Transcend Unveils Flagship MTE260S PCIe 5 SSD With Scorching-Fast Speeds
Transcend is trotting out a new top-of-the-line solid state drive (SSD) with some impressive speed metrics, at least on paper (we haven't spent any hands-on time with it yet), and it's probably deserving of a more exciting name. As it stands, Transcend's new flagship model is simply called MTE260S. What do all those characters mean? Your guess is as good as ours.
Beyond the boring name, however, is a spunky entry into the PCI Express 5.0 storage space. Offered in the popular M.2 2280 form factor (which is around the size of a stick of bubble gum), the MTE260S pairs an unspecified 6-nanometer low-power controller (probably from Silicon Motion) with 3D NAND flash memory to produce sequential read speeds of up to 14,000MB/s (14GB/s) and sequential write speeds of up to 11,000MB/s (11GB/s).
It's not the fastest drive we've seen, in terms of rated (or tested) speeds, as one only need reference our recent Crucial T710 SSD review, which is another low-power PCIe Gen 5 SSD. Though at least in terms of sequential reads, it's right up there with some of the fastest models, and around twice as fast as the top Gen 4 models.
To put the speeds into perspective, Gen 5 SSDs have up to around 15,700MB/s (15.7GB/s) of throughput to tap into. However, overhead and other factors mean we'll never see a PCIe 5.0 model reach that theoretical ceiling. Assuming Transcend's new drive can hit its rated read speed, however, the drive gets 89% there.
Meanwhile, Transcend rates the 4K random read and write IOPS at up to 1.4 million and 11 million, respectively, though we suspect the write metric is a typo—Transcend probably means 1.1 million IOPS. Here again, the Crucial T710 boasts faster metrics at up to 2.2 million IOPS for 4K random reads and up to 2.3 million IOPS for random writes. Still, not too shabby, especially if Transcend can offer the MTE260S at a value-driven price point.
Transcend is making its flagship SSD available in two capacities—2TB and 1TB. All of the above speed metrics apply to the 2TB model; it's not clear to us if the same metrics apply to the 1TB model. If not, there shouldn't be a huge difference.
Transcend's press release doesn't mention pricing or a release date for the MTE260S, only that it's backed by a five-year warranty. As a point of reference, however, you can snag a high-performance SSD like Samsung's 9100 Pro for $239.99 for 2TB and $169.99 for 1TB on Amazon (both of which are sale prices).
