Micron has officially unveiled the “industry’s fastest” 2230 Gen4 SSD this week, and while it’s a great choice for Steam Deck users, it’s the ROG Ally series that looks set to benefit from all the speedy new upgrades.
The Crucial P310 is being slated as the “industry’s fastest” 2230 Gen 4 consumer-grade SSD, offering up blistering read speeds of up to 7,100MB/s and random reads up to 1M IOPS, respectively. The device will hit shelves in two size variants, 1TB and 2TB, providing a decent storage uplift over the brand’s respective entry-level models.
Despite all sounding great, only a couple of the globe’s best gaming handhelds will be able to take full advantage of the device’s new “industry-leading” speeds. You see, Crucial’s P310 is a Gen 4.0 device – meaning it will need a matching Gen 4 interface to unlock its full potential – something the Steam Deck simply doesn’t offer.
ASUS’s upcoming ROG Ally X (and original ROG Ally), however, does offer a PCIe 4.0 interface, further highlighting a pretty decent win over Valve’s Steam Deck. Better yet, with the P310 using a Phison E27T 4-channel DRAM-less controller, it has allowed Crucial to reduce the power consumption of the drive – essentially boosting the available playtime of the console.
So, what does this mean for performance?
Well, in a nutshell, it means that the ROG Ally series will have a performance boost over its rival when it comes to the load times of games stored on that drive. On top of that, using the Crucial P310 might also result in a battery life increase over consoles using other SSDs – but we’ll have to wait and see if that’s the case.
Let’s not forget, the ASUS ROG Ally & Ally X both have the ability to use 2280 SSDs – via a compatible SSD converter. So, while 7,000+ MB/s is nothing new, the new P310 does remind us of the available speed differences between the two brands.
Overall, does this make the ASUS ROG Ally X a more desirable device when compared to Valve’s Steam Deck – not necessarily. It does, however, highlight the versatile nature of the ROG Ally X – and its potential market longevity.
If you’re interested in upgrading to the latest Crucial P310 SSD, then pricing will start at $214.99 for the 2TB model and $114 for the 1TB model. While that is slightly higher than competing products, it’s expected due to the added benefits of higher read speeds.
