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This morning at Flash Memory Summit 2025, we came across a new release by SanDisk identifies as the SN5100s client Gen4 SSD. Normally we might not take a second look at Gen 4 SSDs in this scenario, but this SSD brings to light a main theme at FMS this year…higher speeds with better power efficiency. This SSD will provide 7300MB/s speeds with a maximum draw of under 4 watts active and that is exciting news!
The SN5100s is a Gen 4 SSD that will be available to OEMs in 512GB, 1 and 2TB capacities and two form factors, the 2280 and 2230. This is a very smart choice as todays ultrabooks are increasingly being fitted with 2230 ultra small SSDs that are this small.
A quarter fits on top of this SSD perfectly. This SSD speaks to variable performance depending on capacity with a high of 7.3GB/s read and 6.7GB/s write with up to 1.4 million IOPS, but the sweetest thing about this SSD is that it was shown running at top speed utilizing under 4 watts which was great. This translates to a cooler ultrabook with longer portable use.
The previous Gen SN500s Gen 4 SSD is an ideal comparison when you consider this new SSD is fitted with SanDisk BiCS 8 3D QLC NAND flash memory as well as SanDisks proprietary nCache 4.0 for faster bursts writes which translates to quicker storage of larger files.
This chart identifies a 52% jump in power efficiency along with a 20% jump in performance…but it doesn’t stop there. If you look at our first photo, PCMark 10 also shows a 20% improvement.
It wasn’t so long ago that QLC was the newest NAND on the block and many weren’t sure of its potential. This week at FMS demonstrates full acceptance and confidence in QLC as we are seeing it in retail, client and enterprise applications right up to the mission critical level. Can’t wait to get one of these in the LG Pro ultra!
