# Fanxiang S660 2TB Review — The Value Sweet Spot in a QLC Budget Drive (2026)

The Fanxiang S660 2 TB hits the value sweet spot in this QLC lineup — enough capacity to be a real game library or media drive, enough cache to absorb most real-world writes, and a price that makes the Crucial P3 Plus look expensive.

Quick answer: The Fanxiang S660 2 TB is the right budget pick for a game library drive, a media repository, or bulk storage where capacity-per-dollar is the only metric that matters and every file has a backup. Its single-sided PCB, included heatsink, and aggressive pricing make it a tempting PS5 expansion drive — though it sits below Sony's 5,500 MB/s recommendation. Buyers who want a primary boot drive or who care about post-purchase support should choose a Crucial P3 Plus or Team Group MP44Q instead. The S660 wins on price; it loses everywhere else that matters long-term.

## Specifications

| Specification | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Capacity | 2 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 | 1600 TBW |
| MTBF | 1500000 |
| Warranty | 5 years |

## Performance

Rated at 5,000 MB/s reads and 4,500 MB/s writes, the S660 2 TB delivers PCIe 4.0 throughput sufficient for any consumer workload short of sustained professional video ingest. The 2 TB capacity provides enough NAND dies to fully saturate the rated speeds, and the larger SLC cache compared to the 1 TB model means fewer real-world scenarios that exhaust the write buffer.

When the cache does fill, writes drop to roughly 1,400 MB/s during the folding phase and eventually settle at native QLC speed around 530 MB/s. This is the defining limitation of QLC NAND, and it is shared by every drive in this class. For a game library drive — where you write large files once during installation and then read them thousands of times — the write cliff is largely academic. For a video editing scratch disk or a drive that sees frequent multi-hundred-gigabyte transfers, it is a daily frustration.

## Endurance, TBW & Warranty

Fanxiang advertises a 5-year warranty, though the S660 does not appear on the company's website. The 2 TB endurance is estimated at roughly 1,600 TBW, scaling from the 4 TB model's confirmed 2,800 TBW. At 50 GB of writes per day, that endurance budget lasts over 85 years. The spec-sheet numbers are reassuring; the practical warranty experience is not. User reports describe drives failing within 40 hours and support emails going into a void. For a secondary drive storing replaceable data, this risk may be acceptable. For anything irreplaceable, it is not.

## Pros and Cons

**Pros:**

- 5,000 MB/s reads and 4,500 MB/s writes on PCIe 4.0
- 2 TB capacity with generous SLC cache buffer for real-world writes
- Single-sided PCB — fits thin laptops and PS5 without clearance issues
- Includes heatsink, pads, screwdriver, and M.2 screw in the box
- Lowest cost per GB among PCIe 4.0 drives in its class
**Cons:**

- QLC NAND write cliff drops sustained writes to SATA-class ~530 MB/s
- DRAM-less HMB design limits mixed-I/O consistency under load
- Marketed as TLC on some store listings but confirmed QLC via Flash ID tools
- Warranty support is practically unreachable — failed drives go unanswered
- Below Sony's 5,500 MB/s PS5 recommended sequential read speed


## Verdict

The Fanxiang S660 2 TB is the right budget pick for a game library drive, a media repository, or bulk storage where capacity-per-dollar is the only metric that matters and every file has a backup. Its single-sided PCB, included heatsink, and aggressive pricing make it a tempting PS5 expansion drive — though it sits below Sony's 5,500 MB/s recommendation. Buyers who want a primary boot drive or who care about post-purchase support should choose a Crucial P3 Plus or Team Group MP44Q instead. The S660 wins on price; it loses everywhere else that matters long-term.

## Frequently Asked Questions

### Is the Fanxiang S660 2TB good for gaming?

As a dedicated game library drive, the S660 2 TB is a strong value proposition. Game loads and texture streaming benefit from the 5,000 MB/s reads, and in blind testing the difference versus a 7,000 MB/s drive is under a second in most titles. The 2 TB capacity holds a sizeable library, and since games are write-once-read-many, the QLC write cliff is rarely encountered after initial installation. If your game saves are cloud-backed, the reliability risk is mainly the inconvenience of re-downloading.

### Is the Fanxiang S660 2TB compatible with the PS5?

Physically, yes — the single-sided M.2 2280 design with the included heatsink fits the PS5 expansion bay without clearance concerns. Performance-wise, the S660's 5,000 MB/s sequential read falls short of Sony's 5,500 MB/s recommendation. The console will format and use the drive, and many users report no noticeable issues in real-world gameplay. For PS5 titles that push the storage API hard, a drive meeting the full 5,500 MB/s threshold is technically preferable.

### What is the TBW endurance of the Fanxiang S660 2TB?

Fanxiang does not publish a capacity-specific endurance figure for the 2 TB model. Scaling from the 4 TB variant's confirmed 2,800 TBW, the 2 TB endurance is estimated at roughly 1,600 TBW. At a daily write load of 50 GB, that provides over 85 years of endurance — far beyond both the 5-year warranty period and the drive's practical useful life in a consumer system.

### How does the Fanxiang S660 2TB compare to the Crucial P3 Plus 2TB?

Both use the same Phison E21T controller with Micron QLC NAND and HMB in place of DRAM — they are effectively the same drive architecture. The Crucial P3 Plus benefits from Micron's direct NAND supply chain (Crucial is Micron's consumer brand), more consistent firmware updates via Crucial Storage Executive, and a warranty process backed by a major US-based company. The S660 undercuts it on price but carries the Fanxiang support risk. If the price gap is more than 15–20%, the S660 may be worth the gamble for secondary storage; at narrower gaps, the Crucial is the safer pick.

### Does the Fanxiang S660 2TB need a heatsink?

The E21T controller is relatively cool-running compared to 8-channel designs, and the single-sided PCB concentrates heat on one accessible surface. In a desktop with decent case airflow, the drive can operate without a heatsink. Fanxiang includes one in the box, and installing it is a good idea for PS5 use, laptop installations, or compact cases where airflow is constrained.

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Last updated: 2026-08-10. Source: https://ssdrive.net/fanxiang-s660-2-tb