Introduction

MSI Spatium M450 NVMe 1TB M2 SSD (PCIe Gen 4.0)
Good performance - modest endurance - good price level

The Spatium M450 is a new M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD from MSI. It should be compatible with a wide range of PCs because it was designed first and foremost as a mainstream solution. MSI claims 3600MB/sec sequential read and writes throughput using Phison's new E19T controller combined with PCIe Gen 4 x4 interface compatibility. Performance varies, as is common, depending on the capacity chosen and whether the host computer supports PCIe 4.0. The storage sizes are 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB, with read speeds of 3500MB/s for the smallest drive and 3600MB/s for the larger pair. Write speeds are slower, with options of 1200MB/s, 2300MB/s, and 3000MB/s, as well as durability ratings of 150TBW, 300TBW, and 600TBW. With 150TBW we'd not consider the 250GB version. The Spatium M450 is guaranteed for five years or until the stipulated TBW is attained.

There has been no word on MSRP, but a quick lookup reveals the 1TB device to cost around 120 EUR (street prices) so it can compete with a wide range of existing competitors at proper PCIe Gen 3.0 performance at roughly 12 cents per GB. You're going to notice that this SSD is DRAM'less, and will use a small portion of your system memory instead, all to keep the bill of materials low bringing a more valuable offering.