Best ssd money: Best SSDs 2023: From Budget SATA to Blazing-Fast NVMe

Capacity: 2TB | Interface: M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 x4 | Sequential read: 7,000MB/s | Sequential write: 6,550MB/s | NAND type: 3D TLC NAND | Warranty: 5 Years or 1,400 TBW

What’s better than a fast SSD? An extra-fast SSD that has extreme cooling to ensure heat never slows it down. That’s what Corsair aims to offer with the Corsair MP600 Pro Hydro X Edition. This takes Corsair’s MP600 Pro SSD, which is already a fast drive, and attaches a water block to it so it’s ready for your liquid-cooled gaming rig.

The drive itself delivers high speeds thanks to its use of the PCIe 4.0 x4 interface. It can offer sequential read and write speeds of up to 7,000MB/s and 6,550MB/s respectively. Since this drive comes in a spacious 2TB capacity, you won’t have to worry about needing to upgrade it anytime soon. Another reason you won’t have to upgrade too soon is thanks to the drive’s extreme endurance, which has it rated for a total of 1,400 TBW.

Samsung 990 Pro

Fastest SSD

Samsung 990 Pro

Capacity: 2TB | Interface: M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 x4 | Sequential read: 7,450MB/s | Sequential write: 6,900MB/s | NAND type: MLC V-NAND | Warranty: 5 Years or 600 TBW

One of the main reasons for snagging an SSD over other storage options is the insane speeds offered, so why not grab one of the fastest ones out there? The Samsung 990 Pro is costly, but it takes advantage of PCIe Gen4, bringing you 7,450MB/s read speeds to make all your apps run smoother and quicker, with games, video editing, and even 3D rendering included. Plus, with 6,900MB/s write speeds, saves will be a breeze.

The Samsung 990 Pro offers a 2TB capacity and is a speed demon thanks to unique MLC V-NAND technology, which increases endurance and power efficiency. That, combined with a built-in heat spreader, ensures speeds are maintained even when working overtime. And what’s more, Samsung includes its Magician Software to upgrade firmware, optimize the drive, and monitor health, while also including 256-bit AES encryption to maintain a top-notch performance throughout its lifespan.

Where to Get the Best SSD in the UK

Samsung

870 Evo

Best SSD

Crucial

MX500

Best Budget SSD

Crucial

P2

Best Budget NVMe SSD

WD

Black SN850

Best Gaming SSD

Adata

XPG SX8200 Pro

Best SSD Boot Drive

Samsung

980

Best NVMe SSD

Corsair

Force Series MP510

Best M.2 SSD

Samsung

980 Pro

Best PCIe 4.0 SSD

Samsung

870 QVO

Best SATA SSD

Gigabyte

Aorus NVMe Gen4 SSD

Best Liquid-Cooled SSD

What to Look in for an SSD?

Whereas $500 used to buy you a 128GB or 120GB SSD with you can now buy a 4TB Samsung 870 QVO for under $300 and kiss hard drives goodbye forever. What’s more SSDs are insanely fast with sequential read and write speeds that start at 500MB/s and peak above 7,000MB/s if you’re looking at the latest NVMe PCIe 4.0 drives.

Alternatively, cheap and fast SSDs like the Crucial P3 Plus allow anyone building a new PC to use an NVMe SSD as their main drive

Before you buy a solid-state drive though, you need to know what kind of SSD you want. Newer motherboards have sockets for M.2 drives, which are long, flat sticks of storage that lie flat against the motherboard. If you don’t have that in your system, you can buy a 2.5-inch drive that uses power and data cables just like an HDD.

Now things get a bit more varied once we start talking about connectors. For starters, M.2 drives might utilize a PCI Express- or Serial ATA (SATA)-based interface. The former delivers incredibly high transfer speeds, meanwhile, SATA is limited to a maximum 600MB/s speed. 2.5-inch drives are the other form of solid-state storage you’ll find and they mostly utilize a SATA connection.

SSDs have only gotten cheaper and faster in recent years

The next major thing you should know about is ‘NVMe’ and it stands for the Non-Volatile Memory Express technology. That’s a mouthful, but it’s basically a communications standard, which allows SSDs connected over PCI Express to operate more like fast memory than storage. If you’re shopping around for a solid-state drive from this category you’ll want something that achieves at least a 2,000MB/s sequential read/write speed.

M.2 drives aren’t the only type of drives that can tap into this wickedly fast PCIe NVMe connection. For example, there are solid-state drives that connect directly into the PCIe slot on motherboards. Alternatively, you may also find some 2.5-inch drives that utilize a U.2 connection and operate just as fast as the best NVMe SSDs, though, these are becoming increasingly rare.

NAND Types

Almost all SSDs are made up of NAND flash memory, but they don’t necessarily use the same type. in fact, the market is currently made up of four types of NAND memory—with SLC, MLC TLC, and QLC variants—and the big thing that separates them all is how their underlying cells store the 1’s and 0’s that make up your data. Let’s take a quick look at what makes each type of NAND memory tick

• SLC: short for single-level cells, this is the original form of NAND memory and arguably the best. SLC is designed to only accept one bit per memory cell, which makes them the fastest, most durable and reliable, and often also the most expensive.
• MLC: Multi-Layer Cell store one more bit to every cell, bringing the number to two. It’s a bit slower than SLC, because two bits are being written to every cell, which in turn makes this type of NAND slower and less reliable. The shortcomings of MLC aren’t too bad though and that’s why you see a lot of flagship SSDs utilize this type of NAND memory.
• TLC: Now we’re starting to get into the budget spectrum with Triple-Layer Cell. As its name might suggest, TLC has three bits written to every cell and all its detriments.
• QLC: You guessed it, QLC is short for Quad-Level Cell and you probably also surmised that it writes four bits to each cell. At this point, speed isn’t a concern and storage space becomes the priority here. That said, reliability and endurance become a concern here, but at least SSDs of this type are usually very cheap.
• PLC: Penta-Level Cell SSDs, which write five bits to every cell, are still on the horizon but it’ll be interesting to see how low it will make the prices of SSDs go.

SSD vs HDD

What’s the best type of PC storage for you? Here we explore SSDs vs HDDs.

An HDD or hard drive is packing an actual hard disc and an actuator arm that moves across the disc when reading or writing and often comes in a 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch drive size with a SATA data connector and power connector. On the other hand, SSDs or solid-state drives contain electrons moving around with no moving parts. These drives also come in a variety of shapes and sizes, with some resembling HDDs and others which come in much smaller form factors, slotting directly into motherboards. That means you won’t need to worry about running more SATA and power cables.

If you’re looking for speed, an SSD runs laps around HDDs. Even the slowest SATA SSDs beat out the fastest HDDs, and you can find PCIe SSDs with read speeds that clock in above 7,000MB/s. So, SSDs are the clear winner for storing your most used applications and especially shine in games. However, though HDDs are slow, they offer a ton of storage for a low price, making them ideal candidates to house large files or documents you don’t access frequently and applications that don’t require speed.

SSDs are the winner when it comes to durability, as you don’t have the moving parts of an HDD that can get easily damaged when dropped or bumped. But in terms of longevity—if you aren’t dropping it—a hard drive saves data more safely. The flash memory cells in an SSD are stored using an electrical charge that can leak, making a hard drive’s written disk a better choice for long-term storage.

That’s everything you need to know about SSDs for now and there has never been a better time to ever buy one. The SSD market is so vibrant right now with manufacturers trying to top each other with increasingly faster and cheaper options

Kevin Lee is IGN’s Hardware and Roundups Editor. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam

If you buy something through this post, IGN may get a share of the sale. For more, learn more.

The best solid-state drives for your PC

PCs saw a significant jump in performance when the world began to ditch mechanical HDD (hard disk drives) as the main source of storage and adopted the SSD (solid-state drive). Having an SSD boosts everything from loading times in games to the boot-up speed of your machine. The popularity of this technology now means that there are plenty of options to choose from, so we’ve tested all the best SSD options to help guide you through.

To give you the full picture of the SSDs available right now, as always with our best lists, we’ve thoroughly tested each device using benchmarks and real-world experiences. Our experts then give you all the key details in our reviews and explain how these results are likely to impact you.

We haven’t had the chance to test out PCIe 5.0 SSDs quite yet, so do keep an eye out for our reviews of those in the near future. PCIe 5.0 is the next generation of storage technology and aims to provide faster read and write speeds.

As well as updating this guide with new SSDs that sport new and exciting technology, there are plenty of interesting options still coming out using the methods available right now. As such, it’s always worth bookmarking this page and checking back as we regularly update this page with the latest SSDs our experts have tested.

Along with our in-depth testing of SSDs, we’ve reviewed a range of PC components to help you kit out your device. For our guides on these, check out best gaming CPUs, best graphics cards and more.

Best SSDs at a glance

• Best overall: PNY XLR8 CS3140 1TB – check price
• Best value: WD Black SN850 1TB – check price
• Best high performance: SK Hynix Platinum P41 – check price
• Best budget M. 2: Solidigm P41 Plus – check price
• Best SATA: Samsung 860 Evo – check price

How we test

Learn more about how we test SSDs

When testing an SSD, we use both synthetic benchmark tests, while also determining file transfers via both Steam and Windows explorer. We also factor in the likes of price, design and temperature when reaching a final score.

PNY XLR8 CS3140 1TB

Best overall SSD

Trusted Score

Pros

• Excellent sequential read performance
• Consistent transfer rates
• Leading durability

Cons

• Write speeds are capped on lower capacities
• Gen 5.0 is pretty much here

The PNY XLR8 CS3140 is currently the best SSD we have reviewed. We thought that it is one of the fastest and most consistent Gen 4.0 SSDs on the market right now, and since it comes in 1TB, 2TB and 4TB variations, there should be a model that’s perfect for almost anyone.

During our testing, we were able to get read and write scores of up to 7500MB/s and 5650MB/s, respectively. While the latter scores are a little lower, we found that this SSD could load up files from Windows Explorer in seconds, so you should have no trouble downloading files or moving larger games or data onto another drive.

Despite the fact that Gen 5.0 SSDs are on the way, we don’t think that investing in the PNY XLR8 CS3140 is a bad move, as it has more than enough power to run today’s games, and we don’t see it becoming obsolete anytime soon. For the price point and the incredibly fast speeds, this is a superb SSD to pick if you’re looking to run games with instant loading times.

Reviewer: Aleksha McLoughlin
Full review: PNY XLR8 CS3140 review

WD Black SN850 1TB

Best value SSD

Trusted Score

Pros

• Great sequential performance
• Frequently discounted in 2022
• Well built

Cons

• Usurped by the WD Black SN850X
• It gets really hot

The WD Black SN850 may not be one of the most affordable SSDs on this list, but we nevertheless think it represents superb value due to its excellent performance. It’s also frequently discounted, with the 1TB variation dropping as low as £118.99.

This SSD is compatible with PCs as well as the PS5 console, and it managed to get read and write scores of up to 7,000MB/s and 5,300MB/s, respectively. File transfer speeds were very impressive, with the 110GB Mortal Kombat 11 transferring over from another Gen 4 SSD at just 1.65GB/s.

There is a drawback to the heatsink model though, as the drive can get very hot during extended use. However, since the average person won’t be testing their SSD in this manner, we can’t see this being a huge issue for most people, even if it is something to be aware of.

Overall, if you’re looking to upgrade your setup but don’t want to break the bank, the WD Black SN850 is one of the best options on the market, and since it can be found in 500GB, 1TB, 2TB and 4TB variations, you should be able to find a configuration and price that works best for you.

Reviewer: Aleksha McLoughlin
Full review: WD Black SN850 review

SK Hynix Platinum P41

Best high performance SSD

Trusted Score

Pros

• Pushes the limits of Gen 4. 0
• Strong random performance
• High write endurance and durability

Cons

• Less than a month until Gen 5.0 launches
• Premium price tag
• Availability is limited right now

This SSD is a powerhouse and really pushes the limits of what a Gen 4.0 SSD is capable of. One of the biggest downsides of the SK Hynix Platinum P41 is the premium price, which is a little hard to swallow since the new PCle Gen 5.0 generation is almost on its way, but it might just be worth it if you’re after the best performance.

It comes with a 176-layer NAND flash memory which allows for some of the highest write endurance of any M.2 NVMe form factor drive we’ve tested. The SK Hynix Platinum P41 can achieve up to 7,000MB/s write scores and 6,500MB/s read scores, positioning this drive as one of the strongest performers to date.

And if you’re looking for something to game with, this SSD had near non-existent loading times with titles specifically optimised for Gen 4. 0 speeds, with Halo Infinite loading up seriously quickly.

If you’re trying to save money we would recommend you look at the WD Black SN850 or the Solidigm P41 Plus. But if money is no object, this is one of the fastest SSDs currently available, coming in 500GB, 1TB and 2TB variations.

Reviewer: Aleksha McLoughlin
Full review: SK Hynix Platinum P41 review

Solidigm P41 Plus

Best budget M.2 SSD

Trusted Score

Pros

• Competitively priced
• Decent sequential performance
• Solid construction

Cons

• Gen 4.0 about to become outdated
• No hardware encryption

The Solidigm P41 Plus is very affordable, and the cheapest M.2 SSD on this list. This is not an SSD to consider if you are looking for the best speeds on the market, but for the price, we thought that it was able to hold its own where it matters most, in game.

As you may notice, the read and write speeds here are not as impressive as some of the other entries on this list. Testing the 1TB model, the write speeds came out at 4,125MB/s with the read speeds reaching 2,950MB/s. We thought that loading times were light, even in demanding titles, and almost non-existent for older games like Guilty Gear Xrd: Revelator.

For a Gen 4.0 device, this a bargain buy and should pack enough power for a lot of gamers out there. However, it is limited in terms of power and since it’s already overshadowed by its current generation, Gen 5.0 SSDs will definitely blow it out of the water.

If a lower price point is more important to you than performance, this is one of the best SSD options we’ve reviewed, but we would recommend checking out slightly more expensive drives for better long-term value.

Reviewer: Aleksha McLoughlin
Full review: SK Hynix Platinum P41 review

Samsung 860 Evo

Best SATA SSD

Trusted Score

Pros

• Huge choice of capacity
• Well priced
• Good all-round performance
• Excellent endurance

Cons

• Not that much faster than previous drive

The Samsung 860 Evo is capable of squeezing every last drop of performance from its old SATA interface. It’s important to note that anyone with a modern NVMe-compatible computer can benefit from the newer M.2 SSD standard, like the PNY XLR8 CS3140. However, Samsung’s solution is still perfectly serviceable and will be compatible with older setups that don’t support NVMe drives.

With the older SATA standard limited to 600MB/s speeds, the Samsung 860 Evo sees low read and write scores coming in at 550MB/s and 520MB/s, respectively. This means it’s not a great option for gamers, or anyone who wants speedy boot-up times and quick data transfer speeds.

But it will provide serviceable loading and transfer times for anyone who just wants a PC for basic productivity tasks. It’s also a great affordable pick for those who want plenty of storage space at an affordable price, with a fantastic range of configurations including 250GB, 500GB, 1TB, 2TB and 4TB. With so many options you should be able to find a price point and storage option that’s right for you.

Reviewer: David Ludlow
Full review: Samsung 860 Evo review

We also considered…

Samsung 970 Pro 512GB

The Samsung 970 Pro is a new flagship SSD – but is it worth the high price?

Samsung 970 Evo 500GB

The Samsung 970 Evo is a more affordable SSD – but is it worth the cash saving?

We’ve reviewed

See all reviews

FAQs

What is a SATA?

This is the cheapest type of SSD. It connects through your motherboard’s SATA ports and is the slowest form of SSD, topping out at about 500-600MB/s. The current version of SATA is SATA III.

What is an M.2?

This is a specific physical SSD format. Confusingly it can use both the SATA or PCIe lanes on your motherboard, but either way it fits into a smaller M.2 slot. M.2 SATA drives are most commonly found on ultra-thin laptops to save space (M.2 is very small) and cost (sometimes only using SATA-speed storage). If you’re buying an M.2 SSD for your desktop, make sure it’s an NVMe drive.

What is an NAND Flash?

Negative AND Logic gates. They’re similar to the chips used in RAM, but they can store data even when there’s no power flowing through them. They form the basis of all SSDs.

You might like…

Trusted Reviews test data

‹

CrystalDiskMark Read speed

Atto read speed

PNY XLR8 CS3140 1TB

6245.11 MB/s

–

WD Black SN850 1TB

–

–

Solidigm P41 Plus

4180. 15 MB/s

–

SK Hynix Platinum P41

–

6549.75 MB/s

Samsung 860 Evo

–

–

›

Comparison specs

‹

UK RRP

USA RRP

EU RRP

CA RRP

AUD RRP

Manufacturer

Storage Capacity

Size (Dimensions)

Weight

ASIN

Release Date

First Reviewed Date

Model Number

Storage Type

Read Speed

Write Speed

WD Black SN850 1TB

£118.99

$129.99

–

–

–

Western Digital

1TB

0.35 x 3.15 x 0.92 INCHES

24 G

B08PHSVW7K

2021

–

–

SSD

7000 MB/s

5300 MB/s

PNY XLR8 CS3140 1TB

£160

$109.99

–

–

–

PNY

1TB

0.87 x 3.15 x 0.16 INCHES

18.1 G

B08TL9CBB9

2021

–

–

SSD

7500 MB/s

8850 MB/s

SK Hynix Platinum P41

£225

$259.99

–

–

–

–

2TB

3.15 x 0.87 x 0.09 INCHES

7 G

B09QVD9V7R

2022

19/09/2022

SK Hynix Platinum P41

SSD

7000 MB/s

6500 MB/s

Solidigm P41 Plus

£87. 99

$89.99

€134.84

CA$127

AU$157.45

–

1TB

0.87 x 3.15 x 0.09 INCHES

5.49 G

B0B983Y4QD

2022

05/09/2022

–

SSD

4125 MB/s

2950 MB/s

›

Why trust our journalism?

Founded in 2003, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy.

Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.

Editorial independence

Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.

Professional conduct

We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.

Choosing the best SSD for your money (2023)

Today it is difficult to imagine a modern computer without an SSD. The advantages of flash memory over classic hard drives are clear, whether it’s access time or throughput. But the choice of SSD on the market is very extensive, and in detail the differences are quite significant. And for each scenario, certain SSD models are best suited. Of course, the price also has an effect. We have prepared a guide to help you choose the best SSD in different price segments of the market.

There are several thousand different SSDs on the market today. But which drive should you choose? The most important criterion is usually capacity. In the end, if there is not enough space, then speed does not play a role. On the other hand, what’s the point of paying extra for capacity if you don’t need it? In terms of performance, many modern SSDs rely on the SLC cache system to provide the fastest possible write speeds. The SLC cache needs a certain free space to work, otherwise the controller will write data directly in MLC, TLC or QLC modes, which leads to performance loss, especially in the latter case.

In addition to capacity, consider form factor and interface. Classic 2.5″ SSDs are connected via SATA, they are among the most common SSDs today. M.2 options are an alternative, motherboards usually have several M.2 slots for drives of different lengths. Again, everything is decided by interfaces. In the case M.2 can be used SATA or NVMe, when choosing a drive, consider which interface is supported by the motherboard

We recommend that you read our SSD selection guide. controller, interface, flash type, reliability characteristics, etc. Therefore, inexperienced users can easily get confused in such information.In our guide, we will cover the most important characteristics and differences, talk about current technologies, interfaces and form factors. expert advice

Subscribe to the Hardwareluxx VKontakte group and our Telegram channel (@hardwareluxxrussia).

We’ll start our recommendation with enthusiast drives who are willing to pay any price for the very best SSDs.

Samsung SSD 990 PRO: in the top even without MLC

Samsung SSD 990 PRO (test) can be called a true successor of the popular 970 PRO. Although Samsung has once again opted for TLC memory over MLC, the drive supports a decent SLC cache and is equipped with 7th generation V-NAND memory, so performance is taken to a new level. Samsung SSD 9The 90 PRO delivered record-breaking performance in nearly every test, and also performed well in stressful workloads and everyday scenarios. With read speeds up to 7,450 MB/s, the SSD fully utilizes the potential of the PCIe4 interface and will remain one of the fastest SSDs on the market until the transition to PCIe5. High-end SSDs are currently limited to two terabytes, although a model with double the capacity has already been announced. A 1 TB Samsung SSD 990 PRO drive can be bought from 17.300 ₽, for 2 TB — from 27.400 ₽.

Western Digital WD_Black SN850X is the best PCIe4 SSD for applications

With the WD_Black SN850, Western Digital managed to become the leader in application performance among PCIe4 drives, although many competitors «stepped on their heels. » With the new version of X, the advantage is even stronger thanks to the state-of-the-art BiCS5 NAND memory produced in-house. The drive is equipped with a beautiful illuminated aluminum cooler, so the SN850X not only delivers great performance, but also looks good. In our tests, the WD_Black SN850X showed convincing serial data performance, also approaching the PCIe4 maximum. A 4 TB drive costs from 57,500 ₽.

High end mass market

Our enthusiast recommendation guarantees high performance but comes at a hefty price tag. For most users, the following category will suit you: you have to sacrifice a little performance here, but the drives are much more attractive. Moreover, the difference in performance with high-end models is unlikely to be noticeable in everyday scenarios.

Crucial P5 Plus – good price/performance ratio

Crucial P5 Plus drives (test) have not typically been the industry leader in performance or features, but Crucial P5 Plus SSDs remain an excellent value for money choice in 2023. The 1 TB version costs today from 10,600 ₽, for 2 TB you will have to pay from 17,800 ₽, which is noticeably lower than the top models of Samsung or Western Digital. But performance-wise, the trade-offs are much smaller. The Crucial P5 Plus performs well in application tests among today’s NVMe models, as well as low latencies in stress tests. Therefore, we can safely recommend the Crucial P5 Plus.

The only drawback is temperature throttling. Unfortunately, Crucial does not offer a heatsink option, but most motherboards with PCIe4 slots already have such heatsinks, with them the drive will not overheat. I would like to get an option for 4 TB or more, but alas.

Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus — still recommended, albeit without PCIe4

Although Samsung has already released the 980 and 990 series, 970 EVO Plus (test) still remains in our recommendations. The reason is simple: at the time of release, the line was among the fastest PCIe3 SSDs, and today it is able to withstand competition. The advantages of the 970 EVO Plus include an attractive price and capacities from 250 GB to 2 TB. The Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus is equipped with fast TLC NAND memory, a decent amount of dedicated SLC cache and DRAM, so it will be a good basis for a PC at a fair price. A drive in a capacity of 1 TB costs from 9.300 ₽, 2 TB — from 18.000 ₽.

High-capacity drives

Unfortunately, if you need a high capacity of several terabytes, then you can not always find such drives among high-end models. As a rule, many lines offer a maximum of 2 TB. For this reason, we looked at a couple of capacious proposals with still high performance.

Crucial MX500 — Proven Storage Option

Today, the main innovations are usually limited to the NVMe segment, but it is rare to find drives larger than 2 TB there. Therefore, here we recommend the time-tested Crucial MX500 (test), which in a capacity of 4 TB can be bought from 28. 300 ₽. A 2 TB drive costs from 12.900 ₽. Moreover, performance, unlike many capacious drives, will not have to be sacrificed: the Crucial MX500 uses TLC NAND memory and a DRAM cache. That gives a read speed of up to 560 MB / s and a write speed of up to 510 MB / s. Of course, the bottleneck remains the SATA interface, which is inferior to the flagship NVMe models in terms of throughput. But in day-to-day scenarios, the difference is smaller than you might think based on speed figures.

Samsung SSD 870 QVO 8 TB — Worth a look despite QLC

Due to the use of QLC NAND memory, the Samsung SSD 870 QVO is a very interesting alternative to high-end NVMe SSDs. The reason lies in the capacity of 8 TB, which is complemented by 8 GB of DRAM and 78 GB of cache (pseudo) SLC. Therefore, for storing large amounts of data, SSD is perfect. Unless you should carefully study the planned use cases, nevertheless QLC NAND has its own characteristics. When reading data, the speed and latency are at the TLC level, but the write speed without the SLC cache is low. However, in the same games, the load of reading prevails, as well as when storing an archive of photographs, for example. So if you don’t write terabytes of data on a regular basis, the Samsung SSD 870 QVO is a good fit. Still, 8 TB is not often seen. You can buy an 8 TB SSD from 51.200 ₽, a 4 TB option costs from 25.900 ₽, for 2 TB — from 11.400 ₽.

TOP 5 SSDs for gamers: from budget to flagship

• ([email protected])

  Published: November 11, 2022

  Requirements for gaming PCs are constantly increasing. Storage is a separate item.

  Modern games weigh a lot, up to 150 GB, so installing an SSD less than 512 GB does not make sense.

  Why you should install an SSD

  Classic hard drives are rapidly disappearing from the turnkey market. They can only be seen in older PCs or office models. On the contrary, solid fuel drives provide incredibly fast read and write speeds. Thanks to this, fast loading of games is carried out and a comfortable FPS is maintained.

  Even more interesting is the NVMe SSD. Such drives come in M.2 format and are connected to the motherboard. They have even higher performance and speed. The top ones are NVMe SSDs with PCIe 4.0 interface. However, they are still represented by a much smaller number than 3.0 / 3.1 and can only be connected to a limited number of motherboards.

  TOP-5 SSD

  The range of SSD drives is constantly growing, and the price is falling. There are new models with even more improved features and capabilities. Consider the five most relevant options that will help you comfortably launch various toys.

  Crucial BX500 1TB

  2.5-inch SATA SSD drives are gradually losing their relevance. However, many still have old computers that have good performance. The Crucial BX500 1TB is an inexpensive solid fuel drive. Of course, it is inferior to models with a PCI-Express interface, but hard drives are significantly superior. Moreover, in absolutely all respects, it is, perhaps, the best solution from first-tier brands.

  If you wish, you can save some money by buying a 480 GB Crucial BX500. If there are no restrictions on the budget, then the Samsung 870 Evo. One of the best SATA SSD, reliable, fast, high quality.

  Crucial P2 CT1000P2SSD8 1TB

  A pragmatic option for those who are faced with a difficult choice, a high-speed 500 GB SSD or 1 TB SSD. It should be borne in mind here that in most toys, superspeed is not required at all. The base values ​​are enough to play comfortably. However, it quickly becomes clear after several installed toys that there is practically no free space left. Crucial P2 is an inexpensive drive that does not have a DRAM buffer, but the speed performance is up to the mark. A good option for an inexpensive gaming computer.

  Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1TB

  It’s safe to say that Samsung 970 Evo Plus is one of the best PCI-Express 3.0 drives. During testing showed excellent results. The main disadvantage is the price, it is quite high. For this money, you can purchase a drive with a PCI-Express 4.0 interface. Although it will be inferior in certain aspects to the Samsung 970 Evo Plus, it will be much more preferable in home-gaming mode.

  AData Gammix S5 AGAMMIXS5-1TT-C 1 TB

  In this case, even the name suggests that we have a game drive. Although the declared speed parameters are not impressive, in practice, the SSD is significantly ahead of various alternative solutions. An additional plus is the presence of a radiator. With normal airflow, even minimal overheating is excluded, so the high speed will not sag. AData Gammix S5 did not immediately receive a heatsink. The first batch was not very successful, when overheating, not only performance fell, but the PC was also completely rebooted. The company immediately reacted and added a radiator.

  WD Black SN850 WDS100T1X0E 1TB

  Western Digital is famous for its hard drives. In this direction, it has achieved tremendous success, and even now such products are a priority for many users. The advent of solid-state drives did not take the company by surprise. Instantly, production was reoriented to advanced solutions. At the moment, WD Black SN850 is one of the most productive SSDs on the market. The characteristics are really impressive, as are the results shown during testing. However, it should be borne in mind that the price is quite high, and such high speed qualities are completely irrelevant for most users.

  Conclusion

  Presented SSDs are ideal for gaming. Naturally, other options with decent performance are available on the market. This allows everyone to choose the device of their choice. We immediately advise you to abandon Chinese SSD drives without any model names provided by unknown manufacturers. The price is attractive, but the quality is beyond any criticism. In most cases, the characteristics are significantly overestimated.