Manufacturers SSD the likes of Corsair, Gigabyte and Goodram have announced SSD models that rely on the PCIe 5.0 x4 interface and use the Phison PS5026-E26 controller. Although such a driver can reach 13 GB/s, some SSD models run at 10 GB/s.

The Phison PS5026-E26 controller offers eight NAND channels that allow for different data transfer rates. These eight channels are the standard for SSDs typically found in the consumer market. Some manufacturers such as Micron, SK Hynix, Samsung and YMTC use the aforementioned Phison controller and achieve a maximum sequential read speed of 12 GB/s.

The PS5026-E26 controller achieves 2.4 billion transfers per second (MT/s), but achieving this is proving to be a challenge for SSD manufacturers, with many running at up to 1600 MT/s. Micron’s controller is the most advanced in this area, offering 232-layer 3D stacked NAND memory, but due to the limited production of these chips manufacturers chose to use the PS5026-E26 controller with 176-layer memories, which run at lower speeds and result in reduced performance. Of course, they have in their favor that they are easier to manufacture, and this is apparently a trend that will continue until at least mid-2023.

Last month, GIGABYTE announced its AORUS Gen5 10000 SSD capable of reaching 12.4GB/s in read operations thanks to the use of the Micron 2400MT/s interface. Goodram and Corsair were less fortunate, reaching only 10 GB/s so far thanks to a 3D NAND memory chip supported by a 1,600 MT/s interface. Kioxia and XPG reach 14 GB/s; VIEW 13 GB/s; and GALAX, T-Force and MSI reach 12 GB/s.

In short, and in case it wasn’t clear, the 3D NAND chips used by many SSD manufacturers create a bottleneck that prevents the benefits maximum PCIe 5.0 x4 data transfer rate, which is set to 15,754 GB/s. The chip supply situation doesn’t look like it’s going to change anytime soon, so we won’t see many SSDs populating the PCIe 5.0 x4 interface, if there are models that do.