PNY Velocity X Software

While all other Gen 5 SSDs use either a SATA power cable or a 5-pin fan connector, PNY went the extra mile and is connecting their cooler to the system using an internal USB connector. This makes a lot of sense, since that interface is able to provide both power and a data link to the system, so the cooler's operating parameters can be configured.


Installing Velocity X is very easy and completed in just a few minutes. The resource requirements are minimal, only 180 MB disk space and 70 MB memory while running. I also like that you can copy the application files to another machine and they will run in a portable instance, without any installation required. The software also works fine when completely offline.

This application also supports overclocking, fan control and monitoring for NVIDIA GeForce cards, the SSD will show up as "Accessory" in the section on the left. Besides the heatsink name you get readouts for the heatsink temperature and currently running fan speed.


You may select from three fan operating modes: "Auto," "Full Speed" and "Custom," which gets enabled when you click the fan curve and drag the points around. There are four points that can be controlled and fan stop is supported. The default fan curve will stop the fans completely until the drive reaches 40°C, at which point the fans will spin up. In my opinion, this spin-up phase is ramping speeds a little bit too aggressively and the overall fan curve seems focused more on playing it safe instead of achieving an optimal low-noise experience.


On a second tab called "Lighting," you can customize the RGB effects. There's several patterns to choose from, and they can be customized, too. Last but not least, there's an option to control the drive lighting by its temperature and you can also switch off all RGB effects.