[Hardware] We are already in 2023 and we still have no news of these new SSDs

[FNX Magokiler]

Theoretically in September 2022 we should have seen the first PCIe 5.0 SSDs on the market. Today is January 2, 2023 and we still have no reliable news about the launch of these SSDs. You're probably not going to give a damn about the release of PCIe 5.0 SSDs, and rightly so, but what's going on with these hard drives?

First, a bit of context. Intel introduced support for the PCIe 5.0 interface in the Core 12 Gen and thus subsequent generations of processors. AMD, for its part, offers support for this PCIe 5.0 interface in its new Ryzen 6000 processors. But, there is no component that uses this communication bus.
Speed is sometimes a great detriment
Intel was an early adopter of the PCIe 5.0 interface. It was the first company to offer support for this communication bus in its Core 12 Alder Lake. It offered (and offers, because they are on the market) support for an SSD with PCIe 5.0 interface with 4 direct lines to the processor. But, a year or so after the release of said processors, there are no compatible SSDs.

Who is in charge of the development of the controller for these PCIe 5.0 SSDs is Phison.

 

 

The company is known (to a realistic few) for being the leading manufacturer of controllers for M.2 SSDs. Between October and November 2021, it already announced that, by the second half of the year, its PCIe 5.0 controller for SSDs would go into mass production and that by Q4 2022, we would have the first commercial SSDs.

Just 48 hours ago we entered 2023 and we don't have these units on the market (which, on the other hand, would be expensive and inaccessible to 99% of users). But of course, is there a reason or reasons for this event? Yes, there are several reasons why they haven't been released yet. These are:

Serious temperature problems. Most of the PCIe 5.0 based M.2 SSD models shown use a fan on their heatsink for the generated heat. This new interface allows reaching between 13,000-15,000 MB/s of reading and writing, which generates high temperatures. Something that has forced the heatsinks, which until now were passive, to include a fan
Low chip production. The industry is currently experiencing serious problems in meeting the demand for chip manufacturing. Although they are less than a year or two ago, they still exist
Reduced demand for SSD. Another factor is the brutal drop in demand for SSD drives, which is around 20%. Throwing out now a 1TB SSD that could cost 400-500 euros makes little sense. Yes, the speeds will become brutal, but does that interest the average user?

 

https://hardzone.es/noticias/componentes/cuando-lanzamiento-nuevos-ssd-pcie-5/