The current state of PCIe 6.0 SSDs and controllers — Marvell, Phison, and SMI prepare controllers as drives finally come to market following years of delays
- ID
- 13791
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 13 Aug 2026, 5:40 PM
- Fetched
- 13 Aug 2026, 6:24 PM
- Provider
- Tom's Hardware
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/the-current-state-of-pcie-6-0-ssds-and-controllers-marvell-phison-and-smi-prepare-controllers-as-drives-finally-come-to-market-following-years-of-delays
- Source URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/feeds/all
Summary
- Score
- 4.0
- Created
- 13 Aug 2026, 6:25 PM
- Tags
- Audience
- developersai_ml_learnerssaas_founders
What happened
PCIe 6.0 SSDs are finally reaching the market years after the spec was ratified in early 2022, with Micron shipping the first PCIe 6 SSD in mid-2025 and Samsung catching up in July 2026. Independent controller makers Marvell, Phison, and Silicon Motion are now preparing their own PCIe 6 SSD platforms as Gen6 platforms approach commercial availability.
Why it matters
If you're building AI/ML inference servers or data-intensive workloads in Malaysia and planning hardware refreshes in 2026-2027, PCIe 6.0 SSDs roughly double per-lane bandwidth over PCIe 5.0, meaning fewer lanes needed for the same throughput — relevant for cost-optimising local GPU server builds or cloud bare-metal specs. For most SaaS and app developers, this is a watch-and-wait item with no immediate action needed.
Discussion angle
When does PCIe 6.0 storage actually matter for builders in Malaysia — is it worth specifying in upcoming server purchases, or is PCIe 5.0 still the practical sweet spot given local supply chains and pricing?