Adata has finally shipped the first true PCIe 5.0 SSD that doesn’t operate a Phison E26 controller. Interestingly, the fresh model is called the Legend 970 Pro, replacing the earlier Legend 970. What difference does one word make? Quite a lot, as the fresh variant can read up to 4 GB/s faster in ideal conditions. As we already know, the specifications on the box don’t always match reality.
Does Adata have a winner this time and could the Legend 970 Pro join the ranks? best ssd drives? We can at least praise the cooling, as it features a powerful heatsink coupled to a fan powered by the M.2 slot — no annoying external connector required! That alone helps it stand out, but the Legend 970 Pro also introduces the fresh InnoGrit IG5666 controller. Previous high-end PCIe 5.0 drives we’ve reviewed, such as Sabrent 5 Rocketrely on the E26 from Phison instead.
Performance at this level doesn’t come inexpensive. What’s more, it doesn’t come in a package that’s suitable for a laptop either. These high-end SSDs draw a lot of power and require some sort of cooling to function normally. For those hoping the Legend 970 Pro or IG5666 will support buck the trend, the gloomy news is that you’ll have to wait a bit longer. More capable controllers and flash storage are on the way, but for now, a drive like this remains an enthusiast-only part.
Adata Legend 970 Pro Specifications
| Product | 1TB | 2TB | 4TB |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quotation | Lack | Lack | Lack |
| Row 1 – Cell 1 | Row 1 – Cell 2 | Row 1 – Cell 3 | |
| Form Factor | M.2 2280 | M.2 2280 | M.2 2280 |
| Interface / Protocol | PCIe 5.0 x4 / NVMe 2.0 | PCIe 5.0 x4 / NVMe 2.0 | PCIe 5.0 x4 / NVMe 2.0 |
| Controller | InnoGrit IG5666 | InnoGrit IG5666 | InnoGrit IG5666 |
| THIMBLE | LPDDR4 | LPDDR4 | LPDDR4 |
| Flash memory | 232-Layer Micron TLC (B58R) | 232-Layer Micron TLC (B58R) | 232-Layer Micron TLC (B58R) |
| Sequential reading | 13,000 MB/s | 14,000 MB/s | 14,000 MB/s |
| Sequential write | 5800 MB/s | 10,000 MB/s | 11,000 MB/s |
| Random reading | 1700 thousand | 1800k | 1800k |
| Random writing | 1250k | 1300k | 1300k |
| Security | Row 11 – Cell 1 | Row 11 – Cell 2 | Row 11 – Cell 3 |
| Strength (TBW) | 740TB | 1480TB | 2960TB |
| Part number | BAD-970P-1TCI | BAD-970P-2TCI | BAD-970P-4TCI |
| Guarantee | 5 years venerable | 5 years venerable | 5 years venerable |
The adata Legend 970 Pro comes in the most popular capacities: 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB. You won’t see many PCIe 5.0 drives in smaller capacities, since you need a minimal number of flash dies to achieve decent performance. That’s not the case for the inexpensive quad-channel options that are on the way, but flash storage is inevitably getting denser, so this will continue to be a trend over time. The Legend 970 Pro can’t even hit peak sequential read performance at 1TB—only 13,000MB/s instead of 14,000MB/s—and sequential write performance at 5,800MB/s is well low of the claimed 11,000MB/s for 4TB. That’s why we recommend starting with 2TB if you’re shopping for a drive of this caliber.
The drive can achieve an impressive 1800K/1300K IOPS for random reads and writes, which seems to be the relative maximum for now. There’s potential for more in the future with different flash memory or an optimized controller architecture. Adata backs the drive with a 5-year warranty and 740TB of writes per TB of capacity, which is a bit more than typical but not too far out of the norm. We don’t have pricing data yet, though the drive should be competitive — in this case, that means lower cost — than something like Key T705.
Adata Legend 970 Pro Software & Accessories
Adata offers three downloadable software packages on its website for purchasers of Adata storage products: Adata SSD Toolbox, Adata SSD Migration Tool, and Adata Backup ToGo. The first is the standard SSD toolbox with drive information, basic diagnostics, secure removal and firmware update tools, benchmarking, SSD optimization or TRIM, and, oddly enough, a drive cloning feature. The second piece of software lets you clone, backup, and recover data from your SSD. The final downloadable package lets you back up your data regularly and supports both Windows and Android platforms.
That’s more than many generic brand SSDs, and the potential for firmware updates is high given the fresh IG5666 controller. We’ve been hearing about other non-Phison PCIe 5.0 drives for at least two years now, so it’s great to finally see a retail product. However, being the first means there’s a much higher chance that future firmware updates will be needed as the rotation progresses.
Adata Legend 970 Pro: A Closer Look
Picture 1 With 4
The Adata Legend 970 Pro comes with a double-sided heatsink with an integrated fan. This is a must-have, as the drive generates a fair amount of heat. There’s potential for a bare drive with this hardware, but as with other high-end PCIe 5.0 drives—those based on the Phison E26 controller, rather than the InnoGrit IG5666 we have here—you’ll need to provide a heatsink. Active cooling isn’t typically required, but it can be useful in some environments.
The included fan plugs into a header on the PCB, but can be powered externally if needed. On the other hand, E26-based drives typically require an external power source to keep the fans running. Based on further examination of the PCB components, it appears that the fan uses a 5V power supply, augmented from the M.2’s 3.3V power supply. Personally, we found it nice not to have to deal with additional external cables, but you can still disconnect the fan if you want to eliminate the noise (which became quite audible during testing).
Picture 1 With 2
We can’t talk about this fresh controller, the InnoGrit IG5666, without mentioning the competition. The Phison E26, which reaches the pinnacle of a drive like Key T705is by far the most popular PCIe 5.0 SSD controller on the market. We’re glad there’s some competition, but that means we need to investigate the differences between the two controllers.
Both controllers are eight-channel, 12nm, 2400MT/s. This means they can access the flash memory through eight channels at once, which provides higher throughput, they are not super productive, as 12nm requires a lot of power to support high-performance flash memory and are designed for specific flash memories. In the future, we will see 6nm/7nm controllers that can support flash speeds of up to 3600MT/s or even 4800MT/s with just four channels. These two controllers also operate DRAM, which can improve performance and endurance, but also draw more power. In low: these drives have the potential to draw a lot of power.
Architecture-wise, it’s not yet clear what InnoGrit has under the hood in the IG5666. We suspect it’s borrowing from enterprise designs, which could be RISC-V or simply Cortex-R5. The former isn’t too crazy, as Phison’s E26 uses a custom RISC-V for its companion cores. If we had to guess, though, the IG5666 likely uses two quad-core R5s like the IG5668. While such cores can share responsibilities evenly, it’s not uncommon for them to have some specialization. So you’d have cores to handle writes, reads, NAND management, and cache management. The takeaway is that this design is likely to be power-hungry, even more so than the E26.
Let’s compare this with our findings from excellent budget drives built around the InnoGrit IG5220, such as Patriot P400 or HP FX900. The latter in particular was done right, with excellent power efficiency at the time. Now take those three cores and go to eight, and bump up the clock speeds as well. Yes, the Legend 970 Pro’s IG5666 offers significantly higher performance, but it’s essentially the same technology — on the same node, the same 2400MT/s flash support, and even the same generation of LDPC for error correction. You could even add DRAM if you consider the IG5221. We’ll compare that drive to the IG5236 on the next page, but it doesn’t take much imagination to expect power issues at this level of scaling.
MORE: The best SSD drives
MORE: How We Test HDDs and SSDs
MORE: All SSD Content
