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High-end SSDs have always been a luxury, but this is becoming the default state of affairs lately. Having more options, especially affordable ones, is becoming increasingly important. Adata took this to heart with its XPG Mars 980 Blade, delivering an understated yet fast drive with none of the compromises of earlier solutions. It’s an affordable luxury with good performance and power efficiency, all under a basic but effective heatspreader. It checks the PCIe 5.0 box and delivers next-gen numbers at the lowest price in its class.
This doesn’t come without cost. Yeah, it doesn’t require a heatsink like earlier drives in this class, and it’s not making pit stops at 10 and 12 GB/s as it tries to push the PCIe 5.0 interface. This is a power-efficient, high-performance drive, but to bring the price down, it has to make a sacrifice somewhere. This trade-off is in the flash – older, 232-Layer Micron TLC that isn't as performant as subsequent iterations. This translates to some performance quirks that keep it from being a really fast drive. However, the price savings might be worth it in the current market.
Adata XPG Mars 980 Blade Specifications
Swipe to scroll horizontally Product 1TB 2TB 4TB Pricing $104.99 $159.99 $319.99 Form Factor M.2 2280 (DS) M.2 2280 (DS) M.2 2280 (DS) Interface / Protocol PCIe 5.0 x4
NVMe 2.0 PCIe 5.0 x4
NVMe 2.0 PCIe 5.0 x4
NVMe 2.0 Controller Silicon Motion SM2508 Silicon Motion SM2508 Silicon Motion SM2508 DRAM DDR4 DDR4 DDR4 Flash Memory Micron 232-Layer TLC Micron 232-Layer TLC Micron 232-Layer TLC Sequential Read 14,000 MB/s 14,000 MB/s 14,000 MB/s Sequential Write 10,000 MB/s 13,000 MB/s 13,000 MB/s Random Read 1,600K 2,000K 1,950K Random Write 1,650K 1,650K 1,650K Security N/A N/A N/A Endurance (TBW) 740TB 1,480TB 2,960TB Part Number SMAR-980B-1TCS SMAR-980B-2TCS SMAR-980B-4TCS Warranty 5-Year 5-Year 5-Year
The Adata XPG Mars 980 Blade is available at 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB. At the time of review, only the 1TB was in stock, but recent pricing has the drive at $104.99, $159.99, and $319.99. This makes it extremely affordable compared to other drives in the high-end PCIe 5.0 SSDs class. It’s even less expensive than the Lexar NM1090 Pro , which has similar hardware. Given the current rise in SSD prices, the XPG Mars 980 Blade, or 980 Blade for short, is in a great place if you want a PCIe 5.0 drive. We caution that pricing and availability will be increasingly volatile, so comparable drives might offer a better deal at certain points in time.
The drive can deliver on the performance front. It’s capable of achieving up to 14,000/13,000 MB/s for sequential reads and writes, and up to 2,000K/1,650K random read and write IOPS. The drive peaks at 2TB. We’d recommend the Crucial T710 if you want a drive in this class that can reach high speeds at just 1TB. The 980 Blade includes a standard five-year warranty, with up to 740TB of writes per TB of capacity, backed by Adata. This is higher than the typical 600TB per TB, so if you’re a buyer focused on endurance ratings, this drive might be worth a second look.
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