PNY today has unveiled its new CS3250 M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe Gen5 (x4) SSD, its flagship NVMe drive. In terms of speed, the CS3250 claims to deliver sequential read speeds of up to 14,900 MB/s and write speeds of up to 14,000 MB/s. The firm has not disclosed details regarding the random throughput though. We have reached out to PNY and will update the article once those are available. The SSD does not have a dedicated DRAM cache but comes with Host Memory Buffer (HMB) NVMe 2.0 technology.
Regardless, the company promises that the drive will help to reduce load times and improve responsiveness, which in turn will enable excellent multitasking that is required for high-end computing.
Nowadays AI is a big thing in the tech landscape and as such PNY notes that the CS3250 is "built to handle the demands of modern AI applications, from real-time image generation to deep learning tasks."
PNY also mentions gaming as it says the drive delivers "faster speeds, quicker load times, reduced lag" as a result of the excellent game asset (like textures) streaming performance of the CS3250. Whether the drive is DirectStorage-ready was not specified, but there are high chances the feature is present considering most modern SSDs come with it.
The rest of the technology specifications are given below:
- Interface: PCIe Gen5 x4
- Form Factor: M.2 2280
- Read and Write Speeds:
- 1TB: Up to 14,900MB/s read, Up to 13,500MB/s write
- 2TB: Up to 14,900MB/s read, Up to 14,000MB/s write
- Operating Temperature 0°C ~ 70°C
- Storage Temperature -40°C ~ 85°C
- Mean Time Before Failures (MTBF): 1,500,000 Hours
- Error Correction Code (ECC) Algo: LDPC (Low Density Parity Check)
- Product Health Monitoring: S.M.A.R.T support
- Host Memory Buffer (HMB)
- TCG Pyrite™ Enabled
- Warranty: 5-Year Limited Warranty or TBW (Tera Bytes Written)
While PCIe Gen5 drives are indeed really fast, one of the major drawbacks of them are the higher temperatures that can often lead to thermal throttling and overall sub-optimal performance. A good quality heatspreader is a must. In this regard, PNY claims that the CS3250"s NAND controller packs an "advanced thermal design" that should help it keep cool. Still, we highly recommend a well-made heatsink.
The CS3250 will be available in 1TB and 2TB capacities starting today, October 28 2025, at suggested retail prices (SRPs) of $125.99 and $219.99 respectively. The firm notes that a 4TB model is also planned though its availability details will be shared later.
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