PNY CS2030 M.2 NVMe SSD Review (240GB) – Our First Look at Phison’s E7 Controller

CRYSTAL DISK BENCHMARK VER. 4.0.3 X64

Crystal Disk Benchmark is used to measure read and write performance through sampling of random data which is, for the most part, incompressible. Performance is virtually identical, regardless of data sample so we have included only that using random data samples.

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There we go. In Crystal Disk Mark, we see performance that is much more in line with what the rated specs are. Nearly 2.8GB/s read and 1.4GB/s write. 4K read and write speeds are very respectable at 50MB/s read and over 200MB/s write.

AS SSD BENCHMARK VER 1.8

The toughest benchmark available for solid state drives is AS SSD as it relies solely on incompressible data samples when testing performance. For the most part, AS SSD tests can be considered the ‘worst case scenario’ in obtaining data transfer speeds and many enthusiasts like AS SSD for their needs. Transfer speeds are displayed on the left with IOPS results on the right.

pny-cs2030-240gb-as-ssd pny-cs2030-240gb-as-ssd-iops pny-cs2030-240gb-as-ssd-copy

AS SSD paints a similar picture to that of Crystal Disk Mark’s. Overall, it scored 2749 points. Sequential speeds reached 2.4GB/s in read and 1.25GB/s in write. At 4K QD1 it hit an amazing 15K IOPS read! This result is actually the best we have seen for this metric in this test. The Samsung 960 Pro in comparison reached just under 14K! It also hit 227K IOPS read and 124K IOPS write in the high QD metric. Finally, in the copy benchmark, the CS2030 delivered some great results that are in line with what similar SSDs have scored.

ANVIL STORAGE UTILITIES PROFESSIONAL

Anvil’s Storage Utilities (ASU) are the most complete test bed available for the solid state drive today. The benchmark displays test results for, not only throughput but also, IOPS and Disk Access Times. Not only does it have a preset SSD benchmark, but also, it has included such things as endurance testing and threaded I/O read, write and mixed tests, all of which are very simple to understand and use in our benchmark testing.

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In Anvil Storage Utilities, we can see that the PNY CS2030 gave us an overall score of 10612 points. This result is very similar to what we got when we tested the OCZ RD400 back in May. Sequential and 4K speeds show to be a bit lower in this test compared to the others, but are still very good.

5 comments

  1. blank

    4K QD1 read IOPS tells me most likely not Micron flash.
    Probably WD/Toshiba slight chance even Hynix.

  2. blank

    Googling the NAND print reveals other SSD reviews that identify this as a Toshiba 64GB 15nm MLC package.

  3. blank

    As long, as it is double sided, it’s no deal for many slim ultrabooks.

  4. blank
    Rados?aw Or?owski

    I wonder how it would behave with some cooling. Maybe problem with heavy loads lies in overheating ? Maybe this ‘m2 shield’ stuff could help. If so then with minimal added cost its perfect.

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