Phison PS5028-E28 Reference Design Gen5 Solid State Drive Review @ ThinkComputers
ThinkComputers highlighted the Phison PS5028-E28 as a significant improvement over its predecessor, the E26, particularly in terms of power efficiency and thermal management. Earlier E26-based Gen5 SSDs often required noisy active cooling solutions, but the E28 now offers a cooler and more efficient design. This improvement opens the door for non-heatsink variants and greater compatibility with motherboard M.2 heatsinks. Even drives that include heatsinks should no longer require small fans, making the E28 a more appealing option for users seeking quiet, high-performance storage.
"When it comes to PCI-Express 5.0 or Gen5 NVMe solid state drives a considerable amount of them over the past couple of years have been powered by Phison's E26 controller. While this controller was quite good, like many other Gen5 solutions there were power concerns, which of course led to quite a lot of heat as well. This meant for many of the drives you needed an active cooling solution. Phison has worked on many of these concerns and they are now releasing their E28 controller, which you'll see powering many partner drives over the next couple of years. They sent us over a 2TB reference drive, which features their E28 controller teamed with KIOXIA BiCS8 218-layer TLC 3D NAND flash. Let's take a look and see what you can expect from drives based on this controller!"
Performance-wise, the reference drive equipped with KIOXIA BiCS8 218-layer TLC NAND came very close to its rated specifications, despite using pre-release firmware. ThinkComputers noted that future updates are likely to improve results further. Depending on the platform, performance can vary, with Intel systems favoring random IO and AMD systems excelling in sequential speeds. The review concluded that Phison has effectively addressed the concerns surrounding the E26, and the E28 looks promising as a widely adopted controller for upcoming PCIe Gen5 SSDs. It's a strong recommendation for anyone shopping for next-gen storage this year.
Related Web URL: https://thinkcomputers.org/phison-ps5028-e28-refer...
