Kudos to the new SK Hynix Platinum P41 2TB When it comes to consumer products for gamers, including SSDs, SK Hynix is not a brand we are very familiar with.

In fact, SK Hynix is one of the big names in manufacturing flash memory chips used in SSDs. In fact, SK Hynix became even bigger when it acquired Intel's SSD and flash memory business. Well, with the exception of Optane, that is now completely in the past.

But I digress. Of course, SK Hynix is no newcomer to the field, but the new P41 is arguably the brand's first foray into truly high-end M.2 drives. The old SK Hynix Gold P31 was a bit old and clunky, limited to a controller chip with a PCIe 3.0 interface and just four memory channels. The new Platinum P41 has it all.

Well, in the context of PCIe 4.0 drives, it has everything. But PCIe Gen 4 is not the only limitation at this point. Perhaps it is also the limit of your PC or laptop's capabilities. In any case, the P41 is powered by SK Hynix's new Gen 4 controller, known as Aries. These tend to be relatively mysterious black boxes, but we do know at least that the Aries is claimed to double IOPS performance and speed up IO speed by a third compared to SK Hynix's older Cepheues chips.

Not only that, but it is a quad-core design with eight memory controllers and 2GB of DDR4 cache memory allocated to this 2TB model. These make it comparable to top-end controllers like the Phison E18 found in a variety of drives, including the Seagate FireCuda 530 (open in new tab) and the new Pascal chip in the Samsung 990 Pro (open in new tab).

As for the actual flash memory used, it is SK Hynix's latest and greatest 176-layer 3D TLC NAND. This is as advanced as today's TLC memory, and SK Hynix claims a 40% performance improvement over the older 128-layer chips. The resulting specs for this 2TB model are 7,000MB/s sequential read and 6,500MB/s write. These figures are slightly lower than the fastest competing drive in the official specs. However, these metrics are only a guide and do not accurately reflect actual performance.

Perhaps the performance highlight of the P41 is its claimed random access performance specification; according to SK Hynix, the P41 will achieve 1.4 million read IOPS and 1.3 million write IOPS. Samsung claims that the 990 Pro is faster in terms of write IOPS, which is the fastest read IOPS claim we have seen.

Finally, regarding speed and power delivery, this 2TB drive is rated at 1,200TB write endurance. This is exactly the same as the new Samsung 990 Pro 2TB. However, when compared to other competing M.2 SSDs, it falls far short. For example, the Seagate FireCuda 530 2TB has an endurance of 2,550TB, more than twice as high. However, this is definitely an academic advantage. Let us know here when any SSD can actually write 1,200TB. For most users, that will take decades. We don't hold our breath.

The minor question of how this drive will actually perform remains. In terms of peak sequential throughput, the Platinum P41 is essentially faster than any of the others, barring some rounding errors. The P41's 7,375 MB/sec read is slightly faster than the Samsung 990 Pro's 7,462 MB/sec read. But honestly, that is inconsequential. The same goes for writes, with most of the top drives achieving just under 6.9 GB/sec.

Ultimately, 4K random access performance is similar: the P41's 83 MB/sec read and 255 MB/sec write are about on par with other top drives. In a way, this is a bit disappointing, given that random access is an area where all these drives can step up. However, we will probably have to wait for the next generation of PCIe 5.0 SSDs to see a significant improvement.

Looking at the broader picture, the P41 does very well in PCMark 10's overall storage benchmark, scoring 3,477 points. This is second only to the Samsung 990 Pro's 3,645 points. It also does very well on latency, almost on par with the 990 Pro and the equally fast WD Black SN850X (opens in new tab).

The P41's operating temperature is a little less than stellar. Peaking at 71°C, it is a bit higher than our ideal temperature. We did not actually see any signs of thermal throttling. However, temperatures this high are a bit of a concern in terms of long-term reliability. In terms of more sustained performance factors, we measured the drive's high-performance SLC cache allocation at approximately 300 GB during the drive preparation routine prior to testing.

In short, this is a very good drive. At the very least, it can stand shoulder to shoulder with WD's new Black SN850X, Samsung's upgraded 990 Pro, and the usual offerings with the Phison E18. If you want a top-end PCIe 4.0 drive, there are plenty of options. The SK Hynix Platinum P41 2TB should also be a contender.