Super-fast storage could make Windows 11 and games load faster than ever

SSD manufacturers Sabrent and Phison are aiming to best their already speedy PCIe 5.0 SSDs, even though the latter has barely even hit the market yet.

Despite the first PCIe Gen 5 SSDs on the market emerging with read speeds of 10,000 MB/s on high-end sticks, Sabrent is currently working on SSDs that would push that number even higher. According to TweakTown, even though it’s still in the early stages of development, the results that Sabrent has shared on its Rocket X5 Gen 5 SSD have blown the best SSD speeds we’ve seen to date out of the water.

According to the manufacturer’s results from CrystalDiskMark, the new SSD passed the 12,000 MB/s barrier which breaks all current records. It’s also approaching 12,000 MB/s in terms of write speeds, another incredible feat. Generally, it is easier for an SSD to read data than it is to write it, so coming so close to parity between the two operations at these speeds is a major accomplishment.

Sabrent has a lofty goal for the Rocket X5 Gen 5 SSD range — 14,000 MB/s — and stated that current technology is limiting it but that it expects to reach that goal at a later date. The company said: “We aim to improve that and increase the performance as high as possible.”

One of the biggest applications for this tech would be the ability to load Windows 11 as well as PC games at a much faster speed. This would mean an essentially instantaneous boot-up for your OS, and could trivialize start-up and load times for the best PC games.

Technology marches on

As many already know, the most important aspect of the tech industry is that new technology always marches on. Whether we truly need most upgrades or not, manufacturers and distributors alike will continue to work on the next big improvement on PCs, components, phones, software, and more.

Not only could we be looking at even faster read and write speeds, but could also be looking at a 300TB SSD within the next three years if Pure Storage, one of the stalwarts of AFA (All Flash Array) storage, has its way. It seems that the race to reach the Petabyte is on.

However, this doesn’t mean that older tech becomes obsolete either. For instance, thanks to the PS5, Gen 4 NVMe SSDs are still as relevant as ever since the only way to expand the console’s storage capacity is to plug in that SSD format into its M.2 port. This means that even though the tech is now three years old, there’s been a renewed push for the implementation of Gen 4 NVMe SSDs from manufacturers in the past year and a half.

And let’s remember that this give-and-take cycle of new versus old tech can be beneficial for consumers too. As expensive new tech crops up, SSD deals will only get better for the average consumer who might not need the fastest storage available.