Union Memory has announced the AE631, its first consumer solid state drive featuring a PCIe Gen5 interface and QLC flash storage. The new drive promises performance levels that match older PCIe Gen4 TLC drives while offering capacities up to 4TB. However, the company has yet to detail official retail pricing or a global launch schedule.
The AE631 serves as a direct follow up to older PCIe Gen4 QLC drives like the AE531. By moving to the faster PCIe Gen5 standard, the hardware delivers a 50% boost in sequential read speeds and a 60% jump in sequential write speeds. Random performance also sees an upgrade, with 4KB random reads increasing by over 10% and random writes rising by more than 20% compared to the previous generation.
Using QLC media usually means sacrificing write speeds and endurance, but Union Memory claims this design successfully matches the performance of typical PCIe Gen4 TLC drives. The company notes that during heavy local Token processing workloads, 4K random read latency remains tightly controlled. The drive also maintains stable, non degrading throughput even when handling multiple NVMe queue depths, which should help with local AI calculations.
IT buyers and builders can expect the drive in both the standard M.2 2280 and the smaller M.2 2242 sizes. Power efficiency is managed natively through a suite of technologies including ASPM L1.2, APST, and Modern Standby to keep the drive cool when idle. More information regarding retail availability should surface as the manufacturer prepares for mass distribution.
