Pros & Cons
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- Reasonably priced for a PCIe 5.0 SSD
- Also available in a version without a heatsink
- Fits the PlayStation 5's spare M.2 slot
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- Low scores on PCMark 10 and 3DMark Storage benchmarks
Addlink G55H Specs
| Bus Type | PCI Express 5.0 |
| Capacity (Tested) | 2 |
| Controller Maker | Phison |
| Interface (Computer Side) | PCI Express |
| Internal Form Factor | M.2 Type-2280 |
| Internal or External | Internal |
| NAND Type | TLC |
| NVMe Support | |
| Rated Maximum Sequential Read | 10300 |
| Rated Maximum Sequential Write | 9000 |
| Terabytes Written (TBW) Rating | 1200 |
| Warranty Length | 5 |
The Addlink G55H (starts at $98.99 for 1TB, $174.99 for 2TB as tested) is a cool-running PCI Express 5.0 internal solid-state drive that comes equipped with a heatsink compact enough to fit in a PlayStation 5. The G55H's DRAM-less architecture helps keep its price and power consumption down. In our benchmarking, it effectively met its throughput speeds, but its performance on other tests was modest for a PCIe 5.0 SSD, with many of its results akin to a fast PCIe 4.0 SSD. If you can afford the Editors' Choice-winning WD Black SN8100 ($279.99 for 2TB), it's a better option, but the G55H is a solid alternative if you find it on sale.
Design and Specs: Compact Heatsink Included
The G55H is a four-lane solid-state drive running the NVMe 2.0 protocol over a PCIe 5.0 bus. This internal SSD comes in the standard M.2 Type-2280 (80mm-long) "gumstick" format. The drive pairs 218-layer Kioxia TLC NAND with the Phison E31T, a Gen 5-optimized controller that I first encountered when reviewing the Crucial P510. Unlike Phison's PS5026-E26 controller, which has been in most of the elite PCI Express 5.0 SSDs we have reviewed recently, including the Editors' Choice-winning Crucial T705, the E31T controller lacks its own dynamic random access memory (DRAM), instead relying on the computer's host memory buffer (HMB) for caching.
A common concern with DRAM-less SSDs is that their architecture could impact write speeds. The upside is that they tend to consume less power and run cooler than SSDs with their own DRAM cache, and come in at a lower price.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)As the G55H runs cooler than some of the elite PCIe 5.0 SSDs we have reviewed, it doesn't require a massive active cooling system. Lexar sells the product either barebones (as the G55) or with a compact aluminum heatsink plus silica gel pad. With a height of 0.34 inch, it is thin enough to fit the spare M.2 slot in the PlayStation 5.
System Requirements: Buy Boutique or Build Your Own
PCIe 5.0 SSDs, even power-efficient ones such as the G55H, promise a major throughput speed boost over PCIe 4.0 drives, but you can take full advantage of it only if you have recent hardware that supports the standard. Recent enthusiast desktops and a few high-end laptops are likely to be PCIe 5.0-ready off the shelf, but otherwise you may have to build your own PC from the ground up or update an existing system to gain the connectivity required. For a desktop, you'll need an Intel 12th Gen or later Core CPU with a motherboard based on Intel's Z690 or Z790 chipset or later; or an AMD Ryzen 7000 or 9000 processor with an AM5 motherboard built around an X670, X670E, or B650E chipset, or later ones.
Now, an important point: Just because you have one of those chipsets doesn't guarantee that the motherboard maker actually implemented a PCIe 5.0-capable M.2 SSD slot or slots. That's up to the board maker, so check your system's or motherboard's specs and documentation to make sure you actually have such a slot before investing in one of these drives. (Some boards have PCIe 5.0 expansion slots for graphics cards and other PCI Express cards, but you need a PCIe 5.0-capable M.2 slot, specifically.)
Addlink also offers 4TB versions of both the G55 and G55H, but they are not widely available at this time.
Durability Ratings: On Par for a Gen 5 Drive
As for durability, expressed as lifetime write capacity in total terabytes written (TBW), the G55H matches the WD Black SN8100, the Teamgroup Z540, and the Crucial P510, T700, and T705 in the capacities they share. Its durability rating is a notch below the Corsair MP700 Pro, the ADATA Legend 970, and the Aorus 10000, which are rated at 700TBW for 1TB and 1,400TBW for 2TB. And the Seagate FireCuda 540 is the reigning Gen 5 durability champ, with ratings of 1,000TBW for the 1TB stick and 2,000TBW for 2TB.
The TBW spec is a manufacturer's estimate of how much data can be written to a drive before some cells begin to fail and get taken out of service. Addlink covers the G55H with a warranty of five years or until you hit the rated TBW figure in data writes, whichever comes first. But the drive's durability rating is such that unless you're writing unusually large amounts of data to the SSD, it's a good bet that the G55H will last the full warranty period and beyond.
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Addlink offers a download of its M.2 PCIe SSD Toolbox utility with the G55H. This software can monitor drive health and diagnose problems.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)Performance Testing: Modest (Yet Adequate) Throughput Speed
In testing the Addlink G55H, we used our latest testbed PC, designed specifically for benchmarking PCIe 5.0 M.2 SSDs. It is built around an ASRock X670E Taichi motherboard with an AMD X670 chipset, 32GB of DDR5 memory, one PCIe 5.0 x4 M.2 slot (with lanes that have direct access to the CPU), and three PCIe 4.0 slots. The system sports an AMD Ryzen 9 7900 CPU using an AMD stock cooler; a GeForce RTX 2070 Super graphics card with 8GB of GDDR6 SDRAM; and a Thermaltake Toughpower GF1 Snow 750-watt power supply. The boot drive is an ADATA Legend 850 PCIe 4.0 SSD. (The reviewed SSD is tested as a secondary data drive.)
We put the Addlink drive through our usual slate of internal solid-state drive benchmarks: Crystal DiskMark 6.0, UL's PCMark 10 Storage, and UL's 3DMark Storage benchmark. The last measures a drive's performance in a number of gaming-related load and launch tasks.
Crystal DiskMark's sequential speed tests provide a traditional measure of drive throughput, simulating best-case, straight-line transfers of large files. We use this test largely to see if our tested speeds are in line with the manufacturer's rated speeds.
Speed-wise, the G55H's rated and tested sequential read results put it on the lower tier of PCIe 5.0 SSDs, along with the Gigabyte Aorus 10000, ADATA Legend 970, and Seagate Firecuda 540, whose read speeds all hover around 10,000MBps. Its sequential write speed is the lowest of any Gen 5 SSD we've tested. Both its sequential read and write speeds are lower than the other DRAM-less PCIe 5 SSD we have tested, the Crucial P510.
In 4K read testing, while the WD Black SN8100 posted a score that was 31% higher than the Addlink drive, the G55H's read results were in the middle of a fairly tight range of scores occupied by the rest of the PCI Express 5 drives as well as the two PCIe 4 SSDs in our comparison group. As for 4K write testing, the G55H was toward the top of a tight grouping of scores from the PCIe 5.0 drives, with the two PCIe 4.0 sticks considerably lagging the pack. (Good 4K write performance is especially important for an SSD used as a boot drive, though we test them as secondary drives.)
The PCMark 10 Overall Storage test measures a drive's speed in performing a variety of routine tasks such as launching Windows, loading games and creative apps, and copying both small and large files. The G55H's Overall score was near the bottom of the pack, though it did edge the DRAM-less Crucial P510. While it performed better than one of the two Gen 4 SSDs in our comparison group, the WD SN850X, it was beaten by the other, Crucial's T500, in this test. In the individual tests that, when aggregated, make up the PCMark 10 Overall Storage score, the G55H's scores ranged from subpar to middling.
Finally, in the gaming-centric 3DMark Storage benchmark, the G55H's scores were third from last, ahead of the Crucial P510 and Lexar NP1090 Pro but behind our two Gen 4 comparison drives.
Final Thoughts
Addlink G55H
The Addlink G55H, an energy-efficient SSD with a compact heatsink, has reasonably fast performance that's commensurate with its price, making it a good choice for a mainstream PC build or a PlayStation 5.