PNY has added a 960GB capacity drive to its CS900 line of entry-level solid state drives. Billed as a "low-cost" SSD family, other capacity options in the CS900 series include 480GB, 240GB, and 120GB models.
This is a 2.5-inch SSD with a SATA 6Gbps interface. PNY is a little late to the game here, as the company hasn't been as active in the SSD space as many of its competitors. SATA-based SSDs in the 1TB range (and higher) are fairly commonplace now.
The 960GB CS900 is PNY's second 960GB SSD, the other being a more performance oriented CS2211 series drive under its XLR8 branding. PNY is leveraging less expensive triple-level cell (TLC) NAND flash memory chips on the CS900 series to hit lower price points than the CS2211 line, which uses multi-level cell (MLC) NAND chips.
"Storage technology has changed dramatically in no time. A few years ago it was unimaginable to develop a consumer-friendly SSD with almost one terabyte of memory. That's why we're proud to announce the newest addition to our CS900 family. The CS900 with 960GB meets today's requirement for large storage space and lightning-fast data transmission alike," PNY says.
We haven't spent any hands-on time with this drive, but on paper it's rated to deliver up to 535MB/s of sequential read performance and up to 515MB/s of sequential write performance. For comparison, the 960GB CS2211 is rated to hit up to 565MB/s and 540MB/s of sequential read and write performance, respectively (basically the limit of the SATA interface). Curiously lacking from the CS900's spec sheet is any mention of random IO performance, which is likely a weak point for the drive.
The drive is available now in the UK for £216 and in the US for $230. Those are fairly aggressive price points. Most other 1TB-class 2.5-inch SSDs typically run £240 and up in the UK, and $250 and up in the US. If you're after larger amounts of NAND storage, this is potentially one of the least expensive options.
