Mushkin is not the first to release an 8TB NVMe SSD—that distinction belongs to Sabrent—but it is the latest with its new Alpha series. In doing so, Mushkin joins an extremely small but growing fraternity. Maybe that means prices will start to come down (hey, I can hope).
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Outside of Sabrent and now Mushkin, Corsair is the only other company I'm aware of with an 8TB NVMe SSD for consumers. You can also toss Samsung into the mix if expanding the field to include 2.5-inch SATA models (I'm strictly talking about client drives, not data center models), and even if you do, there are just not many 8TB options.
Mushkin's new drive is based on Phison's E12 controller and is rated to deliver up to 3,400MB/s of sequential read performance, and up 3,000MB/s of sequential write performance. Random 4K reads and writes are rated at up to 550,000 IOPS and 640,000 IOPS, respectively.
This, according to Mushkin, translates into an "uncompromising mix of speed, storage capacity, and reliability for mainstream and professional PC users." And indeed the rated performance figures are on par with the competition, all of which are fast. Here's a look:
- Mushkin Alpha 8TB:
3,400MB/s read, 3,000MB/s write, 550K read IOPS, 640K write IOPS - Corsair MP400 8TB:
3,480MB/s read, 3,000MB/s write, 610K read IOPS, 710K write IOPS - Sabrent Rocket Q 8TB:
3,300MB/s read, 2,900MB/s write, 550K read IOPS, 680K write IOPS
On paper, they are all within 100MB/s of one another, which when you are talking about speeds in the neighborhood of 3,000MB/s, is not much of a difference. Read and write IOPS are fairly close as well, though as rated between the three, Corsair takes the lead.
None of them are remotely cheap, though. Mushkin's new 8TB drive sells for $1,300 on Newegg, which is around $0.16 per gigabyte and the same price as Sabrent's Rocket Q 8TB model. Corsair's MP400 8TB model, meanwhile, runs $1,340.
Pricing makes the 8TB tier rather niche, at least for now. However, Mushkin's entry into the 8TB space is important, because as more SSD makers crank out higher capacity drives, pricing is bound to come down, eventually. And not a moment too soon, with the biggest games by install size taking up north of 100GB and 200GB of drive space.
