What's in the TCSUNBOW 1TB NVME SSD?- Probably the cheapest 1TB NVME SSD in the world

iBabySlapper · June 10, 2020

The TCSUNBOW 1TB NVME SSD- Probably the cheapest 1TB NVME SSD

Yes, I know the pudding caps look disgusting, it’s why I like them. I also could not be bothered to put a lens on my K-S2 to take better pics, so you get disgusting phone camera pics.

One day, as I end up doing relatively often, I was looking at random stuff on Aliexpress. I was looking for a cheap 256Gb microSD for my tablet, when I came across an SSD called a “TCSUNBOW” (which I assume is "tʌk sʌn bʌw"). It was very cheap, coming in at £77.14 (or $93.67), which is cheaper than the majority of DRAM-less SATA SSDs. I’m no expert in SSDs, I’ve just always been interested in them, so keep that in mind as you read this overview/review.

After a quick look, I concluded it was the cheapest 1TB NVME SSD online, at least the cheapest I can find at the time (this may still be the case), and I bought it. It was delivered in 8 days, which is pretty fast for free shipping from China, but seems to be the norm for “Aliexpress standard shipping” (Most things I order with this shipping come in 2 weeks or less). I guess waiting months for Chinese goodies from Ali is becoming a thing of the past, which is nice. I wish this was the case for stuff I buy from Russia, but that still takes months to turn up.

So, the SSD. It’s a standard 2280 NVME SSD, with what looks to be a badly inkjet printed label; which made me chuckle. The picture makes the label look a lot better than it is, and it has that rough cheap paper feel. It’s quite nostalgic really, even the cheapest home printers print better than this these days. The Box is also very basic, which I don’t mind; it’s going in the bin anyway.

I peeled the label off, expecting unmarked NAND like what’s on my Kingspec Halloween 2019 meme SATA SSD in my main PC. I knew the controller was some Silicone motion without cache like basically all Chinese SSDs (aside from the few rare examples with Phison controllers w/ DDR4). The controller is a SM2263XT, which is a relatively modern Dram-less controller, and apparently it’s okay. There’s a review by Tom’s for this controller, which explains more than I ever could.

But surprise surprise, that’s Intel NAND. The model number (29F04T2A0CTH1), means it’s 1^st gen intel 6144 Gbit TLC, as far as I can tell. It’s probably old stock, or stuff leaked from an Intel factory; the condition of the chips are quite clean so I don’t think they’re salvage (though that is always a possibility).

Now, to performance testing. Machine specs are in my sig, this was tested in Remilia Mk.IIIB. Again, I don’t know a massive amount about storage, I’ll just run some tests and upload them so you can come to your own conclusion. I ran tests in Crystal Disk Mark, and did the “Peak” and “Real World” tests.

It’s faster than a cheap SATA SSD or hard drive, so it might make a good game drive where the data isn’t that important (like an OS). If you have a laptop that has 2 NVME slots, you could also use this as a mass storage drive. I bought this drive due to curiosity more than anything, I guess I'll use it to store games. This drive is actually slightly cheaper now, at £75. I decided to share this because I thought it was interesting.

dizmo · June 10, 2020

I'm all for a good deal, but I just can't bring myself to buy one of the lesser brands SSDs...

iBabySlapper · June 11, 2020

3 hours ago, dizmo said:

I'm all for a good deal, but I just can't bring myself to buy one of the lesser brands SSDs...

Yeah, TCSUNBOW is a "scraping the bottom" kind of brand. Though, I don't see anything particularly bad in terms of quality, aside from the label. The Intel NAND makes me feel safer than the unidentifiable stuff on some other cheap SSDs, like this one.