Mushkin Redline Vortex, New PCIe 4.0 To Consider
The NVMe Road Less Traveled
Mushkin opted to go with the less popular Innogrit Rainier IG5236 eight-channel NVMe v1.4 controller but still stuck with 176-layer 3D TLC NAND flash by Micron for their Redline Vortex family of SSDs. The Redline Vortex have a DRAM cache, sensibly sized at 512MB for the 512GB version, 1GB for the 1TB version and yes, 2GB for the 2TB version; all using SK Hynix flash. They are also shipped Nikktech a Redline Screwdriver Kit, though that is not standard with the drive.
One nice feature of this drive is it’s stamina, rated at 1000TBW/1.5 Million Hours MTBF and a five year limited warranty, not quite as good as the similar Acer GM7000 but still decent. The performance is interesting, with the Mushkin Redline Vortex sometimes beating powerhouses like the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus, but at other times falling far behind. Overall it matches the performance of other Innogrit based drives and sometimes can surpass Phison drives, so it is worth knowing specifically what you need from your SSD before purchasing it.
The Redline Vortex 2TB PCIe 4.0 Gen 4 M.2 NVMe SSD by Mushkin offers top of the charts performance at a very attractive price point.
