PNY Technologies is well known in the computing industry for its NVIDIA-based graphics cards, but it also participates in the DRAM and Flash-based storage product market. In the latter, PNY sells a variety of USB flash drives, SD cards and portable SSDs under the “Elite” tag variation.
Earlier this year, the company launched two new palm-sized portable SSDs, the Pro Elite V2 USB 3.2 Gen 2 in the 10 Gbps class and the EliteX-PRO USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 in the 20 Gbps class. Both products are based on Phison’s native USB Flash Drive (UFD) controller. Both products have a Type-C interface. The Pro Elite V2 is only available in 500 GB and 1 TB capacity points, while the EliteX-PRO has four SKUs with capacities ranging from 500 GB to 4 TB.
The Pro Elite V2 and EliteX-PRO share the same industrial design and dimensions, with the only difference being the product name printed on the aluminum body. The design is reminiscent of the Samsung Portable SSD T5, but maintains a more compact and sleek form factor. This review takes a closer look at the performance and value proposition of the 1 TB Pro Elite V2 and 4 TB EliteX-PRO, focusing specifically on how they compare to existing players in this segment.
Introduction and product impressions
With the rapid advances in flash technology over the last decade (such as the development of 3D NAND and improved reliability of TLC), faster host interfaces for external devices have emerged. Together, they have contributed to increased storage capacity and speed for bus-powered, direct-attached storage devices. The Type-C standard has also gained wide acceptance in the consumer market. Protocols such as USB 3.2 Gen 2×2/USB4 and his Thunderbolt over Type-C connectors have enabled the introduction of palm-sized flash-based storage devices capable of speeds of 2GBps and beyond.
One of the main challenges of high speed storage devices is the thermal aspect. Bridge-based solutions with multiple protocol conversion chips tend to consume more power due to the additional components. Until now, high performance portable SSDs had no choice but to use the SATA bridge first and then his NVMe bridge. The introduction of native UFD controllers capable of achieving 10 Gbps and 20 Gbps from Phison and Silicon Motion has opened yet another option in this category. The Crucial X6 with Phison U17 was reviewed in his August 2021 and was one of the first retail products to break the SATA speed barrier, reaching speeds of 800 MBps without using an NVMe bridge. Around the same time, Silicon Motion’s SM2320 boosted the Kingston XS2000’s speed to his 20 Gbps without a bridge in between.
Silicon Motion’s SM2320-based products have typically won a lot of consumer mindshare as they can hit the sequential access interface speed limit in both the 10 Gbps and 20 Gbps categories. Phison’s U17 and U18 were introduced with slightly lower peak performance numbers, and despite vendors like Crucial adopting them for his X6, the product didn’t make much of a splash. In our opinion, Phison’s best implementation of the U17 was found in his OWC Envoy Pro Mini. The introduction of faster flash has increased the speed of portable SSDs (PSSDs) based on Phison’s native UFD controllers. As a result, adoption rates have increased. Products like the Sabrent Rocket Nano v2 and Corsair EX100U are based on the Phison U18 controller. PNY also connected a wagon to Wheesung camp to enter the PSSD market.
PNY’s 2023 PSSD lineup includes the Pro Elite V2 in the 10 Gbps category and the EliteX-PRO in the 20 Gbps category. The gallery below shows two of his PSSD packaging and disassembly processes.
Both products are similar in terms of packaging (down to the length of the included USB Type-C to Type-C and Type-C to Type-A cables) and industrial design. The main difference is in the internal PCB.
PNY Pro Elite V2 Controller – Phison U17
PNY Pro Elite V2 Flash Package – HA7HG64AWA
The 10 Gbps Pro Elite V2 is a Phison U17 design. On the PCB he has room for four flash packages, but PNY has only selected his two packages for the maximum capacity of the product. HA7HG64AWA is a NAND flash package with 128L 3D TLC from SK hynix. There are eight 512 Gbit dies for a total of 512 GB per package. There is one on each side of the PCB.
PNY EliteX-PRO Controller – Phison U18
PNY EliteX-PRO Flash Package – HA8IG64AWA
The 20 Gbps EliteX-PRO is a Phison U18 design. There is space on the PCB for four flash packages, with the 4 TB capacity version filling all four slots. HA8IG64AWA is a NAND flash package with 128L 3D TLC from SK hynix. The company’s 128L NAND initially came in the form of 512Gbit dies, but later in 2021, 1Tbit dies also started to appear (2TB version of SK hynix Gold P31, for example). HA8IG64AWA may have 8 x 1 Tbit dies for a total of 1 TB per package. The 4 TB version has two on each side of the PCB.
Neither PSSD has a specific thermal solution to the controller or flash. The SK hynix 128L 3D TLC NAND is known to be power efficient and that probably influenced his PNY decision. An interesting part of the EliteX-PRO PCB is the presence of two TI DDR4000 ICs. These are 1:2 DDR switches/multiplexers. This PCB is used for high speed signal switching and helps interface 4 flash packages and a 2 channel U18 controller.
The industrial design of Pro Elite V2 and EliteX-PRO is not unique and has many similarities with Samsung Portable SSD T5. Thankfully, PNY has opted for an aluminum case, which gives the PSSD a solid look and feel.
Since we are dealing with two different PSSD classes/capacity points, this review will include separate comparative graphs and tables for each. CrystalDiskInfo provides an overview of the capabilities of your internal storage device. TRIM isn’t on the feature list, but I found the NTFS volumes on both PSSDs to handle TRIM commands from Windows just fine. All SMART functions such as temperature readings worked fine.
| SMART passthrough for 1 TB PSSD – CrystalDiskInfo | |
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| SMART passthrough for 4 TB PSSD – CrystalDiskInfo | |
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The table below provides a comparative chart of the specifications of the various 1TB PSSDs presented in this review.
| Comparing Configurations for 1 TB Direct Attached Storage Devices | ||
| side | ||
| downstream port | native flash | native flash |
| upstream port | USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C | USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A (male) |
| bridge chip | Wheesung U17 | Silicon Motion SM2320 |
| Power | Bus powered | Bus powered |
| Use case | Pocket-sized lightweight 1GBps class portable SSD | 1GBps class compact USB thumb drive with cover for Type-A connector |
| physical dimensions | 63.5mm×57.2mm×10.9mm | 91.2mm×22.3mm×9.5mm |
| weight | 34 grams (without cable) | 14.5 grams |
| cable | 18cm USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 Type-C to Type-C 17cm USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C to Type-A |
N/A |
| Smart passthrough | yes | yes |
| UASP support | yes | yes |
| TRIM passthrough | yes | yes |
| hardware encryption | not available | not available |
| Rated storage | SK Hynix 128L 3D TLC | Toshiba BiCS5 112L 3D TLC |
| Price (when released) | $70 | $180 |
| review link | PNY Pro Elite V2 Portable SSD 1TB Review | Kingston DTMAXA/1TB review |
Here is an equivalent comparison table for the 4 TB PSSD.
| Comparing configurations for direct-attached storage devices | ||
| side | ||
| downstream port | native flash | PCIe 3.0 x2 |
| upstream port | USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 Type-C | USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C |
| bridge chip | Wheesung U18 | AS Media ASM2362 |
| Power | Bus powered | Bus powered |
| Use case | Pocket-sized lightweight 2GBps class portable SSD | Lightweight 1GBps class portable SSD with an emphasis on durability (equivalent to IP65) |
| physical dimensions | 63.5mm×57.2mm×10.9mm | 88mm×59mm×13mm |
| weight | 35 grams (without cable) | 98 grams |
| cable | 18cm USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 Type-C to Type-C 17cm USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C to Type-A |
45cm USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C to Type-C 45cm USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C to Type-A |
| Smart passthrough | yes | yes |
| UASP support | yes | yes |
| TRIM passthrough | yes | yes |
| hardware encryption | not available | yes |
| Rated storage | SK Hynix 128L 3D TLC | Samsung 136L V-NAND (6th general) |
| Price (when released) | $300 | $410 |
| review link | PNY EliteX-PRO Portable SSD 4TB Review | Samsung Portable SSD T7 Shield 4TB Review |
Before looking at the benchmark numbers, power consumption and effectiveness of the thermal solution, we will discuss the testbed setup and evaluation methodology.
Testbed setup and evaluation method
Direct-attached storage devices (including thumb drives) use Quartz Canyon NUCs (essentially Xeon/ECC versions of Ghost Canyon NUCs) configured with two 16GB DDR4-2667 ECC SODIMMs and PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe SSDs Rated as – 1TB of IM2P33E8 ADATA.
The most attractive aspect of the Quartz Canyon NUC is the presence of two PCIe slots (electrically x16 and x4) for add-in cards. If you don’t have a discrete GPU (because you don’t need it for the DAS testbed), both slots are available. In fact, to avoid the DMI bottleneck when evaluating Thunderbolt 3 devices, we added a spare SanDisk Extreme PRO M.2 NVMe SSD to the baseboard’s CPU direct-connect M.2 22110 slot. This still allows for two add-in cards running at x8 (x16 electrical) and x4 (x4 electrical). The Quartz Canyon NUC doesn’t have a native USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 port, so Silverstone’s SST-ECU06 add-in card was installed in the x4 slot. All non-Thunderbolt devices are tested with the Type-C port enabled by SST-ECU06.
The specifications of the testbed are summarized in the table below.
| 2021 AnandTech DAS testbed configuration | |
| system | Intel Quartz Canyon NUC9vXQNX |
| CPU | Intel Xeon E-2286M |
| memory | ADATA Industrial AD4B3200716G22 32GB (16GB x 2) DDR4-3200 ECC @ 22-22-22-52 |
| OS drive | ADATA Industrial IM2P33E8 NVMe 1TB |
| secondary drive | SanDisk Extreme Pro M.2 NVMe 3D SSD 1TB |
| add-on card | SilverStone Tek SST-ECU06 USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 Type-C Host |
| OS | Windows 10 Enterprise x64 (21H1) |
| Thanks to ADATA, Intel and SilverStone Tek for the build components. | |
Testbed hardware is only part of the evaluation. Over the last few years, the typical direct-attached storage workload on memory cards has also evolved. High bitrate 4K video at 60fps has become fairly common, and 8K video is starting to emerge. Game install sizes are steadily increasing, even on portable game consoles, thanks to high-resolution textures and artwork. With these in mind, the portable SSD and UFD evaluation scheme includes multiple workloads, detailed in the corresponding sections.
- Synthetic workload using CrystalDiskMark and ATTO
- Real-world access tracking using PCMark 10 storage benchmarks
- A custom robocopy workload that reflects common DAS usage
- Sequential light stress test
The next few sections provide an overview of the performance of the two PNY PSSDs on these benchmarks. Before concluding, here are some observations about drive power consumption and thermal solutions.
