Mushkin showcases Epsilon PCIe 5.0 SSD prototype at CES 2023

Mushkin’s Epsilon PCIe 5.0 SSD has a huge heatsink and active cooling 

At CES 2023, Mushlin has showcased their planned EPSILON SSD, a PCIe 5.0 drive that is designed to use Phison’s new E26 SSD controller and “next-generation 3D NAND flash”. 

Mushkin’s Epsilon SSD looks eerily similar to Patriot’s planned PCIe 5.0 SSD, a prototype of which was revealed last week. This suggests that both of these PCIe 5.0 SSD prototypes are based on reference SSD designs from Phison, explaining why both SSDs utilise the same heatsink design. Different heatsink designs will likely be used when these SSDs make it to market. 

While Mushkin has not revealed the performance levels of their PCIe 5.0 SSD, other Phison E26-based SSDs can achieve sequential read speeds of over 12GB/s using 232-layer Micron 3D NAND. Other manufacturers have also claimed that their drives will be available in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB forms, which means that we will likely to see similar models from Mushkin. 

The era of PCIe 5.0 storage will soon be upon us, allowing PC builders to finally make use of the PCIe 5.0 lanes that are offered on modern AMD and Intel motherboards. Expect these new SSDs to be more expensive than today’s high-end PCIe 4.0 storage drives, as they will require both high-end NAND and the newest SSD controllers in order to achieve 10+ GB/s speeds.

You can join the discussion on Mushkin’s Epsilon PCIe 5.0 SSD on the OC3D Forums.