# Fanxiang S660 1TB Review — Budget PCIe 4.0 with QLC Trade-Offs (2026)

The Fanxiang S660 1 TB is the capacity where this budget QLC drive starts to make practical sense — enough space for a real game library, enough NAND parallelism to hit its rated speeds, and a price that undercuts nearly everything with a PCIe 4.0 label.

Quick answer: The Fanxiang S660 1 TB is a defensible choice for a budget game library drive or a secondary storage device where every file on it has a backup elsewhere. Its single-sided PCB, included heatsink, and rock-bottom price make it appealing for PS5 expansion on a tight budget — though it falls short of Sony's 5,500 MB/s recommended read speed. Buyers who need a primary boot drive or who value having a company that answers support tickets should spend the small premium for a Crucial P3 Plus or Team Group MP44Q instead.

## Specifications

| Specification | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Capacity | 1 TB |
| Interface | M.2 4.0 x 4 |
| Controller | Phison PS5021-E21T 4 Channel |
| Memory type | Micron 176-L QLC |
| DRAM cache | No |
| Sequential read | 5000 MB/s |
| Sequential write | 4500 MB/s |
| Random read IOPS | 600000 |
| Random write IOPS | 500000 |
| Endurance | 800 TBW |
| MTBF | 1500000 |
| Warranty | 5 years |

## Performance

Rated at 5,000 MB/s sequential reads and 4,500 MB/s sequential writes, the S660 1 TB delivers respectable PCIe 4.0 throughput for light-to-moderate workloads. Random IOPS land around 600,000 reads and 500,000 writes — sufficient for boot, gaming, and general productivity, though the HMB-only design means sustained mixed-I/O consistency falls short of DRAM-backed alternatives.

The S660's performance story is defined by what happens after the SLC cache fills. The pseudo-SLC write buffer handles burst writes at full speed, but once exhausted — which happens sooner on a QLC drive than a TLC equivalent — write speeds collapse to roughly 1,400 MB/s during the cache folding phase and eventually settle around 530 MB/s at native QLC speed. For gaming and everyday use this is a non-issue; game installs are mostly reads, and background writes are small and intermittent. For anyone regularly transferring 100 GB+ of video or raw photos, the write cliff will be frustratingly apparent.

## Endurance, TBW & Warranty

Fanxiang claims a 5-year warranty, though the S660 is conspicuously absent from the company's own website. The 1 TB endurance is not officially published, but scaling from the 4 TB model's confirmed 2,800 TBW yields an estimated 800 TBW at this capacity. At a typical 30 GB per day, that is over 70 years of writes. The numbers look fine on paper. The real-world concern is Fanxiang's support track record: user reviews report drives failing within weeks and RMA requests going unanswered. A warranty you cannot claim is not a warranty.

## Pros and Cons

**Pros:**

- 5,000 MB/s reads and 4,500 MB/s writes on PCIe 4.0
- Single-sided PCB fits thin laptops and the PS5 M.2 bay
- Includes heatsink, pads, screwdriver, and M.2 screw
- 5-year warranty period with ~800 TBW estimated endurance
- Aggressively priced against name-brand QLC alternatives
**Cons:**

- QLC NAND with severe post-cache write drop to SATA-class speeds
- DRAM-less HMB design struggles with sustained mixed workloads
- Marketed as TLC on some listings but confirmed as QLC via Flash ID
- Warranty support is effectively unreachable per widespread user reports
- Below Sony's 5,500 MB/s PS5 recommended read speed floor


## Verdict

The Fanxiang S660 1 TB is a defensible choice for a budget game library drive or a secondary storage device where every file on it has a backup elsewhere. Its single-sided PCB, included heatsink, and rock-bottom price make it appealing for PS5 expansion on a tight budget — though it falls short of Sony's 5,500 MB/s recommended read speed. Buyers who need a primary boot drive or who value having a company that answers support tickets should spend the small premium for a Crucial P3 Plus or Team Group MP44Q instead.

## Frequently Asked Questions

### Is the Fanxiang S660 1TB good for gaming?

For game loading, yes — the 5,000 MB/s reads handle DirectStorage and texture streaming without issue, and real-world game load times are indistinguishable from faster drives. For game installation and library management, the QLC write cliff matters: downloading or moving large games will slow down dramatically once the SLC cache fills. As a dedicated game library drive where you install once and read many times, it works well. As a mixed-use drive where you are constantly writing large files, the QLC penalty is real.

### Is the Fanxiang S660 1TB compatible with the PS5?

It fits — the single-sided M.2 2280 form factor with the included heatsink is a good physical match for the PS5 expansion bay — but the S660's 5,000 MB/s sequential read rating falls below Sony's 5,500 MB/s recommendation. The console will still format and use the drive, and many users report acceptable real-world game performance. For demanding PS5 titles that rely on fast storage streaming, a drive meeting the full 5,500 MB/s recommendation is preferable.

### Does the Fanxiang S660 have a DRAM cache?

No. The S660 uses Host Memory Buffer (HMB) to borrow 64 MB of system RAM instead of having its own dedicated DRAM. This is standard for budget PCIe 4.0 controllers like the Phison E21T and keeps costs down, but it means the drive's random I/O performance relies on the host system's memory subsystem. In practice, HMB works well enough for gaming and general use, but sustained mixed read/write workloads will show more latency variance than a DRAM-backed drive.

### What is the TBW endurance of the Fanxiang S660 1TB?

Fanxiang does not publish an official TBW for the 1 TB capacity. Scaling from the 4 TB model's confirmed 2,800 TBW rating, the 1 TB endurance is estimated at roughly 800 TBW. At a consumer workload of 30 GB per day, that provides over 70 years of writes — well beyond the 5-year warranty period and the drive's practical useful life.

### Does the Fanxiang S660 need a heatsink?

The E21T is a power-efficient 4-channel controller and the single-sided PCB keeps heat on one surface, so in a desktop with reasonable airflow the drive can operate without a heatsink. Fanxiang includes one in the box anyway. Inside the PS5 or a laptop with restricted airflow, installing the included heatsink is recommended to prevent throttling during extended write sessions.

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Last updated: 2026-08-10. Source: https://ssdrive.net/fanxiang-s660-1-tb