Sequential Write 6900
Sequential Read 7000
Random Write 1,350K IOPS
Random Read 1,050K IOPS
Those that have 10% off Amazon Giftcard banked away on Amazon, it will be effectively $355.30. With Topcashback $1.18 cashback making it $354.12.
CamelCamelCamel.
Endurance on the 4TB model which is this, is 2400TBW.
Good catch. I just noticed that. Was thinking 1200TBW was too low.
Any suggestions on third party heat sink?
Aliexpress
As dollarsreamer said, AliExpress. I've had good results with the Jeyi heatsinks, the lowish profile one (about 7-8mm?) keeps one of my nvme drives at about 55° under a stress test iirc.
I've also got their kind of comically large one with no fan, and that keeps an sn850x at about 47-50° during a stress test
This or the $299 Team T-Force Z44A7 for an SSD in an external enclosure? Hmm….
Teamforce is the same spec as the Lexar NM790. And Ozbargain loves the NM790. So there you go. This Crucial is 1 level higher due to the internal DRAM but do you need it? It depends, for a Main drive, I would pony up the extra. For media storage and retrieval, 4K Video editing etc, the Teamforce / Lexar NM790 is plenty.
For external enclosure, anything big with DRAM as HMB does not work in an enclosure.
I prefer the T500 over the Z44A7, pricing difference is $100. For serious use, get the T500. For data storage and non-critical use, Z44A7. Personally, I have the 4TB Z44A7 and the 4TB Teamgroup MP34, and I would put the MP34 into an enclosure and get the T500 to replace it in my PC.
Are you saying a DRAMLESS NVME TLC will be as fast as a DRAM NVME TLC in a Thunderbolt / USB 4 enclosure? I know DRAMLESS TLC NVME's use a lot less power and thus generate less heat if you are not after the absolute fastest speeds. But first time reading that DRAM TLC NVME's are useless in enclosures. Or did I read that incorrectly?
No, I'm saying DRAM-less SSDs use system memory (HMB) to compensate, but HMB does not work with such a drive is put in an enclosure. So it would be worse. The MP34 is an old and budget drive from the Gen3 days but still has a small amount of 128MB DDR3 DRAM for 4TB, but that is better than no DRAM when used in an enclosure.
What type of enclosure? Thunderbolt 5? USB4 / Thunderbolt 4/3, USB 3.2 gen 2x2 or just USB 3.2 gen 2.
If it's just USB 3.2, any PCIe gen3 TLC SSD or above NVMe SSD will do. Both SSDs are overkill. For Thunderbolt 5, you might want to go T500.
DRAMless penalty on enclosure isn't that big compared to the PCI gen 3x2 limit on USB 3.2, but if you use the external SSD as a boot drive, then you could consider an SSD with DRAM. Though it really depends whether you access heaps of files quickly.
If you are using a Thunderbolt enclosure, that means it has direct access to the PCIe bus and should be able to use HMB.
If it is a USB3 enclosure, then it is limited to about 700MB/s actual speed in ideal conditions and much lower in reality. In an oddball way, a Thunderbolt enclosure might be able to overcome the lack of DRAM with DRAM-less drives (someone please confirm if HMB works over Thunderbolt), thus allowing cheaper drives to run just as well.
Nice catch. Also I think Mac's do not have HMB support at all even if using Thunderbolt enclosures. But saying that I have seen Dram-less NVME do very well in TB3/4 enclosures on Macs. I think it's the niche work flows like when transferring 100's of Gigabytes in one go is when the Dram-less issue becomes apparent and it all comes to a crawl but again very niche work flows. For most users Dram-less is fine as long as it's TLC based NVME. Also Dram-less use less power so for Laptops it's a win at the detriment of a slight speed hit. The Crucial T500 with Dram is a speed demon and if you want all the speed on a budget, this NVME is great and often trades blows with the more expensive Samsung 990 Pro.
Any reason for this over alternatives? IE https://www.amazon.com.au/Silicon-Power-Internal-Upgrade-Com… similar specs?
Silicon Power US75 4TB has 3 versions. Two of them are kinda like NM790, but there is 1 version that's like NQ790 - QLC. Silicon Power does component swaps on their SSDs too often.
So, if you do decide to get US75, first thing to do after receiving the drive is to check whether it is indeed TLC. If not, return it and get a full refund from Amazon.
But NQ790 is TLC per techpowerup?
https://www.techpowerup.com/ssd-specs/lexar-nq790-1-tb.d2091
https://www.techpowerup.com/ssd-specs/lexar-nq790-2-tb.d2090
4TB one is QLC
These 2 sites indicate QLC:
https://ssd-tester.com/compare_670_875_Lexar_NM790_1TB_versu…
https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry-2025-this-large-4tb…
SSD Tester's test shows a QLC like sustained write test.
https://ssd-tester.com/lexar_nq790_1tb.html
TechPowerUp did change it to TLC because there were flash util info output showing 128L TLC NAND on some NQ790 SSDs.
How does this compare with the Samsung 990 Evo Plus?
Not as good as 990ep but with DRAM
Phison sucks
Right, and 990 Ep doesn't get too hot either and uses less energy I think, which makes it more suitable for portable devices.
Samsung had to rollout 990 Pro to deal with Phison DRAM SSDs. 990 Evo Plus was to counter Maxon and WD (since WD uses customised Phison for their DRAMless SSDs so Samsung had to prepare).
These SSD makers are dodgy. Samsung, WD, Phison all handcuffed DRAMless SSDs initially (inc 990 Evo (non plus)). When Maxon and YMTC stopped doing that and took some market share, they all now release a new round of products.
@ Meteor Anarcom, quite incorrect
T500 performs better (check Tom's Hardware).
990 Evo is Samsung's answer to NM790 (Maxon based DRAMless SSD with no bandwidth handcuffs). It's still not true flagship though.
Did you mean 990 EVO PLUS or 990 EVO? They are different things.
Sorry, 990 Evo Plus. 990 Evo has bandwidth handicap. 990 Evo Plus competes with Maxon based solution (NM790) and Phison E27 based SSDs.
Any cheaper recommendations? Just need an upgrade for the ps5
Any SSD above 5500MB/s and make sure it has DRAM
Get a cost effective PCIe gen 4 x4 NVMe SSD, preferably TLC. Don't get fixated with the SSD must have DRAM. Get NM790 or an equivalent when it is discounted (if you can wait).
PS5 SSD Read Test - Just to show the PS5 read test is still a joke / cheatable. T500 2TB (which is DRAM based TLC SSD) beaten by NV3 2TB (QLC DRAMless). T500 2TB clearly has a firmware glitch (not optimsed for PS5). NM790 is 4th in the chart, beating SN850X. It does show these DRAMless SSDs with latest gen controllers offer impressive sequential read performance.
PS5 Game Transfer Test - This one does show flagship (or ex-flagship) DRAM based SSDs being more consistent in sustained write. You don't often transfer lots of games from internal SSD to the NVMe SSD in one go (other than when you first install the NVMe SSD).
So the ssd in this deal isn't suitable? Sorry, no here
This one is perfect for the PS5. What he is saying is that, there are cheaper options.
It's fine to use it for PS5. However, if there is a firmware update for this SSD, it is best to do that before putting it in PS5. Crucial doesn't seem to update the firmware of their SSDs to top PS5 benchmark test charts.
It comes down to price, whether you are happy with it or not.
When was last time 10% GC deal? I doubt anyone still has them.
People usually load up to $5000 when the 10% off Amazon Giftcards occur towards the end of the year usually. I personally load up $2000 once a year which is enough for all the 2 min Noodle deals and toilet paper deals that pop up here for 12 months. Some rich folks here driving high yield investments have mentioned they load up $10k or more.
Is this good for Ally X? With or without heatsink?
Apparently they work fine without a heatsink, but I'd just rip the one off the existing ssd and put it on this one.
It's probably a bit overkill for an Ally X, that said there's not many decent 4TB drives under $350 anymore and you'll probably use the drive for years to come.
Thanks, ordered one with third party heatsink.
Seems to be a good deal based on the specs, assuming they haven’t done any component swaps since the initial release.
Controller: Phison E25
Flash: Micron 232-Layer 3D TLC
DRAM: 2 GB Micron LPDDR4-4266
Endurance: 1200 TBW
Form Factor: M.2 2280
Interface: PCIe Gen 4 x4, NVMe 2.0