A drive of its time that's left us with more questions than answers. Solid, dependable, good performance, but just don't expect it to be topping the charts any time soon. Or stay in stock for long.



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I vehemently dislike reviewing laptops. I know that's a weird sentence to start an SSD review off with, but humor me for a second. Basically, the configuration you get is never correct. You go "oh hi X manufacturer, this laptop looks great, can you send me a sample for review?" and they go "yeah, sure, this is the model" and it'll arrive on your doorstep, and it's some weird hybrid amped up special edition with extra RAM, a different storage setup, and a screen that you can't find anywhere else except from some odd retailer eseller based in the Seychelles, for some reason.

At that point you'll then proceed to spend the next three hours of your life trying to source a price for the thing that's even remotely similar to the one you have, and then scream because without a price tag reviewing the thing becomes damn near impossible.

Sadly, in the last year or so, SSD reviewing has followed a remarkably similar path. 33% of the time the SSD you get, doesn't have the same NAND and controller that it actually launched with, 33% of the time its price has been ricocheting back and forth to the point it doesn't resemble anything to the launch price, and the remaining 33% of the time manufacturers will just flat out tell you "sorry we're no longer sampling SSDs due to challenging market conditions." Eugh…

So firstly, let me just say, Kioxia, you bloody legends. Well played. I did not expect to see another SSD review in my career, genuinely, and yet here we are. You had the brass balls to launch a consumer product in the middle of a NAND "drought", and provide reviewers with samples to critique, and I gotta respect the hustle.

Capacity: 2 TBInterface: PCIe 5.0 x4Memory controller: Silicon Motion SM2508Flash memory: Kioxia 21913 0455 1747

8-Layer BiCS8 TLC NAND Rated performance: 14,900 MB/s sustained read, 13,400 MB/s sustained writeEndurance: 1200 TBWWarranty: Five yearsPrice: £350



Anyway, this is the Kioxia Exceria Pro G2, and it is a fascinating little drive. And not just because Kioxia actually sent me one. The hardware alone is interesting enough.

The beating heart of this thing is Silicon Motion's SM2508 8-channel controller. This is the same one that's found on a whole plethora of SSDs of times long past when you could actually buy one, including Kingston's Fury Renegade G5, and the (I'm still calling it) legendary SanDisk WD Black SN8100.

Similarly, it also packs in that Kioxia 218-layer BiCS8 TLC NAND as well, because, well, you know it's Kioxia. Be a bit weird if they didn't. With that, you get 2GB of LPDDR4X and a tasty 1,200 TBW endurance rating, all bundled into a single-sided M.2-2280 design. Nice.

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Pricing is, well, difficult; true launch day laptop madness. Already this thing's out of stock almost everywhere. You can pre-order one in the UK for about £350 from Overclockers, and in the US there's some lovely "resellers" that will kit you out with the thing for the super low, low price of, ahem, $750. Boy, I love scalpers. I mean, thanks guys, glad you're not profiteering off other people's suffering like you usually do (please don't buy it at that price point).



For those not in the know, that BiCS8 is the real star of the show here, particularly when paired with the SMi controller. It made waves with that SN8100 back in the day, and with good reason, as that fated combo delivered some exceptional random 4K performance, which is a core driver in terms of game load times, and ...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com

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