Silicon Motion MonTitan 7.68 TB Review @ TechPowerUp

TechPowerUp reviewed the Silicon Motion MonTitan 7.68 TB PCIe 5.0 SSD, and while the drive delivers very strong performance in several key areas, its market position is complicated by unknown pricing and a few practical limitations. In testing, the MonTitan reached nearly 3.2 million IOPS and offered excellent synthetic results, with solid real-world performance, especially in LLM-focused workloads. The design supports TLC NAND at high capacities, encryption, multiple form factors, and a five-year warranty. It also demonstrates flexibility by working with NAND from multiple manufacturers, and other versions using different flash types have shown even higher performance. However, it is not the most power-efficient drive, and the SSD requires airflow to avoid thermal throttling.

Silicon Motion’s MonTitan SSD platform, built around the SM8366 controller, stands out in multiple areas, particularly with its consistently strong performance in specific workloads. Paired with Micron B58R NAND, this unit delivered solid and reliable results, even if it wasn’t the outright fastest in our comparison.

The major challenge is availability and pricing. Unlike Phison, Silicon Motion does not sell the MonTitan directly, and no partner models could be located at the time of the review, making cost comparisons speculative. Competing 7.68 TB PCIe 5.0 SSDs rated at 1 DWPD already retail around 930 to 960 dollars, meaning the MonTitan would need to be priced near or below 900 dollars to stand out from Phison, Memblaze, Samsung, and Solidigm. TechPowerUp concludes that while PCIe 5.0 drives provide clear performance advantages, PCIe 4.0 options still offer better total cost of ownership for many workloads. With the right pricing and broader availability, the MonTitan could become a very competitive alternative in the data center space.

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