PNY XLR8 CS3040 1TB SSD Review

1. Introduction2. PNY XLR8 CS3040 1TB3. Testing Methodology4. CrystalDiskMark5. ATTO Disk Benchmark6. AS SSD7. 128KB Sequential Performance8. 4K Sustained Random Read9. 4K Sustained Random Write10. 4K Random 70/30 mix Read/Write.11. 4K Random Performance QD1-QD812. Throughput13. PCMark 10 Full System Drive Benchmark14. Performance Stability15. Drive Temperatures16. Real Life File Testing17. Closing Thoughts18. View All Pages

To test real-life performance of a drive we use a mix of folder/file types and by using the FastCopy utility (which gives a time as well as MB/s result) we record the performance of drive reading from & writing to a 256GB Samsung SSD850 PRO.

We use the following folder/file types:

100GB data file.
60GB iso image.
60GB Steam folder – 29,521 files.
50GB File folder – 28,523 files.
12GB Movie folder – (15 files – 8 @ .MKV, 4 @ .MOV, 3 @ MP4).
10GB Photo folder – (304 files – 171 @ .RAW, 105 @ JPG, 21 @ .CR2, 5 @ .DNG).
10GB Audio folder – (1,483 files – 1479 @ MP3, 4 @ .FLAC files).
5GB (1.5bn pixel) photo.
BluRay Movie – 42GB.
21GB 8K Movie demos – (11 demos)
16GB 4K Raw Movie Clips – (9 MP4V files).
4.25GB 3D Printer File Folder – (166 files – 105 @ .STL, 38 @ .FBX, 11 @ .blend, 5 @ .lwo, 4 @ .OBJ, 3@ .3ds).
1.5GB AutoCAD File Folder (80 files – 60 @ .DWG and 20 @.DXF).

PNY’s XLR CS3040 handled our real-life file testing without displaying any problems. It averaged 515.8MB/s when writing the larger test files to the drive and 444.4MB/s when reading the data back again.

To get a measure of how much faster PCIe NVMe drives are than standard SATA SSDs we use the same files but transfer to and from a 2TB Kioxia Exceria Plus drive:

Switching over to an all NVMe storage environment we see write speeds approaching 3GB/s, the fastest being the 2,995MB/s when writing the 100GB data file. Nine of the thirteen transfers were over 2GB/s when it came to both reads and writes.

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