Kioxia Unveils BG8 SSDs With PCIe 5.0 Speeds for Mainstream PCs

Kioxia is continuing its effort to bring more affordable storage options to the mainstream market, this time with the introduction of its BG8 series that aims to deliver PCI Express 5.0 speeds to a range of consumer systems, including thin and light laptops, and desktops as well. It's also targeting the commercial segment, though the main focus appears to be PC OEMs.

The unveiling comes hot the heels of Kioxia's EG7 series SSDs, its first client solution to feature the company's BiCS Flash generation 8 quadruple-level cell (QLC) technology that also takes aim at bringing fast and cheaper storage to the mainstream segment. However, the BG8 series ups the ante by tapping in PCIe 5.0 for a performance boost.

Kioxia's BG8 drives are built around the company's BiCS Flash generation 8 triple-level cell (TLC) 3D NAND flash memory chips. The caveat to the PCIe 5.0 pitch is that the rated speeds don't really come close to saturating the bus, though the rated speeds are faster than what PCIe 4.0 models can hit.

According to Kioxia, the BG8 series can deliver sequential read speeds of up to 10,300MB/s (10.3GB/s) and sequential write speeds of up to 10,000MB/s (10GB/s). 4K random read and write speeds are rated at up to 1,4 million IOPS and 1.3 million IOPS, respectively.

For context, four lanes of PCIe 5.0 bandwidth have a theoretical maximum throughput of around 15,750MB/s (15.75GB/s). For PCIe 4.0, four lanes afford up to 7,880MB/s (7.88GB/s).

Overhead cuts into real-world speeds, but even accounting for that, the BG8 series leaves a gap between it and higher performance PCIe 5.0 models like Samsung's 9100 Pro, which is rated to hit up to 14,800MB/s (14.8GB/s) for sequential reads and up to 13.400MB/s (13.4GB/s) for sequential writes. They're still fast, though, and potentially attractive if they can reduce laptop and desktop costs, especially as storage and memory prices continue to soar.

In keeping with the budget angle, Kioxia's new drives are also DRAM-less models. That's arguably the biggest tradeoff for presumably cheaper pricing.

Kioxia is offering its new BG8 series SSDs in M.2 2280, 2242, and 2230 form factors in 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB capacities. The company says it's currently sampling the new SSD range to select PC OEMs, with shipments expected by the end of the current quarter.