Anaconda Fire Snake i5 1TB PCIe Gen5 x4 NVMe M.2 SSD Unboxing Review

ANACOMDA Anaconda FireSnake i5 1TB PCIe Gen5 x4 NVMe M.2 SSD with up to 14,000 and 10,000 MB/s sequential read/write performance, utilizing the Huyong SMI SM2508 controllers paired with Micron's 232L 3D TLC cells, and configured with physical NANYA LPDDR4 SDRAM. 2GB (16Gb) DRAM Cache with Pseudo Single-Level Cell (pSLC) technology and thin graphene sheets for users to use with motherboard heatsinks, it is the cheapest 1TB PCIe Gen5 x4 NVMe M.2 SSD option in the current SMI Solution program.

ANACOMDA Anaconda i5 1TB PCIe Gen5x4 NVMe M.2 SSD Solid State Drive Spec:

Interface: PCI-Express 5.0 x4
NVMe: 2.0
Interface format: M.2 2280
Continuous read speed: 14000 MB/s
Continuous Write Speed: 10000 MB/s
Capacity Options: 1TB / 2TB
Controller: SMI SM2508
NAND Flash: Micron Micron 232L 3D TLC chips
DRAM Cache: NANYA LPDDR4 SDRAM-2133 MHz (4267 Mb/s) 2GB (16Gb) with Pseudo Single-Level Cell (pSLC) Technology
Dimensions: 80 x 22 x 2.2 mm
Warranty: 5-year limited warranty
TBW Durability: 600 TB

Anaconda Fire Snake i5 1TB PCIe Gen5x4 NVMe M.2 SSD Unboxing

I really didn't expect that ANACOMDA Anaconda (commonly known as Snake) would also start mass production and sales of Wisepac's Silicon Motion (SMI) SM2508 Solution Solution PCIe Gen5 x4 NVMe M.2 SSDs using the 6nm process within two months of COMPUTEX 2025 this year, and the Fire Snake i5 PCIe Gen5 x4 NVMe M.2 SSDs are the first wave of products that can be purchased in Taiwan. The i5 PCIe Gen5 x4 NVMe M.2 SSD is the first wave of SMI SM2508 products available in Taiwan.

As the author is writing this article, the Fiery Snake i5 is currently available for sale at Xinya and its own official Shrimp Pi, so let's start with the PCIe Gen5 x4 NVMe M.2 SSDs with 1TB capacity available at Xinya, and compare them. Among those products that also use the SMI SM2508 Solution and have a read capacity of 14,000 MB/s and write capacity of 10,000 MB/s or more, the Fiery Snake i5 is the cheapest model. Of course, there are other PCIe Gen5 x4 NVMe M.2 SSDs that are cheaper to choose from, but those products either use other Solution programs, or have lower performance, or don't even contain DRAM Cache (DRAM-less), which defeats the purpose of a comparison between products of the same class.

In ANACOMDA Anaconda's own official Shrimp Mall, clicking on the product page for the Fire Snake i5 1TB PCIe Gen5 x4 NVMe M.2 SSD, you'll find that there are two product specifications available at the same time, one of which uses the SMI SM2508 Solution like the one in today's unboxing, and the other uses the Phison Solution which is a hundred dollars cheaper, but the Phison Solution is 10,000 MB/s read and 8,300 MB/s write. The Phison Solution is 10000 MB/s for read and 8300 MB/s for write. Although it is said that this is not a regular rollout plan (all Fire Snake i5s will be sold with SMI in the future), but during the current cross-selling period, it is enough to choose the specification according to one's own needs. However, if the difference in price is only $100, the author still suggests to prioritize SMI Solution as the first choice. On the other hand, at least they have clearly labeled the Solution brand on the top of the shrimp skin to make it easier for people to identify and choose.

∆ ANACOMDA Anaconda FireSnake i5 1TB PCIe Gen5 x4 NVMe M.2 SSD Solid State Drive.

∆The unboxing of the SMI version of the outer box labeling, 1TB / 2TB / 4TB read/write specifications are the same, but at present the sale of Taiwan seems to be only 1TB, the official website is labeled as the maximum of only 2TB may be sold in the future up to 4TB it?

 

ANACOMDA Anaconda Fire Snake i5 uses PCI-Express 5.0 x4 transmission bandwidth interface, which is also known as PCIe Gen5 x4, and the capacity part is 1TB / 2TB can be selected, but it seems that there are currently on sale in Taiwan is only 1TB capacity, the continuous read/write performance is the same: continuous read 14,000 / continuous write 10,000MB/s. The performance of the i5 is the same as that of the i5, which is also known as PCIe Gen5 x4. s.

Its size is a common M.2 2280 specification, compatible with the motherboard 2280 length M Key expansion slot, with a thin graphene sheet affixed to the front side to equalize the heat dissipation horizontally, and because of the thinness of the graphene sheet itself users can use it with their own motherboard cooler or heatsinks for optimal versatility in installations.

The Fire Snake I5 SSDs come with a 5-year warranty, and the official website boasts a fast delivery service, as well as fast replacement at the nationwide replacement centers, but of course, I hope you don't need to use the warranty service.

The ∆ SSD body is mounted in a blister.

∆ ANACOMDA Anaconda FireSnake i5 1TB PCIe Gen5 x4 NVMe M.2 SSD Solid State Drive is equipped with a graphene sheet on the front to assist in thermal balance.

There is a black and white sticker on the back of the ∆, please do not remove it as it will cause damage to the warranty.

 

It adopts TSMC's 6nm Wisepac - Silicon Motion (SMI) SM2508 host solution. The 1TB capacity in this unboxing is a double-sided die layout, with the SM2508G AC host chip, NANYA LPDDR4 SDRAM-2133 MHz (4267 Mb/s), 2GB (16Gb) DRAM Cache chips, two Micron 232L 3D TLC chips (also two on the back for a total of four), and a single 16Gb DRAM Cache chip. 2GB (16Gb) DRAM cache chips, two Micron 232L 3D TLC chips (two on the back for a total of four), and a single 16Gb (Gigabit) DRAM cache chip, which translates to 2GB (Gigabyte).

ANACOMDA Anaconda FireSnake i5 1TB PCIe Gen5 x4 NVMe M.2 SSD comes with a 5-year warranty and 600 TB Tera Bytes Written (TBW), DWPD_Drive Writes Per Day (DWPD_DWPD_Drive Writes Per Day) is the actual amount of data written using the binary conversion in the system. Using a binary conversion of the system's remaining capacity of 953 GB, this means that 328.7 GB, or 34.5 % of the drive's capacity, would have to be written to the SSD every day for five years to exceed the nominal TBW value.

The official website indicates that it supports Pseudo Single-Level Cell (pSLC) caching algorithm and LDPC (Low Density Parity Check Code) error correction mechanism, RAID error correction, Wear Leveling, TRIM instruction and other technologies.

This unboxing is for the 1TB capacity version, but what's very special is that Anaconda uses a double-sided particle configuration for this capacity, so if you're very particular about heat dissipation, you'll want to pay attention to whether or not the motherboard's PCIe Gen5 M.2 slot is configured with double-sided thermal pads, so the particles on the back side of the PCB can dissipate the heat as well.

∆Silicon Motion's (SMI) SM2508 SoC with NANYA's NT6AN512T32AV-J1 (DL4A16G32T2V FC 2523 A1 060110) as the physical DRAM cache and LPDDR4 SDRAM-2133 MHz (4267 Mb/s) 2GB (16Gb) as the specification. ) 2GB (16Gb).

Two Micron Micron 232L 3D TLC cells behind the ∆.

The ∆1TB capacity uses a double-sided cell layout, which is rare for this capacity, and there are two Micron 232L 3D TLC cells on the back of the PCB.

∆ When viewed through the SSD utils software, you can see that it is a Micron Micron 232L (232-layer) 3D TLC die.

∆ When you actually look at the side, the TLC particles are about the same height as the SMI master.

 

ANACOMDA FireSnake i5 1TB PCIe Gen5x4 NVMe M.2 SSD SSD Performance Tests

Testing Platform Usage AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D Processor with GIGABYTE X870 AORUS TACHYON ICE The motherboard and ANACOMDA Anaconda Firebrace i5 1TB PCIe Gen5 x4 NVMe M.2 SSD is installed in the first slot of the motherboard, M2A_CPU, which provides full PCIE Gen5 x4 bandwidth from the processor's direct channel for the performance test. We would like to remind that the performance of the test may vary depending on the firmware version of the SSD, the system hardware configuration, and other factors, so the results are for reference only. Also, please note that test performance may vary depending on SSD firmware version, system hardware configuration, and other factors, so these results are for reference only.

Testing Platform

Processor:AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D (PBO activated)
Radiator:LIAN LI GA II LITE 360 RGB (full speed)
Motherboard:GIGABYTE X870 AORUS TACHYON ICE (BIOS version: F4b)
Memory: G.SKILL Trident Z5 Royal Neo DDR5-8000 CL40-48-48-128 1.40V 48GB (2x24GB)
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Founders Edition 8GB
Operating System: Windows 11 Professional 23H2
System Dish:Kingston FURY Renegade PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD 2TB
Test Drive: ANACOMDA Anaconda FireSnake i5 1TB PCIe Gen5 x4 NVMe M.2 SSD (Formatted Empty)
Power supply:MONTECH TITAN PLA 1000W
Case: STREACOM BC1 Benchtable V2
Graphics driver: GeForce Game Ready 572.83

 

First of all, through CrystalDiskInfo The software examines the basics of M.2 SSDs, using PCIe 5.0 x4 transfer mode and NVM Express 2.0 standards, with support for S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology), TRIM, and VolatileWriteCache, and the firmware version tested by the author was: Y0527A.

∆Storage brands usually use decimal capacity, but systems such as Win11 use binary capacity, so after formatting and converting to a different bit system, and after subtracting the space required for the firmware on the hard drive, the actual capacity that can be used on the computer is 953 GB.

∆ CrystalDiskInfo software view information.

 

Use with empty disk CrystalDiskMark The software was used to test the read/write performance of the M.2 SSD. The test file size was set to 1GiB in NVMe SSD configuration mode, and sequential read/write speeds of 14115 MB/s and 10898 MB/s were measured in the default profile.

The Q8T1 test result in the first column represents a thread with eight queue depths, which means that there are eight 1MB-sized accesses in the worklist waiting to be accessed. This corresponds to a real situation, such as reading or writing eight 1MB files from or to a hard disk at the same time, which is generally less likely to be done in general.

The random read/write performance of the RND4K Q32T16 item is 3056 MB/s and 2412 MB/s.

The RND4K Q32T16 operates with 16 queue depths out of 32 threads, and the file types are random access 4 KB size files written or read into the SSD.

∆ CrystalDiskMark Settings:NVMe SSD / Profile:Default, Sequential Read/Write and Random Read/Write test scores.

 

For daily use or for gamers, the QD1 to QD4 range is a good reference. If we switch the CrystalDiskMark profile to real-world performance, the first column will be Q1T1. Although the result will be a bit lower than the Q8T1, it will be more in line with the actual performance of the daily use experience.

The reason for this is that most of the daily operating systems use Q1T1, which is a queue-depth mode with one thread, so Q1T1 is more suitable for daily use than Q8T1. The read and write speeds of Q1T1 are 5,870 MB/s and 9,363 MB/s with the capacity of the test file set to 1GiB.

∆ CrystalDiskMark Settings:NVMe SSD / Profile:Real World Mode 1GiB profile test results.

 

follow ATTO Disk Benchmark To test the continuous read/write performance and stability of different file sizes, the maximum values are 10.06 GB/s for writing and 13.79 GB/s for reading.

∆ ATTO Disk Benchmark.

 

Professional video multimedia file write and read performance testing using the AJA System Test In order to simulate the scenario test, the test settings were set to 5120×2700 5K RED format 64GB and 1GB files, and the Codec Type was 10bit YUV by default, the final results were 8475 MB/s write and 8809 MB/s read in 1GB mode, and 8527 MB/s write and 9923 MB/s read in 64GB mode.

∆ AJA System Test 1GB.

∆ AJA System Test 64GB.

 

Next, through TxBENCH The test was conducted in the default test file 512MB mode, and obtained a reading Read 11532 MB/s and writing Write 11957 MB/s.

∆ TxBENCH Default test file 512MB mode results.

 

3DMark Storage BenchmarkingTested with game startup loading, copying game files, game archiving, installing games, and OBS game recording, the scenario mainly uses a number of games for actual testing, so that gamers can clearly refer to the performance of the hard disk in the use of the game, the above test process is recorded in units of time, but the final results are calculated using the bandwidth and the average access time, and the higher the final storage benchmark test score, the better.

∆ 3DMark Storage Benchmark Test.

 

3DMark DirectStorage Feature TestIt can help gamers understand the performance enhancement of PC game loading with Microsoft's DirectStorage technology, a technology introduced by Microsoft for Windows PCs equipped with PCIe SSDs, which reduces the amount of resources consumed when loading game data.

DirectStorage can bring more benefits through BypassIO, which reduces the CPU utilization of the game by minimizing the CPU load when transferring data. When DirectStorage is used in conjunction with GDeflate data compression technology, it can further reduce the game loading time, and GDeflate eventually decompresses game data to VRAM through the GPU, resulting in more transfer bandwidth for better game data transfer efficiency. GDeflate ultimately decompresses game data to VRAM through the GPU, bringing more bandwidth for better game data transfer efficiency.

At the end of the test, three scores are generated. The first is the performance difference between DirectStorage on and off, which is expressed as a percentage. Next is the average bandwidth of game data transfer from SSD to GPU memory (VRAM) with DirectStorage enabled, and finally the average bandwidth of game data transfer from SSD to GPU memory (VRAM) with DirectStorage disabled. The Disabled item score also represents the average bandwidth of standard Windows APIs in transferring game data. The deactivation score also represents the average bandwidth of the standard Windows API for transferring game data.

∆ 3DMark DirectStorage feature test on and off scores improved.

The ∆ 3DMark DirectStorage feature tests the average bandwidth comparison between on and off.

 

final use AIDA64 Read Test Suite, Linear Read, and Linear Write tests are conducted. Read Test Suite mainly uses linear read, random read, and buffer read to test the read performance of the hard disk through these three read methods.

∆ AIDA64 Read Test Suite reads the performance combination test.

 

AIDA64 Linear Read 與 Linear Write The full disk read/write test will read/write the hard disk MAX capacity large files for users to observe its read/write stability. In the Linear Read test, SSDs mostly read around 7176 MB/s on average, but there is a period of dropping to a minimum of 5075 MB/s in the early stage, and then recovered to the original level later on.

In the Linear Write test, there were two big drops and a recovery in the middle section, with a high of around 8818 MB/s and a low of around 1479 MB/s, for an overall write average of 6170 MB/s.

∆ AIDA64 Linear Read.

∆ AIDA64 Linear Write.

 

ANACOMDA Anaconda FireSnake i5 1TB SSD Temperature Testing

The next part of the test is the cooling performance. The platform is mounted on a bare test stand, so the actual cooling effect will be better than in a closed chassis, and the test scene is a closed air-conditioned room at 25 °C for the actual test, which is just for reference as the ambient temperature in a normal room is difficult to control.

M.2 SSDs were tested with the motherboard's native M.2 Thermal Guard Ext. thermal pads, with no additional fans blowing directly on the motherboard for cooling.

The test software still uses CrystalDiskMark Settings:NVMe SSD / Profile:Default, but manually adjust the number of times to 9; test file size setting to 64 GiB, some foreign media will set their own scripts to stress test, but the author personally think that Taiwanese gamers are more commonly used. CrystalDiskMark The M.2 SSD software is used to test your own M.2 SSDs, so it would be better to continue using the same software to reproduce the test on your own, in the same way as in the previous M.2 SSDs.Pressurize with All-in-One Water Cooling! What kind of cooler do I need for M.2 PCIE Gen5 SSDs?The article is the same, so you can check it out.

Temperature logging is done by using HWinfo64 software to record the maximum temperature of the hard disk, and manually adjusting the polling cycle in the HWinfo64 software to record the temperature of the M.2 SSD itself in a more real-time manner by adjusting the following settings. Why don't we use CrystalDiskInfo software to record the temperature? Because when there are multiple temperature sensors on an M.2 SSD, CrystalDiskInfo only displays the first sensor in order; sometimes the drive manufacturer will adjust the sensor temperature order so that the master chip is not always first, resulting in viewing temperatures from other locations. Furthermore, CrystalDiskInfo is very slow in updating the temperature sensors, and the difference between the displayed temperature and the actual temperature can be as much as 5~10 °C due to the lack of real-time updating of the temperature sensors.

• Global:20 ms
• Disk SMART every 1 cycle
• Embedded Controller every 1 cycle

∆ CrystalDiskMark Settings:NVMe SSD / Profile:Default, but manually adjusted the number of tests to 9; the test file size setting was changed to 64 GiB, and the maximum temperature is 57 °C.

∆ The maximum temperature on the surface of the M.2 Thermal Guard Ext. heat sink on the motherboard is 43.4 °C. The maximum temperature on the surface of the heat sink on the motherboard is 43.4 °C.

After ∆ test, the thermal pads on the main controller chip and TLC particles were confirmed to be in place.

 

Game Storage Test

Then we used the ANACOMDA Anaconda Firebrace i5 1TB PCIe Gen5 x4 NVMe M.2 SSD as a gaming test disk, downloaded the STEAM master and put the "ANACOMDA Firebrace i5 1TB PCIe Gen5 x4 NVMe M.2 SSD" on it.Kurokami Dialog: Goku_Black Myth: Wukong" in the hard disk, to see how much space will be used to provide you with a reference to see.

∆ The required storage space for BLACK MYTH WUKONG on STEAM is 134.56 GB.

The write usage of hard disk during ∆ download is around 43~53 MB/s.

∆Downloading the STEAM program and Black Myth: Goku uses a total of 136 GB, which translates to about 7 Black Myth: Goku level 3A masterpiece games.

 

Conclusion

This time, we tested ANACOMDA Anaconda's PCIe Gen5 x4 SSD Fire Snake i5 1TB PCIe Gen5 x4 NVMe M.2 SSD with GIGABYTE X870 motherboard in CrystalDiskMark, and the continuous read and write speeds were in line with the official website's specifications of 14000 / 10000 MB/s. The speed of sequential read and write meets the official specification of 14000 / 10000 MB/s.

The Fire Snake i5 1TB PCIe Gen5 x4 NVMe M.2 SSD uses the Huirong SMI SM2508 Solution, so it has a continuous read performance of 14,000 MB/s and the actual temperature performance is also quite good. The highest temperature in the actual test with the motherboard's own thermal armor was only 57°C, and the overheating didn't cause any slowdowns in the test process. The use of thin graphene sheets is very compatible with motherboard heatsinks, so you don't have to disassemble the heatsink or worry about compatibility with other hardware, just use it directly with the motherboard heatsink.

 

The ANACOMDA Anaconda FireSnake i5 1TB PCIe Gen5 x4 NVMe M.2 SSD comes with a five-year warranty and 600 TB of Tera Bytes Written (TBW), which translates to 953 GB of DWPD_Drive Writes Per Day. Using 953 GB for DWPD_Drive Writes Per Day, this means that 328.7 GB, or 34.5 % of the drive capacity, would have to be written to the SSD every day for five years to exceed the nominal TBW value.

As I type this article, the Fire Snake i5 1TB is indeed the cheapest among the SMI SM2508 Solution PCIe Gen5 x4 NVMe M.2 SSDs, but ANACOMDA Python's weakness lies in the fact that it only has 10,000 MB/s of sequential writes and some gamers are concerned about the double-sided particle problem, so it depends on whether or not you are able to accept these parts. It's up to you to decide whether you can accept these features or not.