PNY XLR8 CS3140 M.2 NVMe Gen4 SSD Review

A Closer Look

By their nature, M.2 drives look largely the same, and this drive is of little exception here. The 2280 form factor is pretty much the common size now, and I can’t recall the last time I saw any other sizes. It comes with a nice XLR8 sticker on the top that keeps things looking neat and tidy, and it’s ready to drop into your PC, laptop or console as it is.

The drive users the latest Micron 96-layer 3D TLC NAND, which is a large part of why it can hit those massive read and write speeds. 7,500MB/s seq. read and 5650 MB/s seq. write is extremely swift and I’m eager to put it on the test bench to see how close I can really get.

The controller is the Phison E18 PS5016-E18-41, which uses the latest NVMe Version 1.4 interface. It also leverages a Penta-core 8 channel design.

There’s also an SK Hynix DDR4 DRAM Cache.

While the drive uses the PCIe 4.0 x4 design, it is backwards compatible with PCIe 3 slots, but of course, you’ll be severely limited in read/write speeds by that interface.

While the drive looks good on its own, this version comes with this gorgeous XLR8 Gaming SSD Cover.

While you can absolutely use this M.2 cover as a heatsink in your PC or any other device that has room for it, it’s designed to fit into the PlayStation 5 also, ensuring you can get the best performance possible when upgrading your console.