Nextorage unveils fresh new gaming SSDs, but they only come with a one-year warranty

Due to the memory supply crisis, I'm sure I don't need to tell you that now is a particularly stressful time to experience hardware failure. With a bit of luck, a sensible multi-year warranty should save your bacon when an SSD stops playing ball—but it looks like the RAMpocalypse may be about to claim another victim.

Case in point, Nextorage has just unveiled a new QLC gaming SSD that comes with a mere one-year warranty policy (via HKEPC Hardware). As you may already be aware, QLC drives can store more data per NAND flash cell than TLC ones, but that comes at the potential cost of a lower write endurance. As such, a measly 12 months for a warranty period is a choice.

The just-announced G-series EEA SSDs offer capacities ranging from 1 TB to 8 TB. They use a PCIe 4.0 interface, and like most drives these days, they're also DRAM-less. Nextorage lists an advertised read/write speed of up to 7,000/6,400 MB/s, and that its design "reduces power consumption and heat generation".

As for write endurance, the 1 TB model is rated for 400 TBW, which doubles for the 2 TB model, and again for the 4 TB version. Comparatively, the new 8 TB features an impressive 4,000 TBW of advertised endurance.

However, the 1 TB drive will cost ¥44,550, or about $280. Now, PC components tend to be slightly pricier in Japan anyway, so there's a chance the actual USD cost may be a bit lower than the currency conversion suggests (though let's hope the memory supply crisis doesn't worsen to such a degree that it makes this statement seem like naive optimism in retrospect).

Still, if you ask me, that's not necessarily the best value for money as it is. Couple that with Nextorage's "One year from the date of purchase" warranty policy, and I'd really recommend looking elsewhere.

For instance, the most affordable 1 TB PCIe 4.0 SSD I'd suggest right now is the Kingston NV3. Yes, it's a bit slower than Nextorage's new drives, but it offers a much more approachable price point, and Kingston tends to still offer 5-year warranties—for now, at least.

Given that Toshiba is allegedly struggling to replace enterprise hard drives due to stock shortages, I can see the logic behind Nextorage's extremely short warranty period. Besides the current limitations of QLC, it may be a bit of a mission for Nextorage to secure enough stock for replacements, potentially until 2028.