Kioxia's Exceria Plus G3 SSD is designed to compete with the most affordable drives on the market. Right now, the Exceria Plus G3 2 TB sells for only 120 Euros including tax, which makes it pretty much the most affordable 2 TB Gen 4 NVMe on the market. Under the hood we found a modern Phison E21 controller, which is a big improvement over the Gen 3 E12 that powered the G1 and G2 variants. The NAND flash has been upgraded, too, it is now Toshiba's 112-layer 3D TLC. As expected for a value drive, a DRAM cache chip is not included, but the drive will use up to 64 MB of the system's main memory for HMB (Host-Memory-Buffer), which caches the mapping tables of the SSD.

Synthetic performance numbers of the Exceria Plus G3 are not that impressive, the drive sits roughly in the middle of our test group. The only exception is 4K random write, which runs very well, delivering results better than virtually all other drives. Synthetic test results are one thing, what's much more important is to also include real-life testing. We're even running those tests with the drives filled to 85% capacity, not empty. This approach puts additional strain on the various algorithms and the SLC cache, just like in real-life.

Our real-life testing confirms that the Exceria Plus G3 is not a top-end drive by today's standards, the MAP1602-based NM790 is over 10% faster; the WD Black SN770 is 6% faster. That doesn't mean that the G3 is hopeless—not at all. It actually offers very decent performance that clearly beats what older Gen 3 drives offer, and it can also outperform one of the value kings, the Kingston NV2. It's also much faster than the various QLC drives in our lineup—at similar or better pricing. The G3 sits roughly in the space between Samsung 980 Pro, Crucial P5 Plus and XPG Atom 50.

Kioxia's drive comes with an SLC cache of 60%, or 435 GB, which is enough to soak up nearly all bursts of write activity. Unfortunately, once the SLC cache is exhausted, write speeds fall off a cliff and reach only 500 MB/s, which is considerably slower than most competing drives, but still better than SATA drives. Filling the whole drive completed at 402 MB/s—not good for Gen 4 NVMe in 2024—if you expect to write 100 GB+ in one go, do consider the alternatives. Realistically speaking, and considering the price point, this is something that will never happen. Do consider that downloading games is bottlenecked by your Internet connection, even a Gigabit line only writes 100 MB/s, which will always operate at full speed on this SSD.

Our power consumption testing shows excellent numbers for idle in laptops, which is a very important metric for battery life, because the SSD will be idle virtually all the time in such devices. In a desktop, idle power consumption is a bit on the high side, but with 1.3 W it really doesn't matter much. Energy efficiency during read or write is alright, but not outstanding in any way, the MAP1602-based drives do much better in these tests. The relatively low power efficiency affects heat output, too, because power gets converted into heat.

Thermal testing in this review shows that the Exceria Plus G3 will throttle fairly quickly when under heavy writes, and even heavy reads can lead to a bit of throttling. For light usage scenarios this won't be any issue at all, but power users should definitely consider getting a small heatsink for the drive or install the motherboard's M.2 cooler, when available. It seems that Kioxia was extremely careful with their thermal limits—the drive will throttle as soon as it reaches 85°C, which is a very low cutoff point. Typically, we see this setting at 100°C, or even a bit higher, which gives those drives much more thermal headroom to avoid throttling.

What really makes a difference is Kioxia's pricing. Unfortunately, Kioxia's products are not available in the United States and Canada, so we'll be looking at European prices. You can find the Exceria Plus 2 TB for only €120, including 20% VAT, which makes it one of the most affordable drives on the market, especially since the global rise in storage prices. For the comparisons in this review I converted the price conservatively to $120. Our performance-per-dollar chart confirms—this is the value drive you want, if money is tight. The Kingston NV2, well-known as the "solid option when you want the cheapest that works" is priced similarly. However, it is also always a lottery when it comes to hardware components, because Kingston uses whichever parts are the cheapest, as long as they meet the rated specifications. In contrast, the Exceria Plus G3 is a reliable choice since it uses the Phison E21 controller and Toshiba flash (Kioxia's exclusive flash supplier). This means you always know what you're getting with the Exceria Plus G3. The Lexar NM790 is a bit more expensive at €132, but definitely recommended if you want higher performance. A strong alternative is the WD SN580, which is priced at €120, too, with a bit better performance and global availability. Other drives like the Samsung 990 Pro (€165), Crucial T500 (€150) and WD Black SN850X (€155) are too expensive for the group of people that really just want an affordable drive that runs well enough, without breaking the bank.