What sets this SSD apart from other SSDs on the market is that it uses memory BiCS FLASH TLC, a type of vertically stacked three-dimensional memory that not only increases density, but also reduces chip size. It is currently produced in 96 layers, and according to KIOXIA this allows greater speed, more reliability and lower consumption than what we are used to in this field of SSDs in the current market.
In terms of durability, KIOXIA sent us the 2TB capacity model, which has 800TBW and 5 years warranty. This means that we could write around 438 GB per day every day for 5 years before exhausting its durability, but considering that on average a gaming PC writes 30 GB per day, this means that a KIOXIA Exceria Pro has an average life expectancy of just over 60 years, which means you’ll be switching PCs sooner than SSDs.
Unboxing and external analysis
This KIOXIA SSD is packaged in a flexible black cardboard box, on the main side of which we can see an image of the product and its main characteristics summarized.
On the back we have a brief explanation of the asterisks we find on the front (such as 2TB capacity and 7300MB/s reading), as well as the product identification label. The interface, form factor and its 5-year warranty also stand out here.
Inside we have a few brochures: one with a guide not on how to install the SSD, but on how to remove it from its packaging without damaging it, as well as the usual quick guide brochure.
The SSD is encased in a clear plastic shield, preventing it from being damaged even if its outer casing is touched.
Here we have the 2TB KIOXIA Exceria Pro ready to go; As you can see, the SSD is delivered practically “bare”, without any heatsink and only with an identification sticker which does not even cover all the chips. This sticker is not metallic to aid heat dissipation as seen on other SSDs.
On the back we find its blue-green PCB, covered only with another KIOXIA sticker but, as we can see, it has no chip in this area, only the contacts. This means that KIOXIA has crammed 2TB of capacity into just 4 memory chips, at 512GB per chip, as we’ll see shortly.
We remove the sticker to see the chips better, and as we said before, we only have 4 BiCS FLASH TLC memory chips with 96 layers and 512 GB capacity each; in the center, we have the memory controller and the DRAM memory that we will detail shortly.
Here we have these two chips closer. The controller is manufactured by KIOXIA, and more precisely it is the brand’s TC58NC1210GSE model. For its part, the integrated DRAM memory is signed SK Hynix, and by looking for information on its reference H5AN8G4NCJR we find that it consists of 8 GB (gigabits, not Gigabytes) of DDR4 SDRAM, more than enough for an SSD of these features.
The memory chips have no logos and only have a silkscreened reference (but as we explained before, these are the brand’s famous 96-layer BiCS FLASH TLC chips), so we will proceed to installing the device in our memory bank tests to see if it works well.
Tests and performance of KIOXIA Exceria Pro
To check the performance of this SSD, we used our Intel Alder Lake-S benchmark consisting of the following hardware:
- Intel Core i9-12900K.
- Noctua NH-U12A Chromax.
- ASUS ROG Z690 BIG HERO.
- 2 × 16 GB TeamGroup Delta RGB DDR5 6.400 MHz.
- TeamGroup CARDEA A440 2TB (SSD system).
- CORSAIRE RM1000i.
The operating system used was Windows 11 with all updates installed, and it’s worth mentioning that this SSD was tested connected to the motherboard as a secondary storage device, so we relieve you of the burden of support of the operating system, therefore always offering its maximum performance.
Here you can see the information he gives us Information about CrystalDiskwhere we can see that we connected it to a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface.
An interesting fact is that at idle this SSD was barely 28 ºC (with an ambient temperature of around 22 ºC), so it hardly heats up; Also remember that this SSD can work at its maximum until the temperature reaches 85ºC, instead of the usual 70ºC (we will see later what maximum temperature it reached during our tests).
Now yes, let’s see what performance it offers us, and nothing better than Brand CrystalDisk to verify.
In theory, this SSD should give us a speed of up to 7,300 MB/s in reading and up to 6,400 MB/s in writing, but in this benchmark it fell a little behind, delivering around 7,000 MB/s in reading and 6,200 MB./s in writing approximately, data that is really very good but which, as we said, is a little below what it should be able to deliver in theory.
In the graph above we can see the performance of this SSD compared to others that have gone through this same test platform; read performance comes first, while write performance ranks third and last.
Now let’s see what he tells us AS SSD Benchmarkwhere the same tests are performed but with other algorithms and additionally an arbitrary score is assigned based on the result.
Here you can see the performance compared to the other two SSDs that went through this benchmark.
In this case, the KIOXIA Exceria Pro is second in terms of read speed but first in terms of writing; it is a different benchmark and that is why it is interesting to make several of them, because in this way we can see the behavior of the unit in different areas.
As you know, this benchmark has two additional tests, and the first one shows us the copy speed of the unit in different scenarios.
The retakes are excellent, except in the program copy test which gives us a performance well below expectations; To put that into perspective, where the Exceria Pro took 2.90 seconds, TeamGroup’s A440 Pro only took 1.38 seconds.
We will also see the behavior of this KIOXIA SSD with non-compressible files, a type of element that usually causes problems for some SSDs, especially in terms of write speed.
Here the Exceria Pro behaves flawlessly, delivering an average performance very close to its maximum, so we can rest easy when working with non-compressible files.
Now let’s see how this SSD works with files of different sizes, and for that nothing better than ATTO disc reference.
As you can see, the data that this benchmark gives us is strange to say the least: the behavior with very small files (between 512 bytes and 256 KB) is as expected, with a performance increase close to the maximum, but generally at from there SSDs generally deliver consistent performance and reach their maximum potential, and yet this Exceria Pro sees its performance reduced, and not badly too.
As you can see in the capture we put above, this happens in different versions of the benchmark, and we also repeated the test several times to make sure the data was real and correct, always getting similar results. . The conclusion we draw from this is not that the SSD performs poorly with larger files (e.g. the transfer speed of a 50GB ZIP was around 3.8GB/s on average), but that there is something about the algorithms of this benchmark that “doesn’t get along” with KIOXIA’s custom controller.
Let’s end the synthetic tests with Anvil referencea test that in addition to measuring sequential performance will also show us the random one, in IOPS.
Finally, we have to see how this SSD behaves in terms of temperature, and this is something interesting because, as we have already mentioned several times, this SSD supports 15ºC more than the rest of the SSDs in the market.
We got the data with the SSD mounted directly to the board, without any heatsinks, what we’re showing you is the Temperature Delta, which is the measured temperature minus the ambient temperature, so if this last varies, the comparison continues to be reliable.
As we saw earlier, at idle the SSD is quite cold and only 6°C above ambient temperature; under maximum continuous load, the SSD temperature was only 31.5°C above ambient, also keeping it cool and without any need for a heatsink, being very, very far from those 85°C with which the manufacturer tells us that the SSD will start to thermally throttle.
Conclusion and judgment
We could say that the KIOXIA Exceria Pro SSD family is “house brand”, since the memory chips and controller are made by us and only use SK Hynix DRAM in their construction. These SSDs incorporate the new BiCS FLASH TLC technology, which not only allows good performance and durability, but also managed to operate at excellent temperatures and without the need for a heatsink, which today is complicated to see and more on PCIe 4.0 SSDs.
Generally speaking, this is an SSD that offers quite good performance, especially considering its price, which is among the cheapest PCIe 4.0 SSDs over 7000 MB/s on the market and , in addition, it is perfectly compatible with SONY PS5. Therefore, we believe that this KIOXIA Exceria Pro deserves our gold medal, as well as our recommendation for its excellent quality/price ratio.
