Packaging and Contents

The Drive

The drive uses the M.2 2280 form factor, which makes it 22 mm wide and 80 mm long.


Like most M.2 NVMe SSDs, the XPG Spectrix S40G connects to the host system over a PCI-Express 3.0 x4 interface.


A unique selling point of the XPG Spectrix S40G is its RGB-lighting capability, which gives the whole drive a really nice glow. The RGB lighting is powered and controlled through the M.2 interface—an additional cable, like on other RGB SSDs, is not necessary.


Colors and patterns can be adjusted in ADATA's software. Unfortunately, these settings don't persist through reboots, so the ADATA software will always have to be installed on your system.


Here, you can get a better view at three of the RGB LEDs. They are soldered on to the PCB, not integrated in the milk-white diffusor.


The diffusor is attached using sticky tape (not glued on), making it fairly easy to remove. It's just a piece of plastic that does a great job at spreading the light of the individual LEDs.


On the PCB, you'll find four flash chips, the controller, and a DRAM chip.


The 8-channel flash controller is made by Realtek, with support for 3D TLC, QLC, and PCI-Express 3.0 x4. It uses eight flash channels.


The TLC flash chips are fabricated by Intel through their IMFT cooperation with Micron. They have been rebranded by ADATA. For cost optimization, ADATA buys silicon wafers, cuts them up, tests and bins the chips, and puts them inside their own packaging.


One Nanya DDR3-1600 chip provides 128 MB of fast DRAM storage for the controller to store the mapping tables in.