Never heard of Nextorage" Its short history is rather convoluted, but this is no obscure startup. In fact, Nextorage was created in 2019 and was founded by Sony as a direct subsidiary of Sony Storage Media Solutions, Inc.

The idea was to manufacture SSDs for the PlayStation series of consoles; things changed in 2022 when Phison, best known for its SSD controller chips, took control of Nextorage. And here we present the Nextorage NEM-PA 1TB, available from Newegg (opens in new tab) for only $87.99.

We have yet to get our hands on this 1TB model. However, a 2TB version recently landed at PC Gamer Labs. Naturally, these Nextorage drives feature a Phison E18 controller and proper 3D TLC NAND on a quad-lane PCIe 4.0 interface.

You get the usual Phison E18 features, including 1M IOPS in both directions. This 1TB model records 7,300MB/s read and 6,000MB/s write. The 2TB was also found to have excellent sustained performance, especially with its large SLC cache. The same should hold true for this 1TB drive.

It also ran at surprisingly low temperatures, perhaps reflecting its Sony PlayStation origins. One of the key design goals of SSDs for consoles is cool operation, given the tight spaces and generous thermal characteristics of modern game consoles.

This means you can get premium TLC NAND PCIe 4.0 performance at a slightly higher price than a value-oriented drive like the WD Black SN770. One of the best PCIe 4.0 drives, the SK Hynix P41 1TB, is not nearly as fast, but is twice the price.

To see where the Nextorage NEM-PA 1TB fits in the SSD value hierarchy, see our SSD Deals (opens in new tab).