Extreme aftermarket cooling systems for the best SSDs have become very common over the last few years, but it seems that such designs are slowly migrating to commercial SSDs as well. This week, CFD announced the PG5NFZ series drives featuring PCIe Gen5 x4 interface. This drive is equipped with a large aluminum heatsink with a small high speed fan on top.
of CFD gaming PG5NFZ series drive Reports Features of Phison’s PS5026-E26 Controller Combined with Micron’s 3D TLC NAND B58R Memory Hermitage AkihabaraAccording to the manufacturer, the drive offers sequential read speeds up to 10 GBps and sequential write speeds up to 9.5 GBps. Random read/write performance can achieve 1.5 million/1.25 million input/output operations per second (IOPS). The M.2-2280-D2-M (double-sided) SSD is available in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB configurations.
One of the interesting things about the CFD announcement is the drive availability timeframe. So far, no other PCIe Gen 5 SSD makers have announced an official release date. In contrast, according to CFD, the 2TB model will launch in November of this year, with his other SKUs expected to launch later. I don’t know if his November launch of CFDs can be extrapolated to other companies. On the other hand, it’s worth noting that PCIe Gen5 SSDs rated for sequential read speeds of up to 12 GBps are likely to hit the market in 2023.
One of the key selling points of CFD’s PG5NFZ is, of course, the cooling system called Phnix (Phoenix, immortal bird in Greek mythology). This 20mm tall (including bottom cover) aluminum cooler incorporates a high-pressure, high-speed fan to provide the best possible cooling for the controller and 3D NAND devices under heavy load. Given the name of the cooler, presumably he’s also meant to extend the life of his SSD in CFD, and comes with a three-year warranty.
All solid-state drives with Phison’s E26 controller with PCIe 5.0 x4 interface introduced in the last few months (1, 2, 3, 4) have a has a fairly large heatsink. Still, CFD’s Phnix goes far beyond that when it comes to off-the-shelf SSD cooling. CFD isn’t the first company to have his SSD cooler active out of the factory, but it’s the first company to launch an actively cooled PCIe Gen5 client drive.
However, CFD gaming has one pitfall. CFD is a Japan-based retailer that sells products and hardware from well-known brands such as AMD and Crucial under their own trademarks. CFD does not have its own manufacturing capabilities and outsources manufacturing to third parties. Phison, on the other hand, provides product development, firmware, hardware customization and manufacturing services to clients. This may be the case for CFD PG5NFZ drives.
Certain designs are likely exclusive to CFD and therefore may never make it outside of Japan, but Phison may offer something similar to other customers. In that case, other US suppliers will sell aggressively cooled PS5026-E26 based drives. and Europe.
