SanDisk has the drive pulling 4W or less under typical workloads, which puts the drive into a good spot for mobile devices. We test with a mixed workload, which can push a drive a little bit harder than this. Either way, this isn’t a lot of power for a full-fledged Gen 4 device – the drive’s 7,250 MB/s is near the limits of the interface – so we can expect good power efficiency.
Sandisk backs the drive with the standard 5-year, 600TB of writes per TB warranty. The drive supports the TCG Pyrite 2.01 specification and only has software encryption. This is perfectly normal for a drive of this type. The TBW is, however, higher with TLC versus QLC flash.
Sandisk has you covered with its software . The Sandisk Desktop App, which works on Windows and macOS, is useful for general file transfer and password protection – software encryption, as well. The Sandisk Dashboard is Sandisk’s take on WD’s Dashboard, an SSD toolbox application with a wide range of features. An SSD toolbox like this gives you information on your system and drives, including SMART and health information. It lets you test and benchmark the drive. Importantly, this software also helps you update the firmware, if necessary, and use other features such as Game Mode. Sandisk also offers an Acronis True Image download, which is great for backing up files and your OS or for cloning drives.
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware) (Image credit: Tom's Hardware) Image 1 of 2 View Original
The 2TB Optimus GX 7100M is a single-sided drive, optimized for device compatibility. This does limit it to a single NAND flash package, which puts a cap at 2TB. This is because the most common dies widely available are 1Tb, or 128GB, apiece, and typically a single package – which has to stack the dies on top of each other, might have dummy dies for stability, and has to carefully maintain signal quality without exceeding height limitations – can only hit sixteen dies.
According to the specification sheet, this drive uses the M.2 2230-S3-M form factor. The M.2 format is easily recognizable as the way consumer SSDs are made these days, in contrast to the old 2.5” SATA drives. Other form factors meet the needs of the enterprise. 2230 tells us the length and width in millimeters. This is a common size for portable devices like the Steam Deck , the Asus ROG Ally , and the Lenovo Legion Go . The “M” part means it’s M-key, which we expect these days as NVMe drives using a full four lanes are common. Some drives can drop back to two lanes, like the Samsung 990 EVO and Samsung 990 EVO Plus , but are still capable of using four.
The “S3” is the part we’re looking for here, which tells us it’s single-sided rather than double-sided with a “D.” The number tells us the permitted height of the components. S1 allows for 1.2mm, S2 1.35mm, and S3 1.5mm. We would expect this drive to be S3 since it needs to pack in sixteen dies. The nominal PCB thickness for M.2 is 0.8mm, so this puts the drive at ~2.3mm, and the datasheet lists 2.38mm. This isn’t too interesting on its own, but it could be useful if you know the exact limitations of your device or need to make other measurements, such as for custom cooling. Some devices can take double-sided devices, which, as you can imagine, have similar height thresholds but with components on both sides.
One other interesting thing is the rated power: 3.3V at 1.8A puts the peak power around 6W. This is well higher than the specification sheet, which, again, is for average and also with read and write separately rather than mixed, as well as what’s listed by SMART and in our testing. We reckon this drive will always be below 5W, which normally would ensure there won’t be any heat issues. For M.2 2280, that’s broadly true, but heat is always an issue for 2230.
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware) (Image credit: Tom's Hardware) (Image credit: Tom's Hardware) Image 1 of 3 View Original
In addition to the sole NAND flash package, the drive also has a DRAM-less SSD controller and power management circuitry. The controller is proprietary Sandisk technology, listed as the A101-000171-A1. Similar to the WD Black SN7100's A101-000172-A1, which is a four-channel controller that can take fast enough flash to saturate PCIe 4.0. We would expect the drives to share the same flash, too, which would be Sandisk’s 218-Layer TLC. BiCS8 flash, whether TLC or QLC, has proven to have fantastic random read latency and also excellent power efficiency. This makes it great for the M.2 2230 segment.
The 7100M is still DRAM-less, as it can be difficult to make a DRAM package work in this form factor. In the past, it was not uncommon to see DRAM at least in M.2 2242, but modern host memory buffer (HMB) solutions are quite good. A quick look at the random 4KB results for this drive will dispel any illusions that you need DRAM to make a drive feel fast. In fact, it’s very unlikely DRAM would ever make a difference in the type of device this drive is made for, although there are always exceptions. Yes, there are some odd drives that have DRAM as part of the controller package – SK hynix’s BC711 comes to mind –, but these are rare and relegated to the Gen 3 era. An OEM Gen 3 drive is perfectly enough for a Steam Deck, but we’re in the business of gauging modern retail options.
The older Black SN770M , which is a retail version of the OEM SN740 – an extremely popular drive when the Steam Deck was still young – and a shortened version of the Black SN770 , struggled with power efficiency. At least, in comparison to some of the newer 2230 drives on the block. With that problem out of the way, thanks to more efficient flash, the 7100M might very well be the best drive of its type available. We certainly think so, but knowing the pedigree of the hardware can help explain why this is.
Current page: Sandisk Optimus GX 7100M Introduction
Key considerations
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ssds/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ssds/sandisk-optimus-gx-7100m-2tb-ssd-review#main
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