# Addlink G55H 2 TB Review: Budget PCIe 5.0 With a Heatsink (2026)

The addlink G55H 2 TB bolts an 8.75 mm heatsink onto Phison's DRAM-less E31T platform, turning a 10,300 MB/s PCIe 5.0 drive into one of the more sensible PS5-ready Gen5 upgrades.

Quick answer: The addlink G55H 2 TB makes the most sense for PS5 owners and desktop builders who want PCIe 5.0 speed with cooling already solved: screw it in, and the 8.75 mm heatsink, 1,200 TBW rating and five-year warranty take care of the rest. Skip it if your slot lives under a motherboard heatsink or inside a laptop, where the bare addlink G55 at 2.3 mm is the right pick, or if your work involves sustained hundred-gigabyte writes, where the Corsair MP700 Elite held on longer in PCWorld's testing and DRAM-equipped flagships like the Crucial T705 remain the stronger tool. As an all-round Gen5 drive for a gaming build, it earns its place on the shortlist: the speed is real, the endurance is generous, and the compromises are the sensible ones.

## Specifications

| Specification | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Capacity | 2 TB |
| Interface | M.2 5.0 |
| Controller | Phison E31T 4 Channel |
| Memory type | Kioxia 218-L TLC |
| DRAM cache | HMB |
| Sequential read | 10300 MB/s |
| Sequential write | 9000 MB/s |
| Random read IOPS | 1300000 |
| Random write IOPS | 1500000 |
| Endurance | 1200 TBW |
| MTBF | 1500000 |
| Warranty | 5 years |

## Performance

addlink rates the G55H 2 TB at up to 10,300 MB/s sequential reads and 9,000 MB/s sequential writes, the full-range figures for this capacity, with random performance rated at up to 1,300,000 IOPS reads and 1,500,000 IOPS writes. Those are burst numbers, achieved while writes land in the SLC cache, and like every DRAM-less design the G55H slows once a long transfer outruns that cache.

In practice the drive holds up well against its peers. PCWorld, which tested both the 1 TB and 2 TB capacities, called it the fastest DRAM-less PCIe 5.0 drive it had benchmarked, beating the Corsair MP700 Elite and PNY CS2150 by several seconds in 48 GB real-world transfers, although the Corsair regained the lead in a 450 GB sustained write and the overall gaps sat within the margin of error. Translated to daily use: Windows boots, game loads and Steam installs feel identical to a top Gen4 drive, while bulk file moves, video project copies and DirectStorage asset streaming are where the doubled sequential ceiling shows. For a boot-plus-games drive the SLC cache limit is academic; if you routinely dump hundreds of gigabytes of camera footage in one session, a DRAM-equipped flagship is the safer tool.

## Endurance, TBW & Warranty

The 2 TB G55H is rated for 1,200 TBW, following the 600 TBW per terabyte that addlink assigns across the whole G55 family, and it is covered by a five-year limited warranty. Coverage ends at whichever arrives first, the five years or the rated writes; addlink says it judges the endurance side by the drive's reported Percentage Used SMART value rather than a raw byte counter, so you can check your standing in CrystalDiskInfo at any time. The rating is generous for a consumer drive: at a heavy 50 GB of writes per day, 1,200 TBW takes over 65 years to exhaust. The listed MTBF of 1.5 million hours is a population-level reliability statistic, not a promise about any individual drive's lifespan.

## Pros and Cons

**Pros:**

- 10,300 MB/s rated sequential reads
- 1,200 TBW endurance with a five-year warranty
- Included 8.75 mm heatsink clears the PS5 bay
- Efficient 7 nm Phison E31T controller
- Kioxia 218-layer BiCS8 TLC at 3,600 MT/s
- Single-sided layout at 2 TB
**Cons:**

- DRAM-less, leans on host memory buffer
- Sustained writes trail the Corsair MP700 Elite
- Heatsink height rules out laptops and slim builds
- PS5 slot limits it to PCIe 4.0 speeds
- Modest real-world gains over fast PCIe 4.0 drives


## Verdict

The addlink G55H 2 TB makes the most sense for PS5 owners and desktop builders who want PCIe 5.0 speed with cooling already solved: screw it in, and the 8.75 mm heatsink, 1,200 TBW rating and five-year warranty take care of the rest. Skip it if your slot lives under a motherboard heatsink or inside a laptop, where the bare addlink G55 at 2.3 mm is the right pick, or if your work involves sustained hundred-gigabyte writes, where the Corsair MP700 Elite held on longer in PCWorld's testing and DRAM-equipped flagships like the Crucial T705 remain the stronger tool. As an all-round Gen5 drive for a gaming build, it earns its place on the shortlist: the speed is real, the endurance is generous, and the compromises are the sensible ones.

## Frequently Asked Questions

### Is the addlink G55H 2 TB compatible with the PS5?

Yes. Sony's requirements for PS5 expansion drives are a PCIe 4.0 or faster NVMe SSD, a recommended read speed of 5,500 MB/s or higher, and total dimensions no taller than 11.25 mm with cooling attached. The G55H clears all three: it is a PCIe 5.0 x4 drive rated at 10,300 MB/s, and the integrated heatsink keeps total height at 8.75 mm, so addlink markets it specifically as PS5-compatible. One caveat worth understanding before buying: the PS5's M.2 slot is PCIe 4.0, so the drive operates at Gen4 speeds inside the console, which is still far above Sony's minimum recommendation.

### Does the addlink G55H have a DRAM cache?

No. The Phison E31T controller inside the G55H is a DRAM-less design, the first PCIe 5.0 controller Phison built without onboard memory. Instead it uses a host memory buffer (HMB), reserving a small slice of your system RAM to hold the drive's mapping tables. For everyday desktop work, gaming and game installs, the difference against a DRAM-equipped drive is hard to notice. Where DRAM-less designs give ground is in very long write sessions and deep mixed workloads, which is why drives built on Phison's E26 controller, like the Crucial T705, still occupy the tier above.

### What is the TBW endurance of the 2 TB G55H?

addlink rates the 2 TB model at 1,200 TBW, following the 600 TBW per terabyte applied across the G55 and G55H range, so the 1 TB carries 600 TBW and the 4 TB carries 2,400 TBW. To put 1,200 TBW in perspective, writing a heavy 50 GB every single day would take more than 65 years to exhaust the rating. In practice the figure matters mostly as the boundary of the five-year warranty, which ends at whichever comes first, the time limit or the rated writes.

### Does the addlink G55H need an extra heatsink?

No, cooling is the entire point of this variant. The G55H ships with an 8.75 mm aluminum heatsink using a crosscut grid structure and a pre-applied thermal pad, and addlink claims substantially cooler operation as a result. The efficient 7 nm E31T controller also draws far less power than first-generation Gen5 controllers, so there is less heat to shed in the first place. Avoid stacking it under a motherboard's own M.2 cooler; if your board insists on using its built-in heatsink, the bare addlink G55, at just 2.3 mm thick, is the better fit.

### How does the G55H compare to the Corsair MP700 Elite?

They are close relatives: both are DRAM-less PCIe 5.0 drives built on the Phison E31T controller. PCWorld tested them side by side and called the G55H the fastest DRAM-less PCIe 5.0 drive it had benchmarked, with a lead of several seconds in 48 GB real-world transfers. The Corsair pulled ahead in the much longer 450 GB write test, suggesting slightly better sustained behavior once the SLC cache empties. PCWorld also noted the differences sat largely within the margin of error, so availability and the included heatsink are reasonable tiebreakers between the two.

### Is the addlink G55H 2 TB good for gaming?

Yes, with a caveat about expectations. Game installs, updates and level loads are dominated by random reads and software overhead, so the jump from a fast PCIe 4.0 drive to this Gen5 model is measured in fractions of a second today. What the G55H 2 TB offers gamers is headroom: 2 TB comfortably holds a large modern library, the included heatsink prevents throttling during long install sessions, and the drive is ready for DirectStorage titles that stream assets straight to the GPU. If you already own a high-end Gen4 drive, the upgrade is optional rather than transformative.

### Is the 2 TB G55H faster than the 1 TB version?

Slightly, on paper. The 2 TB model carries the range's headline rating of 10,300 MB/s sequential reads and 9,000 MB/s writes, while retail listings quote marginally lower reads for the 1 TB. The gap is typical of DRAM-less designs: more NAND dies give the controller more parallelism and a larger SLC cache to absorb bursts, so smaller capacities usually give up some write headroom. The 2 TB also stays single-sided despite its density, which helps compatibility. For most buyers the deciding factor should be capacity, since the per-gigabyte speed differences are minor.

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Last updated: 2026-08-17. Source: https://ssdrive.net/addlink-g55h-2-tb