Solidigm P44 Pro: Fast PCIe 4.0 SSD with up to 7,000 MB/s

After Intel sold its SSD division to SK Hynix last year and a new subsidiary named Solidigm emerged from it, the new manufacturer still owed us fast SSDs. In August, they presented a consumer SSD with PCIe 4.0 with the P41 Plus. Now comes the Solidigm P44 Pro, which also connects via PCI Express 4.0, but scores with sequential read speeds of up to 7,000 MB/s.

The Solidigm P44 Pro in detail: All info about the new SSD

The up to 4,125 MB/ fast P41 Plus is followed by manufacturer Solidigm’s new SSD model for enthusiasts, namely the Solidigm P44 Pro. It is supposed to be characterized by outstanding speeds and a convincing energy efficiency and will be used in PCs as well as in PlayStation 5 consoles.

The new NVMe SSD is connected via PCIe 4.0 x 4 and will initially be offered in three capacities. There is a choice of 512 GB, 1 TB or 2 TB storage space, which are the same in terms of sequential read speed.

All three models achieve up to 7,000 MB/s read, but there are differences in the sequential bandwidth for writing. While the 1 TB and 2 TB models achieve up to 6,500 MB/s, the smaller 512 GB model only achieves 4,700 MB/s.

At least the two larger capacities thus achieve a minimally higher speed than, for example, the Asus ROG Strix SQ7 M2.SSD. The Samsung 990 Pro with PCIe 5.0 connectivity is correspondingly faster again with 7,450 MB/s read and 6,900 MB/s write.

At the same time, Solidigm also focused on convincing efficiency: The P44 Pro is optimized for energy savings and thermal efficiency to enable consistent performance with minimal throttling. The SSD is said to only consume 5.3 watts in operation.

Control is possible, at least on the PC, with the help of the Solidigm Synergy software. This enables, for example, a performance boost, provides an overview of the SSD’s speeds and health, and has other functions.

Focus on gaming and PlayStation 5

The Solidigm P44 Pro is well positioned for all application areas with its features and high speeds. However, the focus is naturally on gaming and use on the PlayStation 5.

Thus, the M2.2280 SSD meets or exceeds the requirements of Sony’s current console, which allows the use of M.2 SSDs since July 2021. Especially the load times should benefit from the fast PCIe 4.0 x4 connection.

The game launch of FromSoftware’s open-world action role-playing game Elden Ring is said to be only marginally faster with 11.7 seconds than with the internal storage (11.8 seconds), but continuing the game benefits a bit more from the fast storage with 6.9 seconds (compared to 7.2 seconds).

Incidentally, Solidigm puts the mean time between failure (MTBF) at 1.6 million hours, with the P44 Pro managing up to 1,200 Total Bytes Written (TBW), depending on the model. The 1 TB model achieves 750 TBW, the 512 GB variant 500 TBW. The manufacturer also offers a 5-year warranty.

Also offered is AES 256-bit hardware encryption for fast and efficient security without taxing the CPU.

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Prices and Availability

The new Solidigm P44 Pro PCIe 4.0 SSD is available in stores now. Pricing starts at an MSRP of $79.99 for the 512GB storage variant. The 1 TB model with 1,024 GB of storage has an MSRP of $129.99, while the 2 TB model (2,048 GB) comes in at $234.99.