Acer FA300 2 TB Review

Introduction

Acer is a world-leading manufacturer of computer hardware. The company was founded in Taiwan in 1976, and is mostly known for their laptops, desktop PCs, and monitors. BIWIN Storage has been granted an official license by Acer to produce, market and sell solid-state-drives using their name.

The FA300 isn’t Acer’s first Gen 5 SSD—the premium Predator GM9000 got there earlier—but it’s their first DRAM-less Gen 5 SSD, aimed squarely at the sweet spot of the market: near-flagship sequential speeds without the price premium of a DRAM-equipped drive. Acer markets it as fast, affordable Gen 5 storage for desktops, laptops and even the PlayStation 5. The DRAM-less design makes a lot of sense right now, with DRAM prices having gone through the roof.

At the heart of the FA300 is Silicon Motion’s SM2504XT, a brand-new controller optimized for mainstream Gen 5 drives. We reviewed an engineering sample in October last year, Acer’s drive uses the final firmware, paired with Kioxia’s BiCS8 218-layer 3D TLC flash, so the FA300 combines a modern controller with modern NAND.

The Acer FA300 is available in capacities of 1 TB and 2 TB. The endurance is set to 750 TBW and 1500 TBW respectively, and Acer includes a five-year warranty. Pricing is still taking shape: at the time of writing only the 1 TB model is listed, in Germany, for €210 including 19% VAT. Stripping out the tax and converting to dollars works out to around $190. There’s no 2 TB listing yet, but applying the…