert online megacorp here) scumminess. I guess it comes down to who's been the most consistently good in pricing and getting me my stuff. I have other hobbies that allow me to buy local, or more local than scamazon, which is my preferred method. No PC shops here though.

*West.....waaaay out west ;P

Well, I lived in Vancouver for a couple of years (although I was a little kid at the time). It sounds like the place that Glenn Wool calls his hometown. It sucks not having PC shops though. I would probably lose my mind in a place like that, not being able to get something to tackle a problem right away would drive me mad.

 

[cyrusfox]

Excellent review! and really good showing, love to see competition in the storage space!!!

Multiple thoughts:

• If they are are going to include the fan, why not utilize m.2 bus power? have a little module direct attach to via screw and get rid of the wires, thus either use heatsink+ fan or not.
• Would love to see someone team up with the airjet mini and make it part of the integrated platform, if you make it slim enough could still fit most laptops as well as be a boon to desktop
• The is a phenomenal drive, beating everyone else out at same or better power efficiency! Its not winning by just burning the most juice!!!
• For future disk test to these highspeed drives on the file/folder test I think it might be time to move to a ram disk, any computer with either 64 or 128GB of ram, to get the theoretical best possible numbers, as it sits it looks like a loss for this drive on the file/folder 50GB dataset
• Idle power is a disappointment, we need a PCIe gen 5 drive that can sleep sub 1W, This drive isn't worse than the field, but 2.7W is way too much...
• I agree with your conclusion about increasing the size, Would love to see drives go from 4 to 10TB, above 10TB I imagine would be prohibitively expensive, but the 4TB+ space is a space where most of us could be tempted.
• We really need a controller that can effectively idle at prior gen 3 achieved power, why don't we see drives that can ramp up and down PCIe lanes in use, as well as change from gen 5 to gen 4 or gen 3 as needed(assuming this is possible)? I believe GPUs do this when idle, go down to lower mem speeds and lanes. Not sure they change PCIe Gen, maybe that is set, but they could step down to utilizing fewer lanes if there is power saving achieved doing that. I hope we see this level of maturation come to NVME storage.