XPG Mars 980 Blade 2TB PCIe Gen 5 x4 NVMe 2.0 M.2 2280 Internal SSD, Up to 14,000 MB/s Read & 13,000 MB/s Write Speeds, 3D TLC NAND Flash– SMAR-980B-2TCS

The XPG Mars 980 Blade 2TB NVMe Gen 5 SSD (SMAR-980B-2TCS) represents a new performance class within consumer solid-state drives, designed around the PCI Express 5.0 ×4 interface and the NVMe 2.0 protocol standard. This drive leverages the SMI SM2508 controller fabricated on a 6 nm TSMC process node and paired with high-density 3D TLC NAND flash memory. The result is a highly efficient, thermally optimized storage device capable of sustained sequential throughput up to 14,000 MB/s read and 13,000 MB/s write under ideal conditions.

The M.2 2280 form factor allows direct integration into desktop and laptop motherboards without cables. Its interface bandwidth (PCIe Gen 5 ×4) delivers roughly double the effective data rate of Gen 4 drives, minimizing load times and transfer bottlenecks for applications that rely on large data streams such as video editing, game asset streaming, virtual machine workloads, and scientific processing.

Internally, the Mars 980 Blade utilizes a controller architecture with eight NAND channels and optimized SRAM/DRAM cache handling for low-latency command processing. This design enables 4 K random read performance up to approximately 2,000,000 IOPS and 4 K random write performance up to 1,650,000 IOPS depending on workload distribution and queue depth. These figures place it in the upper tier of Gen 5 drives currently available.

The drive implements LDPC (ECC) error-correction and End-to-End Data Protection to maintain data integrity during long transfer cycles. Dynamic SLC caching is used to buffer incoming writes and sustain peak sequential performance during large file operations. Power management follows the NVMe 2.0 specification, including active, idle, and sleep states to reduce consumption when inactive without impacting latency on wake.

The Mars 980 Blade supports standard security functions such as AES 256-bit encryption, TCG Opal 2.01 compliance, and Pyrite 2.0 security extensions (depending on firmware region). Physical form factor thickness is standard for bare modules (~3.2 mm), ensuring fit compatibility in laptops and compact desktops where thermal clearance is limited.

With an endurance rating of approximately 1,480 terabytes written (TBW) and a mean time between failures of 2 million hours, this drive is engineered for long-term use under intensive workloads. These ratings are backed by XPG’s five-year limited warranty policy. Its operating temperature range is 0 °C to 70 °C, and it can be stored between –40 °C and 85 °C without data loss when powered off.

The Mars 980 Blade is compatible with Microsoft Windows, Linux, and other NVMe-compliant operating systems without the need for special drivers. It is backward compatible with PCI Express 4.0 and 3.0 interfaces, allowing installation on earlier motherboards at reduced speeds without functional loss. This flexibility enables system builders to deploy the drive as a future-ready upgrade while preserving current hardware investments.

Use cases for the Mars 980 Blade span gaming PCs, workstations, and content-creation platforms where high-speed data transfer is critical. It is suitable as a primary OS drive or as dedicated storage for large applications, virtualization environments, and 4K to 8K media projects. The SSD’s architecture is optimized to sustain heavy write loads with minimal thermal throttling under typical case airflow conditions.

As PCI Express 5.0 platforms become standard in modern desktops and workstations, the XPG Mars 980 Blade 2TB serves as a future-proof storage component offering a balance of capacity, throughput, and durability for high-performance computing scenarios.