14 DAY TRIAL // When we talk about PCI Express solid state drives, we usually end up describing utter juggernauts which beat all other types of storage devices in capacity and speed, save maybe some HDDs, and even then the SSDs are much, much faster.
It mostly has to do with the wide bandwidth of PCI Express technology, and the naturally quick access times allowed by NAND Flash chips.
In many cases, it permits PCI Express SSDs to offer one, two or more gigabytes of storage space, all the while showing the ability to move data around at 1.8 GB/s, and in some cases well above 2 GB/s. And yes, we do mean 1.8 – 2+ GB, not Gb.
The new solid state drive from Apacer is, thus, unusual in that it doesn't go nearly as overboard as almost every other PCIe SSD in the world.
The Apacer PT910 PCI Express SSD
Designed for PCI Express 2.0 x2 interfaces, it has a 4K random read/write speed of 100,000 IOPS and sequential read / write speeds (sustained performance as it were) of 830 / 790 MB/s.
That basically puts it at less than half the potential performance of the device type, but still beyond SATA drives by a fair bit.
Even the quickest SATA III SSDs are stuck at 555 MB/s mostly, and only rarely reach beyond that. And that's in benchmarks, not real world measurements.
There's another reason why the newcomer doesn't go any faster though, since it can't be owed to the controller. You can't get much better than SandForce, and you've got two of them here.
Basically, the drives don't have such a huge capacity. Where most PCI Express SSDs go beyond 1 TB levels, the Apacer PT910 sticks to 256 GB and 515 GB.
Target customer base and availability
In its press release, Apacer says the new PT910 PCI Express SSD is intended for “game experts, musicians and audio/video workers.”
It's another way of saying that the newcomer is intended as an affordable alternative to all other SSDs designed with this form factor and interface. It's a real shame that Apacer didn't actually include the price in the announcement. We'd have been able to say whether or not the goal has been reached.
On the bright side, it usually doesn't take long for products to show up in stores once their press release goes live. You can learn the price once they do that, so keep an eye out for a PCI Express board with “Thunderbird” written in white over a black background.