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Stay Awhile and Listen: The Strange, Wonderful, and Sometimes Ridiculous World of SSDs 
Stay awhile and listen.
I originally thought I was simply collecting a few interesting SSDs.
Then I started researching them.
That was a mistake. 
Because once you start looking into OEM SSDs, old Intel drives, Optane, SLC vs. MLC vs. TLC vs. QLC, PCIe Gen3/Gen4/Gen5, sustained writes, endurance ratings, controller architecture, mysterious Dell-specific configurations, and ridiculously cheap Chinese SSDs with names that look like someone fell asleep on a keyboard…
you eventually realize something:
SSDs are much more interesting than their benchmark numbers suggest.
I now have a collection that accidentally represents several completely different philosophies of storage technology:
Intel X25-E 64GB- Intel SSD 730 480GB
Intel Optane 900P 280GB HHHL
Lite-On CX2-GB1024-Q11 1TB
SK hynix PCB01 2TB
And for the sake of comparison, we also have the budget dungeon-crawlers:
Fanxiang S101- The legendary “ASDFGHJKL;'” SSD
Each one is special for a completely different reason.
Some are fast.
Some are durable.
Some have unusual technology.
Some are historically important.
And some appear to have been named by someone randomly smashing the keyboard.
1. Intel X25-E — The “Slow but Immortal” SSD
Let’s begin with one of the oldest and most fascinating drives:
Intel X25-E
The X25-E comes from an era when SSDs were still relatively exotic and expensive compared with hard drives.
Intel could have simply tried to make the fastest consumer SSD possible.
Instead, the X25-E went in a completely different direction.
It used:
SLC NAND
That’s single-level cell NAND, meaning each NAND cell stores only one bit.
That sounds incredibly inefficient compared with modern NAND.
And it is.
But the simplicity has advantages.
SLC provides:
- Extremely high endurance
- Lower write amplification
- Excellent write consistency
- Fewer voltage states to distinguish
- Very predictable behavior
The X25-E was therefore designed primarily for enterprise workloads, not for storing your Steam library.
Its sequential performance was approximately:
250 MB/s read
170 MB/s write
In 2026, those numbers are almost comical.
A modern PCIe 5.0 SSD can exceed 14,000 MB/s.
But the X25-E wasn’t trying to win a sequential benchmark.
Its philosophy was:
“I don’t need to be the fastest. I need to survive.”
And that is why I call it:
The Slow but Immortal SSD
The official endurance rating was already enormous for its era.
And endurance experiments on Intel’s enterprise SLC drives demonstrated that these things could tolerate extraordinarily large amounts of writing before finally dying.
Imagine writing a terabyte to a 64GB SSD.
That means replacing the entire capacity roughly:
16 times.
Do that repeatedly and eventually you reach absurd numbers.
The X25-E essentially belongs to a time when SSD engineers were saying:
“Flash memory is expensive. Make every write count.”
It is slow.
It is tiny.
It is ancient.
And I absolutely love it.
2. SLC vs. MLC vs. TLC vs. QLC
The X25-E also demonstrates how radically NAND technology has evolved.
SLC
1 bit per cell
Maximum simplicity.
Maximum endurance.
Very expensive per gigabyte.
MLC
2 bits per cell
Excellent compromise between capacity, endurance and performance.
This became extremely popular among high-end consumer and enterprise SSDs.
TLC
3 bits per cell
Much greater density.
Modern TLC has become remarkably good.
High-quality TLC SSDs can provide enormous performance while retaining excellent endurance for normal consumer workloads.
QLC
4 bits per cell
Even greater density.
Lower cost per gigabyte.
But greater reliance on sophisticated controllers, caching and NAND management.
And this is where the famous:
“0 bytes/second”
experience can appear during sustained writes. 
A QLC SSD can initially write extremely quickly into an SLC cache.
Then the cache fills.
The SSD has to reorganize and fold data into QLC NAND while performing garbage collection and other background work.
Windows may then show something like:
1,500 MB/s
→ 600 MB/s
→ 80 MB/s
→ 0 bytes/second
→ 700 MB/s
→ 0 bytes/second
→ 200 MB/s
And you’re sitting there wondering:
“Is this thing actually an SSD?”
This doesn’t mean every QLC drive behaves this way, and modern controllers have gotten much better.
But it demonstrates why:
Peak sequential speed ≠sustained performance.
3. Lite-On CX2-GB1024-Q11 — The OEM Survivor
Now we get to one of my favorite drives:
Lite-On CX2-GB1024-Q11 1TB
This one has personal history.
It came from an old 2017 Dell XPS.
Eventually, the XPS motherboard appeared to die.
The SSD, however?
Still alive.
So instead of letting it sit in a drawer, I installed the CX2 into the second NVMe slot of my much newer Alienware system.
And it just worked.
Years separated the two systems.
Completely different hardware generations.
Yet the old OEM SSD simply continued doing its job.
That is exactly the kind of thing I love about older hardware.
The CX2 isn’t a modern Gen5 monster.
But it uses MLC NAND, and that makes it particularly interesting.
Depending on workload and test conditions, the drive can deliver roughly:
and around:
with some tests showing higher short-term figures.
The exact result depends heavily on workload, temperature, drive condition, free space and benchmark methodology.
But the interesting part isn’t its peak read speed.
It’s what happens when you actually make it work.
Why the CX2 Is Still Useful in 2026
A modern Gen4 or Gen5 SSD absolutely destroys it in peak sequential bandwidth.
There is no contest.
But does Diablo IV care?
Not particularly.
A good SATA SSD is already dramatically better than a hard drive.
A PCIe Gen3 NVMe SSD is faster still.
Gen4 is faster again.
Gen5 is faster again.
But the game doesn’t suddenly become four times better because you replaced a perfectly competent Gen3 NVMe drive with a 14 GB/s Gen5 drive.
That’s why the CX2 remains perfectly reasonable as a secondary gaming drive.
And there’s another reason I like it:
MLC.
Modern TLC is excellent.
But the CX2 comes from an era where MLC was still common in high-performance storage.
That gives the drive an interesting sustained-write character.
It doesn’t need to rely on enormous pseudo-SLC caches to make its benchmark screenshot look impressive.
It can simply sit there and write.
That’s why I’ve described it as:
The OEM Survivor.
It isn’t the fastest.
It isn’t the newest.
But it refuses to become irrelevant.
4. Intel SSD 730 — The Skull
Then we reach the Intel SSD 730.
This is one of the most distinctive SATA SSDs Intel ever produced for enthusiasts.
And yes:
It has the skull.
But the skull is only part of the story.
Intel based the 730 on technology with enterprise roots and then aggressively tuned it for enthusiast performance.
Intel documented factory-overclocked characteristics including:
Controller: 400 → 600 MHz
and:
NAND bus: 83 → 100 MHz
The result was approximately:
for the 480GB model.
Today, those numbers don’t sound impressive.
But SATA III itself was the bottleneck.
The drive was effectively pushing toward the practical limits of the interface.
It also used MLC NAND, included DRAM and was designed for relatively demanding workloads.
So Intel effectively created:
Enterprise-derived technology + MLC + factory overclocking + enthusiast firmware + a giant skull
This is why the 730 has such a special place in Intel SSD history.
It wasn’t simply another SATA drive.
It was Intel basically saying:
“Let’s make an enthusiast SSD.”
And then putting a skull on it.
5. Intel Optane 900P — The Forbidden Technology
Now we reach the drive that makes the entire collection even stranger.
Intel Optane 900P 280GB HHHL
This is not merely another SSD.
It uses:
3D XPoint
rather than conventional NAND.
And that changes everything.
The 900P was designed around characteristics that conventional NAND struggled to provide simultaneously:
- Extremely low latency
- Excellent random performance
- High endurance
- Consistent behavior
- Very high write tolerance
The 280GB model was rated around:
Those numbers look almost embarrassing next to a PCB01.
But then you look at:
~550K random read IOPS
~500K random write IOPS
and:
sub-10 µs latency
and:
multi-petabyte endurance
Suddenly, the drive looks very different.
Optane Was the “What If?” of Storage
This is why I’m still disappointed that Intel stopped producing Optane.
Optane wasn’t simply another SSD brand.
It represented an alternative direction for persistent storage.
The fundamental question was:
“What if persistent storage could behave much more like memory?”
Instead of endlessly increasing NAND density, Optane tried to attack the problem from another direction:
Reduce latency.
Increase endurance.
Improve consistency.
Make random access much less painful.
The problem was economics.
NAND became increasingly cheap and dense.
Optane remained expensive and required a completely different manufacturing ecosystem.
Eventually, Intel discontinued the technology.
And now the 900P is almost like a technological relic from an alternate timeline.
6. The Tiny Optane Modules Are Still Useful
This is where the story gets even funnier.
There are still huge numbers of:
16GB and 32GB Optane modules
floating around the used market.
Sometimes you can find them incredibly cheaply.
And 16GB sounds ridiculous in 2026.
But there’s one application where that capacity can actually make perfect sense:
TrueNAS boot storage.
A TrueNAS boot drive doesn’t need terabytes.
It needs:
Reliability.
A cheap 16GB Optane module can therefore be strangely appropriate.
You don’t need to store your movies on it.
You don’t need Steam.
You don’t need Diablo IV.
You simply need it to boot the system and remain reliable.
Compare that with a suspicious 60GB/120GB SATA SSD containing:
No DRAM
Cheap NAND
Unknown controller
Unknown firmware
Questionable endurance
I’d rather have the tiny Optane.
It’s almost comical:
“How much storage do you have?”
“16GB.”
“That’s terrible.”
“I’m running TrueNAS.”
“…oh.”
7. SK hynix PCB01 — The Shako of OEM SSDs
And now we arrive at the funniest SSD in the collection.
SK hynix PCB01 2TB
Let’s say the name out loud:
PCB01
Does that sound like an incredible Gen5 SSD?
No.
It sounds like:
A circuit board.
Maybe something sitting in a warehouse bin.
Maybe a development board.
Maybe a spare PCB waiting for components.
And if you only saw the back of the drive, with its green PCB and the PCB01 marking, you could easily think:
“That’s just a generic OEM SSD PCB.”
Except…
NO.
Underneath that boring appearance is a modern PCIe 5.0 Ă—4 NVMe SSD.
SK hynix designed PCB01 as a high-performance client SSD, particularly for OEM and AI-PC applications.
The platform uses an 8-channel PCIe 5.0 architecture and SK hynix quotes approximately:
14 GB/s sequential read
That’s ridiculous compared with the old X25-E.
The X25-E:
250 MB/s
PCB01:
14,000 MB/s
That’s approximately 56× the sequential read bandwidth.
And yet the PCB01’s name sounds like it should be slower.
PCB01 and the Shako Problem
This is where the Diablo IV analogy becomes perfect.
Everyone knows:
Harlequin Crest
But everyone calls it:
Shako
Technically, Shako is the item base/type.
Harlequin Crest is the Unique.
But the community doesn’t care anymore.
Likewise:
PCB01
looks like a description of the circuit board itself.
But in reality:
PCB01 = a high-performance Gen5 NVMe SSD
It’s the exact opposite of a flashy retail SSD.
No:
“ULTRA GAMER XTREME PRO”
No ridiculous RGB.
No marketing monster.
Just:
PCB01
And then:
14 GB/s
That’s why I call it:
The Shako of OEM SSDs
8. Why OEM SSDs Are So Weird
This entire collection convinced me that OEM SSDs deserve far more attention.
Retail drives generally tell you what they are.
OEM drives sometimes make you investigate.
You may need to determine:
- Controller
- NAND type
- NAND generation
- NAND channels
- DRAM configuration
- Firmware
- PCIe generation
- OEM restrictions
- Power-management configuration
- Thermal behavior
- Sustained-write performance
- Exact capacity configuration
And sometimes you discover something incredible.
Or something terrible.
You never quite know.
That’s what makes them fun.
9. The XG10 vs. XG10D Mystery
The Kioxia XG10/XG10D situation is another perfect example.
The XG10 platform is associated with PCIe Gen5 technology.
But certain OEM configurations identified as XG10D can be limited to a Gen4 PCIe link despite using hardware that otherwise belongs to a newer generation.
That creates an incredibly strange situation:
Gen5-class controller
Gen5-capable NAND
Gen5-capable platform
but:
Gen4 operating link
Why?
There are several plausible explanations:
- OEM validation
- Power limits
- Thermal considerations
- Platform compatibility
- Product segmentation
- Cost
- Firmware configuration
But without Dell or Kioxia explicitly explaining the design decision, the exact reasoning remains a mystery.
And that is another reason OEM storage is so fascinating.
Sometimes the hardware specification isn’t the whole story.
10. Gen3 → Gen4 → Gen5
Your collection also demonstrates just how insane SSD performance has become.
A rough progression looks like this:
Intel X25-E
250 MB/s
↓
Intel 730
550 MB/s
↓
Lite-On CX2
~2,500 MB/s
↓
Optane 900P
2,500 MB/s
↓
Samsung 990 Pro / WD SN850X
~7,000+ MB/s
↓
SK hynix PCB01
~14,000 MB/s
↓
Modern extreme Gen5 drives
14,000+ MB/s
And yet the ranking changes completely when we stop looking only at sequential reads.
11. Peak Speed Isn’t Everything
If we ranked these drives purely by:
Sequential read
then the X25-E would look pathetic.
But that’s unfair.
The X25-E wasn’t designed for that.
Likewise, the 900P looks slow beside PCB01.
But Optane wasn’t primarily about winning sequential benchmarks.
The CX2 looks ancient next to a Gen5 drive.
But it can still be useful because of its MLC NAND and sustained-write characteristics.
The 730 is constrained by SATA.
But SATA itself is the limitation.
And this is why SSD comparisons can become misleading.
A drive can have:
14 GB/s peak
and still perform poorly in a particular sustained workload.
Another drive can have:
1 GB/s sustained
and be completely adequate.
Another might have:
2 GB/s sequential
but extraordinarily good latency.
The right question isn’t:
“Which SSD is fastest?”
It’s:
“Fastest at what?”
12. The F-Tier: Fanxiang and the Mysterious “ASDFGHJKL;'”
And now…
We enter the cursed dungeon.
There are inexpensive Chinese SSDs that can be perfectly acceptable.
But there are also drives where the branding itself makes you stop and ask:
“Who named this?”
And that’s where the legendary:
ASDFGHJKL;’
SSD enters the conversation.
Yes.
That is essentially what the name looks like.
It looks like someone placed their fingers on the keyboard and went:
ASDFGHJKL;’
and then said:
“Excellent. Ship it.”
Obviously, the name itself doesn’t prove that the SSD is bad.
A strange brand can still contain legitimate hardware.
But this is exactly why unknown ultra-cheap SSDs deserve scrutiny.
The problem isn’t:
“Chinese SSD = bad.”
That’s an oversimplification.
The problem is:
Unknown hardware + unknown NAND + unknown controller + questionable firmware + suspiciously low price = investigate first.
Some cheap drives can change components between production batches.
You might not know whether you’re getting:
- TLC
- QLC
- DRAM-less NAND
- Different controller
- Different firmware
- Different NAND manufacturer
The label may remain identical.
That’s far more concerning than the funny name.
13. The F-Tier SSD Philosophy
A suspiciously cheap SATA SSD might advertise:
500 MB/s read
and:
300 MB/s write
And technically, that’s reasonable for SATA.
But if the drive contains poor NAND and has no DRAM, its real behavior may be substantially less impressive.
And if you use it for sustained writes?
You can end up with:
“Please wait…”
This is why I’d rather buy a known older enterprise or enthusiast SSD than a completely unknown drive with a ridiculous name.
A used Intel Optane module may be tiny.
A used X25-E may be ancient.
A used CX2 may be several generations old.
But at least you know what you’re dealing with.
14. Diablo IV Doesn’t Care About Your 14 GB/s SSD
And this brings us full circle.
Suppose you’re playing Diablo IV.
You have:
PCB01
capable of roughly 14 GB/s.
Or:
CX2
capable of a couple GB/s.
Or:
Samsung 990 Pro
around 7 GB/s.
Or:
A good SATA SSD
around 500 MB/s.
All of these are dramatically better than a mechanical hard drive for the basic experience of running the game.
The game doesn’t suddenly become:
28Ă— better
because the SSD is 28Ă— faster.
That’s not how game workloads work.
Game loading involves:
- Small random reads
- Larger sequential reads
- Decompression
- CPU processing
- Asset initialization
- Shader compilation
- Engine overhead
- Memory loading
The SSD is only one component.
So a perfectly good Gen3 NVMe SSD can remain completely reasonable for gaming.
And that makes the CX2 even more interesting.
It isn’t a “high-performance SSD” in 2026.
But it’s still a perfectly respectable SSD.
15. What Makes Each Drive Special?
If I had to summarize the collection:
Intel X25-E
Special because:
SLC, enterprise endurance and historical significance.
Personality:
The immortal tank.
Intel SSD 730
Special because:
MLC, enterprise-derived architecture, factory-overclocked controller/NAND bus and the skull.
Personality:
The overclocked veteran.
Intel Optane 900P
Special because:
3D XPoint, incredibly low latency, high random performance and huge endurance.
Personality:
The forbidden technology.
Lite-On CX2
Special because:
MLC NAND, NVMe performance and surprisingly respectable sustained writes for an older OEM drive.
Personality:
The survivor.
SK hynix PCB01
Special because:
PCIe Gen5 Ă—4, 8-channel architecture, modern TLC and enormous sequential bandwidth hiding behind an absurdly boring name.
Personality:
The Shako.
Fanxiang S101
Special because:
A representative of the ultra-budget SSD world, where advertised specifications may tell only part of the story.
Personality:
The common dungeon drop.
“ASDFGHJKL;'”
Special because:
The name itself deserves a Unique item.
Personality:
The cursed keyboard artifact.
16. The Diablo IV SSD Inventory
And now, for the fun part.
If these SSDs were Diablo IV items, I think their stat screens would look something like this:
Intel X25-E 64GB
The Immortal
Unique SSD — Ancient
Item Power: 900
Storage: 64GB
Interface: SATA
NAND: SLC
Base Stats
- Sequential Read: 250 MB/s
- Sequential Write: 170 MB/s
- Capacity: 64GB
- Endurance: Extremely High
Affixes
- +999% Endurance
- +500% Sustained Write Consistency
- -90% Capacity
- -95% Sequential Bandwidth
- +1000% Historical Significance
Enchants
“Death Comes Eventually”
The drive may be ancient, but it refuses to surrender.
“One Bit to Rule Them All”
SLC NAND grants exceptional endurance.
Intel SSD 730 480GB
Skull of Intel
Unique SSD
Item Power: 950
Storage: 480GB
Interface: SATA III
NAND: MLC
Base Stats
- Sequential Read: 550 MB/s
- Sequential Write: 450 MB/s
- Controller: Factory Overclocked
- NAND Bus: Factory Overclocked
Affixes
- +30% Controller Clock
- +20% NAND Bus Speed
- +MLC Endurance
- +Skull
Enchants
“Enterprise Bloodline”
Inherits architecture from Intel’s enterprise storage heritage.
“Overclocked by the Manufacturer”
No user modification required.
“Death Metal”
Skull increases intimidation by 900%.
Intel Optane 900P 280GB HHHL
Forbidden Memory
Unique SSD — Uber
Item Power: 1000
Storage: 280GB
Interface: PCIe 3.0 Ă—4
Memory: 3D XPoint
Base Stats
- Sequential Read: 2,500 MB/s
- Sequential Write: 2,000 MB/s
- Random Read: ~550K IOPS
- Random Write: ~500K IOPS
- Latency: Extremely Low
- Endurance: Multi-Petabyte
Affixes
- +500% Random Performance
- +Massive Endurance
- +Extremely Low Latency
- +Consistency
- -Capacity
Enchants
“Technology That Should Have Won”
Once belonged to an alternate future of persistent memory.
“Forbidden Knowledge”
Manufacturing discontinued.
“3D XPoint”
Not NAND. Not RAM. Something stranger.
Lite-On CX2-GB1024-Q11 1TB
Ancient OEM Survivor
Unique SSD
Item Power: 875
Storage: 1TB
Interface: PCIe Gen3 NVMe
NAND: MLC
Base Stats
- Sequential Read: ~2.3–2.5 GB/s
- Sustained Write: ~1 GB/s-class
- Capacity: 1TB
- Age: Ancient by modern standards
Affixes
- +MLC NAND
- +Sustained Write Consistency
- +OEM Sleeper
- +Survived a Dead Dell XPS
- +Secondary Drive Viability
Enchants
“Still Works”
Survives multiple generations of PC hardware.
“Dell Survivor”
Recovered from a fallen XPS.
“Do Not Replace”
Has successfully broken the user’s traditional Dell SSD replacement ritual.
SK hynix PCB01 2TB
Shako of OEM Storage
Unique SSD — Ancestral
Item Power: 925
Storage: 2TB
Interface: PCIe 5.0 Ă—4
NAND: TLC
Base Stats
- Sequential Read: ~14,000 MB/s
- Sequential Write: ~12,000 MB/s
- Architecture: 8-channel
- Generation: Gen5
Affixes
- +14 GB/s Sequential Read
- +12 GB/s Sequential Write
- +PCIe 5.0
- +TLC
- +OEM Sleeper
- +Confusion
Enchants
“It’s Just a PCB”
The name does not accurately communicate the item’s power.
“Shako”
Community members may incorrectly identify the item by its base type.
“Dell’s Exception”
Has successfully avoided being replaced in an Alienware system.
“Do Not Judge This Drive by Its Name”
The ultimate PCB01 enchantment.
Fanxiang S101 120GB
Common SSD of Questionable Provenance
Rare?
No.
Unique?
Absolutely not.
Useful?
Potentially.
Item Power: 420
Storage: 120GB
Interface: SATA III
Base Stats
- Sequential Read: ~395 MB/s measured average
- Sequential Write: ~269 MB/s measured average
Affixes
- +Affordable
- +SATA Compatibility
- +Questionable Component Consistency
- -DRAM
- -Endurance Confidence
Enchants
“It Was Cheap”
The most powerful enchantment in budget computing.
“What NAND Is This?”
Component identity may vary.
“ASDFGHJKL;'” SSD
The Keyboard of Chaos
Cursed Unique SSD
Item Power: ???
Storage: ???
Controller: ???
NAND: ???
Brand: ASDFGHJKL;’
Base Stats
- Sequential Read: ??? MB/s
- Sequential Write: ??? MB/s
- Endurance: ???
- Firmware: ???
- Manufacturing Batch: ???
Affixes
- +100% Keyboard Damage
- +200% Mystery
- +500% Suspicion
- -100% Brand Recognition
- +999% eBay Listing Energy
Enchants
“Who Named This?”
Nobody knows.
“Different NAND, Same Sticker”
Hardware may vary between production batches.
“Do Not Store Your Only Copy Here”
A wise enchantment for questionable storage.
“ASDFGHJKL;'”
The creator has apparently defeated the naming department.
Final Inventory
If I had to assign each one a Diablo-style title:
| SSD | Diablo Title |
|---|---|
| X25-E |
The Immortal |
| Intel 730 |
Skull of Intel |
| Optane 900P |
The Forbidden Memory |
| Lite-On CX2 |
The Ancient Survivor |
| SK hynix PCB01 |
The Shako of OEM Storage |
| Fanxiang S101 |
The Common Dungeon Drop |
| ASDFGHJKL;’ |
The Keyboard of Chaos |
And honestly, this is why I have come to appreciate SSDs as more than just:
“This one gets 7,400 MB/s.”
Every drive has a story.
The X25-E represents the age of SLC endurance.
The 730 represents Intel’s enthusiast era.
The 900P represents the alternate future of persistent memory.
The CX2 represents the surprisingly capable OEM survivor.
The PCB01 represents the modern OEM sleeper: a drive whose name sounds boring enough to be mistaken for the circuit board itself, despite being a genuine Gen5 NVMe monster.
And the suspiciously named budget drives represent the other side of the market:
Sometimes the legendary artifact is hiding in an OEM laptop.
And sometimes the SSD is literally named:
ASDFGHJKL;’
So perhaps the real lesson is:
Never judge an SSD by its label.
Look at the controller.
Look at the NAND.
Look at the firmware.
Look at the interface.
Look at sustained performance.
Look at endurance.
Look at the actual hardware.
Because somewhere out there, another green OEM PCB is probably sitting quietly inside a Dell laptop…
waiting for someone to discover:
“Wait a minute. This isn’t a mere PCB.”
It’s a Shako.