Goodram IRDM Pro 1TB - PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD Review
The Goodram IRDM Pro 1TB is a Phison E18 reference design - 7,000 MB/s reads, dedicated DDR4 DRAM, and a 700 TBW endurance budget on a five-year warranty, aimed squarely at Polish and pan-European builders.
The Goodram IRDM Pro 1 TB is built on Phison's eight-channel PS5018-E18 controller, paired with 3D TLC NAND (typical of this controller class, sourced from Micron's 176-layer line) and up to 2 GB of DDR4 DRAM scaled to capacity. It is the same controller and NAND recipe used in the Seagate FireCuda 530, MSI Spatium M480, and Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus, so the underlying silicon is a known-good flagship platform; what differs is firmware tuning and capacity-specific binning. The PCB is M.2 2280 on a single-sided layout for the 1 TB tier, which suits both desktop slots and most laptop M.2 bays.
Goodram ships the IRDM Pro in 1 TB, 2 TB, and 4 TB capacities. The 1 TB SKU on this page has materially lower writes than its larger siblings - 5,500 MB/s versus 6,850 MB/s on 2 TB and 4 TB - because only four NAND packages populate the PCB, halving the parallelism the E18 has to work with on writes. Random reads also drop from 650,000 IOPS on the 2 TB and 4 TB to 350,000 IOPS at 1 TB for the same reason. Random writes hold steady at 700,000 IOPS across the range. Goodram does not currently ship a 500 GB IRDM Pro.
The drive targets European builders who prefer a regional brand with strong local distribution and warranty support; Goodram is owned by Wilk Elektronik and stocks well through Polish, German, and Czech retailers. Direct rivals at the same tier are the WD Black SN770 1 TB (slower but cheaper, DRAM-less HMB), the Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB (higher random reads, lower TBW), the Crucial P5 Plus 1 TB (similar price, lower writes), and the Kingston KC3000 1 TB (same E18 platform, different firmware). No heatsink is included in the retail box.
✅ Storage Comparisons:
🚀 Performance and benchmarks
Manufacturer ratings for the IRDM Pro 1 TB land at 7,000 MB/s sequential reads and 5,500 MB/s sequential writes, with random performance up to 350,000 read and 700,000 write IOPS. The asymmetry between read and write IOPS is unusual and reflects how the E18 controller behaves with only four NAND packages - the controller can fan out small reads aggressively but is bandwidth-limited on large reads relative to the eight-package 2 TB and 4 TB siblings.
Goodram IRDM Pro 1 TB vs M.2 4.0 x 4 peers
Switch between sequential throughput and random IOPS to see how this drive stacks up against other M.2 4.0 x 4 SSDs in our database. The highlighted bar is the drive on this page — click any other bar to open that drive.
- Patriot Viper PV593 1 TB: 14,500 MB/s read, 14,000 MB/s write
- Patriot Viper PV593 2 TB: 14,500 MB/s read, 14,000 MB/s write
- Patriot Viper PV593 4 TB: 14,500 MB/s read, 14,000 MB/s write
- Patriot Viper PV573 2 TB: 14,000 MB/s read, 12,000 MB/s write
- Goodram IRDM Pro 1 TB (this drive): 7,000 MB/s read, 5,500 MB/s write
Independent reviewers at Guru3D and NikkTech tested the 2 TB IRDM Pro and found CrystalDiskMark sequential numbers close to the rated values, with strong sustained writes thanks to the DDR4 DRAM and a generous SLC pseudocache. The 1 TB profile is closer in feel to a Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB than to its own 2 TB sibling: snappy for boot, games, and applications; competent but not class-leading for large continuous transfers because the SLC cache and direct-write rate both scale with NAND parallelism. SLC cache typically exhausts at around 150-200 GB of continuous writes on a 1 TB E18 drive, after which the drive falls to its TLC direct-write rate near 1,500-1,800 MB/s. DirectStorage operates as expected on a supported PCIe 4.0 system, and game load times are within striking distance of higher-tier drives such as the Seagate FireCuda 530 1 TB.
🖥️ Endurance and warranty
Goodram rates the IRDM Pro 1 TB at 700 TBW (terabytes written) over a five-year warranty, whichever expires first. At a heavy 50 GB/day sustained write workload that endurance budget lasts roughly 38 years - longer than the drive's likely service life - and a typical desktop user writing 10-20 GB/day will never approach the ceiling. The published MTBF is two million hours, a population statistic across a fleet rather than a per-drive promise. The TBW scales linearly across the line: 1,400 TBW on the 2 TB and 3,000 TBW on the 4 TB. RMA handling runs through Goodram's regional distributors in Europe, and the company maintains a serial-number registration portal at goodram.com that streamlines a future warranty claim. Plan a backup target for critical data regardless of TBW headroom; cell failures can occur well before TBW is exhausted.
📊 Specs
| Category | Value |
|---|---|
| Capacity [?] | 1 TB |
| Interface [?] | M.2 4.0 x 4 |
| Controller [?] | Phison PS5018-E18 |
| Memory type [?] | 3D TLC |
| DRAM [?] | DRAM Buffer |
| Read speed (MB/s) [?] | 7000 |
| Write speed (MB/s) [?] | 5500 |
| Read IOPS [?] | 350000 |
| Write IOPS [?] | 700000 |
| Endurance (TBW) [?] | 700 |
| MTBF (million hours) [?] | 2 |
| Warranty (years) [?] | 5 |
Conclusion
The Goodram IRDM Pro 1 TB is a pragmatic pick for European builders who want a regional-brand E18 drive with predictable local warranty support and competitive pricing. Anyone running heavy sustained-write workloads should step up to the 2 TB capacity, which both doubles TBW and raises rated writes from 5,500 to 6,850 MB/s. Skip the IRDM Pro 1 TB if you specifically need the higher random-read IOPS of a 2 TB E18 drive - the 1 TB's 350,000 read IOPS lags the segment. Better alternatives at 1 TB include the Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB for higher random reads and the WD Black SN770 1 TB for a cheaper DRAM-less option. As a mainstream PCIe 4.0 boot and game drive at 1 TB in the European market it gets the job done.
+ Pros
- 7,000 MB/s rated sequential reads on PCIe 4.0
- Phison PS5018-E18 controller with DDR4 DRAM
- 700 TBW endurance with 5-year warranty
- 2,000,000-hour MTBF rating
- Strong European retail and warranty footprint
- Same controller class as Seagate FireCuda 530
- Cons
- 5,500 MB/s writes much lower than 2 TB sibling
- 350,000 random read IOPS lags the segment
- No heatsink included in retail box
- Limited availability outside Europe
- No bundled monitoring software equivalent to WD Dashboard
🛒 Buy this or similar SSD Storage:
✨ Video Review
GOODRAM IRDM PRO GEN.2 1TB | SSD Review
