Samsung 990 Pro SSD Review: The Return of the King
Tom’s Hardware Verdict
The 2TB 990 Pro is, in many respects, the fastest SSD we’ve tested. This high-end PCIe 4.0 drive excels everywhere it matters, is relatively efficient, and has an optional high-power mode. It would be great inside a PC, a laptop, or your PS5. An optional heatsink with RGB is the cherry on top.
Pros
- +
Strong all-around performance, including 4K QD1 random reads
- +
Excellent software and support
- +
Heatsink and RGB options for a little bit more $
- +
Consistent, efficient, and cool
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The Samsung 990 Pro is the much-anticipated successor to the popular 980 Pro. It is poised to be the very fastest drive we’ve tested, outdoing even the SK hynix Platinum P41 and the Western Digital (WD) SN850X. Initially available at 1 and 2TB for $169 and $289, respectively, the 990 Pro will also have a 4TB model out next year. Available bare or with an RGB heatsink, the 990 Pro is using Samsung’s new Pascal controller and it’s new V7 TLC NAND flash, a combination that promises to be faster and more efficient.
The 990 Pro has the rest of the Samsung trimmings, including software support with the updated Magician application and the option for encryption. The drive is designed to fit in a wide range of devices, from desktops to laptops to the PlayStation 5 (PS5) console. As Samsung’s new top-of-the-line consumer PCIe 4 SSD, the 990 Pro is designed to take a place among the best SSDs in terms of performance and, according to our tests, it delivers. It also takes the crown of the fastest SSD on our list of Best SSDs for the PS5.
Samsung 990 Pro Specifications
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| Product | 1TB | 2TB | 4TB |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing | w/HS | $169. 99 | $189.99 |
$289.99 | $309.99 | N/A |
| Form Factor | M.2 2280 | M.2 2280 | M.2 2280 |
| Interface / Protocol | PCIe 4.0 x4 | PCIe 4.0 x4 | PCIe 4.0 x4 |
| Controller | Samsung Pascal | Samsung Pascal | Samsung Pascal |
| DRAM | LPDDR4 | LPDDR4 | LPDDR4 |
| Flash Memory | 176-Layer V-NAND TLC | 176-Layer V-NAND TLC | 176-Layer V-NAND TLC |
| Sequential Read | 7,450 MBps | 7,450 MBps | 7,450 MBps |
| Sequential Write | 6,900 MBps | 6,900 MBps | 6,900 MBps |
| Random Read | Up to 1. 2M |
Up to 1.4M | Up to 1.4M |
| Random Write | Up to 1.55M | Up to 1.55M | Up to 1.55M |
| Security | TCG/Opal 2.0 | TCG/Opal 2.0 | TCG/Opal 2.0 |
| Endurance (TBW) | 600TB | 1200TB | 2400TB |
| Part Number | w/HS | MZ-V9P1T0BW | MZ-V9P1T0CW | MZ-V9P2T0BW | MZ-V9P2T0CW | MZ-V9P4T0BW | MZ-V9P4T0CW |
| Height | w/HS | 2.30mm | 8.20mm | 2.30mm | 8.20mm | 2.30mm | 8.20mm |
| Warranty | 5-Year | 5-Year | 5-Year |
The Samsung 990 Pro arrives in the 1TB and 2TB capacities at launch.
The 4TB model is coming later, in 2023; it will be nice to see a larger capacity option from Samsung. The 990 Pro promises up to 7450/6900 MBps, sequential read and write, with up to 1.4 million / 1.55 million read and write IOPS. This is more than competitive, exceeding the previous-gen, 980 Pro on all counts but also promising numbers higher than the SK hynix Platinum P41 and WD SN850X.
The Samsung 990 Pro does support TCG Opal encryption — an unsupported feature for many consumer SSDs — and offers 600TB of warrantied writes per TB of capacity. The endurance rating follows the JEDEC JESD218 standard which is largely irrelevant. The TBW ratings are unexceptional in any case, but should be sufficient for the drive’s intended use.
Samsung is offering a variant at each capacity with a heatsink and RGB, taking a page out of the WD SN850X’s playbook. It appears that the 4TB model will also have this option which was not the case with the SN850X. The Platinum P41 is therefore perhaps a bit less attractive by not having a heatsink variant.
The Samsung 990 Pro’s heatsink meets the PCI-SIG D8 standard, which means that it comes in at less than a 8.8mm height to ensure it fits into a wide variety of devices, including the PS5.
The Samsung 990 Pro launches with a price tag of $169.99 for 1TB and $289.99 for 2TB. The heatsink and RGB add another $20 to each price, which matches the premium of the SN850X. One complaint we had about the SN850X is that its launch price was too high — something that has since changed drastically. Samsung also had a hefty MSRP for its T7 Shield launch but the drive was never actually sold for launch prices. We therefore expect the 990 Pro to be discounted, which is reasonable given the current real-world pricing of its direct competitors.
Software and Accessories of the Samsung 990 Pro
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Samsung released version 7.2 of its Magician storage software on October 4th, in advance of the 990 Pro’s release. This software now allows for RGB control for the heatsinked versions of the drive.
It also enables data migration and offers diagnostics, firmware updates and driver updates. Other functions are also present such as a PSID revert, which performs a secure erase and unlocks an encrypted drive. Samsung’s SSD software is, in general, the standard for the industry.
This software also has a Performance Optimization panel which allows for a Full Performance Mode. This is reminiscent of WD’s original Game Mode, which effectively disabled lower power states. In our tests, we benchmarked with the “Full Power Mode” both on and off.
A Closer Look at the Samsung 990 Pro
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The 990 Pro has unexceptional looks, with a label on both front and back providing basic drive information. The heat spreader back label helps reduce load temperatures. Under the top label there are two NAND packages, a DRAM package, and the controller. The controller is nickel-plated to improve heat dissipation, but the 990 Pro also uses Samsung’s Dynamic Thermal Guard (DTG) to improve thermal consistency.
We’ve seen this before in the 980 Pro but this is also similar to the SN850X’s adaptive thermal management feature. This technology is nothing new, but may help with gaming workloads.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The Samsung 990 Pro sports a new controller, Pascal, as a successor to the 980 Pro’s Elpis. The Pascal is produced in Samsung’s 8nm process node and is still ARM-based. There does not appear to be much difference between the controllers superficially, but the Pascal has significantly higher performance specifications. Samsung states that this is thanks to an optimized NAND data path through “hardware automation technology” with reduced processing time via a “cache algorithm.” When I asked about the changes, Samsung stated that this architecture was meant to have more effective low-power mode coverage and that it was capable of taking advantage of read caching.
Hardware automation involves the storage data path: the flow of data from the host interface to the flash.
As SSDs scale up to greater levels of parallelization with more complex addressing, IOPS bottlenecks begin to arise. Hardware automation helps overcome these and also offers power savings which is becoming more important as drives get faster. One example is hardware-accelerated flash map management which can increase IOPS versus managing the flash translation layer (FTL) — which translates between physical and logical memory addresses — in software. I/O queues and data transfers also benefit from acceleration. Separately, parallel processing improvements in firmware can also improve garbage collection/scheduling as with Phison’s I/O+ Firmware.
Volatile memory like SRAM is used by the controller to cache mapping information and buffer data to commit to the non-volatile NAND flash, so optimization of algorithms can improve overall performance. Write performance often benefits more from such advances, but changes may also be relevant for DirectStorage. Some manufacturers, like Solidigm, have also decided to introduce a form of caching to hold specific data in the cache via a specialized NVMe driver.
In that case, knowledge about the type of data and how it is utilized — metadata — can bolster performance with intelligent caching. Samsung did not elaborate on what it meant by “read caching,” but it is not uncommon to keep some hot data in pSLC to improve forthcoming reads.
A typical cache algorithm would be least recently used (LRU), where the least recently accessed data would be evicted first from a full cache. Such an algorithm is constrained if it does not take into account spatial locality, that is, knowledge of adjacent and nearby memory locations. The inevitable increase in FTL overhead with more complex algorithms can create a performance bottleneck. Specific improvements to the controller can increase maximum IOPS by offloading or automating some of this work. This can also generally lead to lower latency, although the full benefits are unlikely to be realized on a consumer device.
Samsung has certainly made advances with the controller but other components are more familiar.
The memory, or DRAM, is Samsung’s LPDDR4 which has been used on many of its SSD products. It offers a bit of power savings over traditional DDR. This module is 2GB in size, which matches the 2TB of flash with an ideal ratio. It’s expected that the 1TB model would have 1GB. The power components are also standard for Samsung. We would expect the promised power savings, in comparison to the 980 Pro, to come from the new flash plus controller optimizations.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The flash packages are labeled K9DVGY8JRD-DCK0 which denotes that it is Samsung’s 176-layer TLC NAND. With the 2TB SKU, this flash has 512Gb dies as indicated by “V” — although the upcoming 4TB may require 1Tb “X” dies. This is V7 in Samsung’s V-NAND nomenclature which was explored in some detail at ISSCC 2021. Samsung showed off its 8th generation TLC at ISSCC this year but recent trends in the flash market have generally left manufacturers in a holding pattern with regard to the production of higher-layer flash.
In any case, this is the first time we’ve seen this flash, a direct upgrade to the V6 128-layer TLC found on the 980 Pro.
Samsung made many improvements with this generation of flash, the most significant being the use of a four-plane design and a Cell-on-Periphery (COP) implementation. More planes means more parallelization which translates at least to higher bandwidth. COP is similar to Micron’s CMOS-under-Array (CUA) but this is the first time Samsung is utilizing such technology. This involves moving control circuitry away from the peripheral or side of the array. This can greatly improve power efficiency and also reduces die surface area by placing peripheral circuitry under the data cell array.
Placing this circuitry under the array introduced some problems for Samsung who solved it by using innovative capacitor design. The result is improved power delivery with reduced surface area requirements. Samsung also uses a dual-scheme termination approach that allows for increased power efficiency when full I/O speeds are not required.
This should help Samsung back up its claim of better power efficiency through the use of a low-power-aware architecture.
Samsung is the one manufacturer that was able to avoid string-stacking, that is the use of multiple NAND array decks, with higher flash layer counts. Its approach comes with many challenges but also avoids having to deal with melding decks. Etching so many layers leads to an increased aspect ratio which, among other things, can increase the level of voltage threshold deviation between cells in different layers. More layers in the same space does translate to an effectively smaller cell capacity which can impact performance and endurance, as well.
Samsung’s solution introduces an additional latch — a type of dynamic buffer, as with page buffers — to overcome this issue. The extra data is utilized with bit and word line forcing schemes to produce a refined cell charge, essentially having an extra verify stage to keep bit values tighter. While a manufacturer could simply keep adding decks — and it’s theoretically possible to hit 800 or more layers with that technique — it’s not without its own challenges.
Samsung has instead decided that its 176-layer NAND provides the optimal balance between performance and power efficiency.
MORE: Samsung Promo Codes
MORE: Best SSDs
MORE: Best External SSDs and Hard Drives
MORE: How We Test HDDs And SSDs
MORE: All SSD Content
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Shane Downing is a Freelance Reviewer for Tom’s Hardware US, covering consumer storage hardware.
Crucial P5 M.2 NVMe SSD Review: Premium Design Runs Hot (Updated)
Tom’s Hardware Verdict
Crucial’s P5 brings a lot of capability to the table with its six-core controller, but it runs hot and doesn’t offer the best performance at its price point.
Pros
- +
Hardware-based AES 256-bit encryption
- +
Available in capacities up to 2TB
- +
Blacked-out aesthetics
- +
5-year warranty
- +
Software suite
- +
Competitive pricing
Why you can trust Tom’s Hardware
Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you.
Find out more about how we test.
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Update 9/28/2020: We have updated this article with new testing for the 2TB Crucial P5 M.2 NVMe on page 2.
Original Review published 8/25/2020:
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
While we have been awaiting the arrival of a high-end NVMe SSD from Crucial for a few years, the company only teased us with the entry-level P1 last year..jpg)
It isn’t until halfway through 2020 that Crucial’s first high-end NVMe SSD, the P5, hit the market. But now that the P5 is out, it’s about time we put it through its paces. With a very robust design, it can dish out impressive performance numbers on paper, but it isn’t quite the best SSD going for the price.
- Crucial P5 M.2 NVMe 1TB at Amazon for $149.95
Crucial’s P5 has been a long time coming and check’s almost all the boxes for a high-end enthusiast-class PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe SSD today. With Micron’s third-generation, 96L TLC NAND flash and brand new proprietary six-core NVMe controller, Crucial’s P5 comes with some serious hardware that not only helps it hit some great performance numbers, but it also protects the stored data with full hardware-based encryption. Not only does it perform well, but it also has the looks to match. Crucial designed the P5 with a blacked-out aesthetics so that it will blend into any build for gamers and professionals alike.
Crucial P5 Specifications
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| Product | P5 250GB | P5 500GB | P5 1TB | P5 2TB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing | $54. 95 |
$79.95 | $149.95 | $339.95 |
| Capacity (User / Raw) | 250GB / 256GB | 500GB / 512GB | 1000GB / 1024GB | 2000GB / 2048GB |
| Form Factor | M.2 2280 | M.2 2280 | M.2 2280 | M.2 2280 |
| Interface / Protocol | PCIe 3.0 x4 / NVMe 1.3 | PCIe 3.0 x4 / NVMe 1.3 | PCIe 3.0 x4 / NVMe 1.3 | PCIe 3.0 x4 / NVMe 1.3 |
| Controller | Crucial NVMe Architecture | Crucial NVMe Architecture | Crucial NVMe Architecture | Crucial NVMe Architecture |
| DRAM | LPDDR4 | LPDDR4 | LPDDR4 | LPDDR4 |
| Memory | Micron 96L TLC | Micron 96L TLC | Micron 96L TLC | Micron 96L TLC |
| Sequential Read | 3,400 MBps | 3,400 MBps | 3,400 MBps | 3,400 MBps |
| Sequential Write | 1,400 MBps | 3,000 MBps | 3,000 MBps | 3,000 MBps |
| Random Read | 210,000 IOPS | 390,000 IOPS | 430,000 IOPS | |
| Random Write | 355,000 IOPS | 500,000 IOPS | 500,000 IOPS | 500,000 IOPS |
| Security | TCG Opal 2. 0, IEEE 1667, eDrive |
TCG Opal 2.0, IEEE 1667, eDrive | TCG Opal 2.0, IEEE 1667, eDrive | TCG Opal 2.0, IEEE 1667, eDrive |
| Endurance (TBW) | 150 TB | 300 TB | 600 TB | 1,200 TB |
| Part Number | CT250P5SSD8 | CT500P5SSD8 | CT1000P5SSD8 | CT2000P5SSD8 |
| Warranty | 5-Years | 5-Years | 5-Years | 5-Years |
Crucial’s P5 comes in capacities of 250GB up to 2TB, and current street prices range from $0.15-$0.22 per GB. Crucial says the P5 delivers sequential performance of up to 3.4 /3 GBps read/write as well as up to 430,000 / 500,000 random read/write IOPS when hammered to the max. All capacities can hit the read spec, but write performance degrades as capacity decreases.
At the 500GB capacity point, write performance is rated for up to 1.4 GBps.
The P5 comes backed by a five-year limited warranty, or up to the rated write endurance per capacity. Endurance shouldn’t be much of a concern because the P5 has a half-dozen layers of adaptation, retry, and correction in its multistep data integrity algorithms, as well as LDPC Error Correction Code (ECC). Similar to WD’s approach, the stronger and less efficient correction capabilities are typically used for high bit-error pages as the SSD reaches its end of life, thus optimizing for performance and efficiency during its full lifespan.
For those needing assurance on write life, these algorithms ensure that the Crucial P5 sustains up to 150TB of writes per 250GB of capacity, which is a solid 1.2 PB of writes for the 2TB model. Additionally, Crucial also overprovisioned the P5, setting aside 9% of the overall NAND capacity for controller use, including RAIN (Redundant Array of Independent NAND), which dedicates some of the NAND strictly to parity rather than user addressable space.
The parity ratio at 2TB is 128:1, and this ratio halves as capacity halves.
The drive also features Integrated Power Loss Immunity, but the SLC caching helps in many cases, too. The Dynamic Write Acceleration (SLC cache) works a little bit differently than most SLC caches we have come across in the past – Crucial built some new tech into the P5.
Most Phison-based SSDs recover their SLC cache quickly, so it acts more like a buffer. Micron’s P5, on the other hand, retains parts of both OS and user data in portions of the cache for read requests. It also adjusts in size not only based on the amount of capacity used, but also based on the workload so it can optimize write amplification and performance. Additionally, during testing, we saw that it can simply remap its cache on the fly to ensure fairly consistent performance after hammering it time and time again, which is quite clever.
We couldn’t get the P5 to complete a secure erase with both our motherboard’s UEFI or the 2018 version of Parted Magic’s secure erase tool, at least at first.
However, after downloading the latest 2020 version of Parted Magic, we successfully secure erase the P5 without fail. Trim and S.M.A.R.T. data reporting functioned as expected, too. Crucial’s P5 comes with AES 256-bit hardware encryption supporting the TCG Opal 2.0 and IEEE 1667 feature set and is also configurable with Windows BitLocker since it is eDrive-compliant.
Furthermore, Crucial’s P5 features NVMe Autonomous Power State Transition (APST) like most competing solutions for better efficiency and there is Adaptive Thermal Protection that is linked to the temperature sensors in the NAND components themselves rather than the controller. Adaptive Thermal Protection will throttle performance when the NAND exceeds 70 degrees Celsius. The drive will not shut down until it hits roughly 85 degrees.
Software and Accessories of the Crucial P5
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Crucial ships the P5 bare of any accessories. However, you can download Crucial’s Storage Executive, the company’s SSD toolbox software.
You use this software to update your SSD’s firmware when a new version is available, adjust the security settings, or monitor your drive. It can also enable/disable the Momentum Cache, which buffers random writes to the SSD in a portion of the host system’s DRAM. This speeds performance and writes data to the drive in a less-damaging sequential manner. The company also provides Acronis True Image cloning software so you can clone over your existing operating system and user data over to your new Crucial SSDl.
A Closer Look at Crucial P5
Like WD’s Black SN750 and Samsung’s 970 EVO Plus, Crucial’s P5 comes in an M.2 2280 single-sided form factor at all capacities. With all components on a single side of the PCB, the P5 is compatible with almost any mobile device that fits an M.2 2280 NVMe SSD. The finish quality on the P5’s black PCB is very good too, especially when compared to the rather rough finish of the PCB on the P2. The sticker design is clean and classy, but the controller IHS bubbles through, taking away from the clean looks.
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Speaking of which, while the P1 leveraged a Silicon Motion SM2263EN NVMe controller and the P2 used Phison’s E13T, Crucial’s P5 features the company’s first, and quite beastly, consumer NVMe SSD controller. The controller interfaces with the host over a PCIe 3.0 x4 link and communicates via the NVMe 1.3 protocol.
The package measures 17x17mm, which is quite large compared to Phison’s E12 and especially the E12S, measuring 16x16mm and 12x12mm, respectively. The reasoning for the size becomes apparent when we dig down deeper into the architecture.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The new controller has a DRAM-based architecture featuring dual Arm Cortex-R5 CPU cores and eight NAND channels that interface with the flash, This new Crucial NVMe controller is similar to SMI’s SM2262EN, but with additional co-processors, it is closer in design to Phison’s E12S and E16. Not only does it leverage one or two additional co-processors like Phison’s designs, but also Crucial’s engineers have integrated four Cortex M3 CPU cores into the controller to aid in efficiently offloading some of the NAND management firmware code.
And, since the R5s on SSDs typically operate somewhere around 500-700MHz, we believe Crucial’s newest NVMe controller’s operating speed isn’t too far off. The M3 cores can operate at up to 200MHz and has dynamic power modes, so you can see that while there are so many, they are very efficient.
Crucial outfits the 1TB P5 with a 1GB Micron LPDDR4 2,133 MHz DRAM chip to buffer FTL mapping tables and ensure consistent performance. The company also throws in Micron’s latest 96L TLC flash; however, this is only on the 1TB and 2TB models.
The smaller 250GB and 500GB capacities of the Crucial P5 have last-gen 256Gb 64L TLC. Either way, both designs have four-virtual planes of NAND access per die and interface with the controller at a rate of 667-800MT/s.
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
At 1TB, there are sixteen 512Gb dies packed eight per package, which is double the density at 1TB than the NAND powering WD’s Black SN750 and Samsung’s 970 EVO Plus.
Crucial’s P5 doubles the number of NAND packages per die at 2TB to take advantage of 32 dies for optimal interleaving with 512Gb density flash and thus should have the best performance, but that is only speculation until we receive the 2TB for an update.
There are a few reasons as to why Micron’s flash is some of the most responsive besides access to four planes per die. This floating gate NAND design is a bit more robust than charge trap designs as it has a lower charge spread which results in less read errors and ECC intervention as well, it has better data retention because of a more stable charge. Micron’s flash also features a tile-based floorplan design that is integrated with the CMOS under Array circuitry for better space efficiency and provides redundancy of elements within the tiles to allow for greater defect tolerance.
Most SSDs these days come with a page size of 16KB (the smallest unit you can write to in NAND). This tile-based design basically breaks the NAND down into 32 tiles per die which results in a 16KB page that is broken up into 2KB sized tiles that are paired into 4KB tile groups.
The four tile groups share a common 16KB page buffer and the SSD controller can perform 4KB partial page read operations that activate only two tiles which result in lower power consumption and reduces the page read time.
MORE: Best SSDs
MORE: How We Test HDDs And SSDs
MORE: All SSD Content
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Sean is a Contributing Editor at Tom’s Hardware US, covering storage hardware.
top 10 rating by KP
The best solid state drives (SSD drives) are much faster, more efficient and more durable than hard drives. And, if your daily life is connected with the active use of a laptop, you should stop using slow and noisy hard drives, the information on which can be destroyed by a slight shake.
The good news is that SSDs have become more affordable.
This means that you can purchase SSD drives without having to spend a lot of money and not settle for cheap alternatives. You don’t even need to have an expensive and powerful laptop to take advantage of the huge speed boost offered by good SSDs. The best ultrabooks and the best laptops on the market also come equipped with quality SSD drives out of the box. nine0003
To help you find the perfect SSD, we’ve rounded up the best SSD drives of 2022. If you’re on a tight budget, or if you’re willing to spend a decent amount on a new SSD, you’ll find something on this list.
CP Top 10 Ranking
1.WD Black SN750 NVMe SSD
WD Black SN750 NVMe SSD. Photo: market.yandex.ru
Western Digital has been building a name for years with a plethora of solid state drives and hard drives, and the WD Black SN750 continues that tradition by claiming to be the best SSD gaming solution. This SSD has an extremely fast read speed of 412.5MB/s, which should make any heavy game load in no time.
And considering it’s one of the most affordable NVMe SSMs out there, it’s easy to recommend to any gamer looking for a new SSD, no matter their budget. nine0003
Pros and cons
High read speed, good for gaming
Heat
2. Adata XPG SX8200 SSD
Adata XPG SX8200 SSD. Photo: market.yandex.ru
If you’re looking for an M.2 SSD that’s fast and affordable, this is it. The Adata XPG SX8200 is not the fastest drive on the market, but nonetheless, there is no drive that matches the price-performance ratio offered. Of course, you can get more speed in more expensive SSDs, but we can recommend this drive to anyone, regardless of budget. nine0003
Pros and cons
Best value for money, M.2 form factor
Could be faster for the money
3. Toshiba OCZ RD400
Toshiba OCZ RD400. Photo: market.yandex.ru
If you’re looking for multiple looks and sizes, the Toshiba OCZ RD400 drives are some of the best solid state drives out there. They are 4D and come in three different form factors: M.
2, M.2 2280, and as an add-on card (AIC). All sizes have all the connectors you need, so it’s easy to find a place for them in your computer case. nine0003
Pros and cons
Versatile, high read/write speed
Relatively high price for large memory
4. Intel 760p Series SSD
Intel 760p Series SSD. Photo: market.yandex.ru
The best NVMe SSDs were too expensive for most users. But those days are coming to an end — the Intel SSD 760p series changes everything. This SSD has impressive performance that is only slightly behind the Samsung 9.60 Evo, 3056MB/s read and 1606MB/s write. But what really makes 760p stand out is its fantastic price-performance ratio. Yes, there are faster NVMe drives on the market, but they are much more expensive and, frankly, not worth it.
Pros and cons
Great value for money, NVMe
Many users have questions about assembly
5. WD Blue SN550
WD Blue SN550. Photo: market.yandex.ru
WD has done a great job of developing SSDs that reduce functionality to a minimum.
This downgrade was made to reduce the cost and availability of the solution for most PC owners, so that they would consider the WD solid state as an affordable upgrade. This option does not provide maximum speed or hardware encryption, but is still significantly faster than any SATA drive. This is an easy way to upgrade to NVMe if you’re on a budget. nine0003
Pros and cons
Low price, NVMe
Not the highest speed, not the largest rewrite resource
6. Kingston KC2000
Kingston KC2000. Photo: market.yandex.ru
Compared to its predecessor, the KC2000 is impressive and also brings it much closer to the competition with Samsung and Corsair. Anyone moving from the SATA format will see a huge performance boost, so choosing a PCI NVMe drive is highly dependent on speed and cost. The Kingston strikes a good balance here, with the KC2000 nearly as fast as its competitors, but generally more affordable. nine0003
Pros and cons
Low price compared to competitors, relatively high quality
Average read and write speed
7.
Crucial MX500
Crucial MX500. Photo: market.yandex.ru
If you don’t intend to use this drive for 4K video editing every day and don’t need a 4TB device, the MX500 provides an almost perfect combination of performance and price. If you can afford larger capacities, you will not only get a bonus in cost per gigabyte, but also a much longer lifespan. nine0003
Pros and cons
Excellent performance/price ratio, comparative benefit with more memory, long life
Very average read/write speed
8. WD Black SN750
WD Black SN750. Photo: market.yandex.ru
This is the most productive M.2 SSD with a capacity of up to 2 TB, and also one of the most affordable at the moment. It can be recommended to those who need a small amount of memory, but at maximum speed and at a reasonable price. nine0003
Pros and cons
Fastest read/write speed, M.2 form factor
Max capacity up to 2TB
9. WD Blue 3D NAND
WD Blue 3D NAND. Photo: market.
yandex.ru
WD Blue 3D NAND best represents the last good SATA SSD before switching to NVMe. This is a significant improvement over its predecessor and allows Western Digital to compete with the leading SSD manufacturers. Overall performance combined with a competitive price is a winning combination, and this SSD is great for those who still want to use SATA technology without sacrificing high read and write speeds. nine0003
Pros and cons
Low price, high performance
Obsolete SATA format
10. Kingston KC600
Kingston KC600. Photo: market.yandex.ru
A SATA SSD will never beat the new NVMe, but if for any reason you are limited by the form factor, the Kingston KC600 is an excellent choice. It’s comparable in performance to larger brands, but available at a lower price and just as fast. For the money, this is one of the best budget options among all SSD drives on the market. nine0003
Pros and cons
Low price, competitive performance
Aging SATA format
How to choose an SSD drive for a laptop
For a first time SSD drive for a laptop, it can be difficult to decide which one is best .
To understand how to choose the right solid state drive, we turned to Daria Makhortova, the system administrator of a large IT company , through whose hands thousands of various SSDs went through. She suggested some important tips on the key characteristics of such devices. nine0003
Capacity
The last thing you want to do is buy an SSD and then upgrade again in the near future, so try to get an SSD with as much storage capacity as your wallet allows.
Form factor
When buying the best SSD for you, also check the physical specifications of the drive to make sure your computer has enough space for it and that the connections between them are compatible. Most SSDs are 2.5″ but there are 3.5″ options and also pay attention to z-height (thickness). If you have a super-slim device, fear not — you just need to choose an M.2 SSD. nine0003
Interface
Finally, a quick check of the interfaces inside your laptop: SSDs can use the older, more traditional SATA interface, or the newer NVMe direct-to-motherboard variant (and the M.
2 form factor can work with both).
Top 15 SSD drives — Rating of models 2022
If so, the price for a similar model may be different for the locality. nine0003
M.2 2280 1TB Netac (NT01NV3000-500-E4X)
3192
M.2 2280 1TB Transcend (TS1TMTE220S)
3809
M.2 2280 1TB Micron (CT500P5PSSD8)
4619
M.2 2280 1TB SPATIUM M480 Play MSI (S78-440L680-P83)
7399
M.2 2280 1TB SN850X WD (WDS100T2X0E)
Please note that the basic reading speed of all 2.5” models is approximately the same. Therefore, choosing the models for the rating, we entered the following numbers:
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The capacity is not less than 480 — 512 GB.
The popular OS Windows 11 takes about 30 GB, another 80-100 GB for typing software or one daily game, add a few films and half the total amount of time. And it is not recommended to upgrade the budgetary SSDs by 60% in case of hard core hardness — the shards in them are reduced read/write speed; nine0003 -
36-60 month warranty;
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clear memory controller;
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1 GB variable size.
480 GB Goodram (SSDPR-CL100-480-G3) Even more important is the number of available solutions, the microcircuit cannot have a DRAM cache. This means that the read/write speed will change if the disk is loaded more or less by 60%. nine0003
Without compensating for memory, replace the available QLC here with 3D TLC Nand, and set the resource for overwriting to 350 TBW.
Just don’t give away a hoard of torrenti, which you can stick in a whole for 5-6 years of work.
Declared read/write speed of 540/460 Mb/s, for real servers, the results will be no more than 5% lower, the docks will not reach 60% of the storage capacity. Tse reproach show for such a low vartosti. You can see the «blocked» temperature of the controller to the mindful of shortcomings. With any pretensions, the tests will show 40 ° C — it’s not a big trick for the virobnik to tell us that «SSD does not heat up.» nineXT. The speed of reading and writing is declared by the compiler to be 560/540 Mb / s. If the SLC-cache is loaded (by 70% of the storage capacity), the speed of the record will decrease, approximately to 80-70 Mb / s.
Anew, the vibrator has blocked the temperature of the controller and it is similar to the trend in budget 2.5” storage tanks. So that in a monitoring PZ you have a temperature of 40 ° C, as a bivi did not navantage the accumulator. Vtіm, more important is more coristuvachіv nіkola not zіtknetsya s overheating SSD in schoden working zavdannya.
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Value resource
480GB KINGSTON (SA400S37/480G)
Classic Classic VID KingSton — SA400S3 Buv of Ono -ROOCIA. The SLC cache was increased, a new controller was installed, the memory was replaced from QLC to TLC. Not chіnivsya lishviy metalevy body, scho zalishivsya in іd A400.
The result of the first price is lower than the two previous options. We need a stable work, the interval before filling the SLC-buffer increases, and it also accumulates more efficiently for the working speed of reading / writing — 500/450 Mb / s. nine0003
Controller temperature display is not blocked for this model. Navіt pіd vіdnimnym vantazhennâ popular benchmarks controller does not heat up more than 39 ° C. SA400S3 will become the best choice, as you need a budget storage device, which ensures high stability of the work.
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0003 WD engineers implemented the SLC-buffer in such a way that after it is loaded, the speed is reduced by about two times — up to 240-270 Mb / s. As a result, there is no harm in budget option, for example, for amateur video editing. nine0002 The Crucial MX 500 is already a hoarder, which sank to the soul in 2017. Since that time, the controller has changed — in the current model SM2259. Memory centers of 96-ball MLC 3D NAND (previously, a similar 64-ball memory was used). The controller has an additional 1 GB DRAM buffer, which is why the speed of the line reading is close to the value specified by the compiler — 560 MB / s, regardless of the storage capacity. For a volume of 1 TB, increase the resource of the accumulator up to 1. M.2 NVMe storage devices connect directly to the PCIe bus and allow you to achieve greater read/write speed from a 2.5” SSD port. Summarizing the rating, we were guided by the following parameters: Usage of accumulating in this part of the rating by 1 Tb, the minimum cost for the end of 2022. M.2 2280 1TB NETAC (NT01NV3000-500-E4X) Production NETAC Z’yavavili on the Ukrainian rinka is in the very recently, Ale also made it out of place not to make themselves a burnt-out hungry hid. The NV3000 is a budget M.2 storage device that works on the PCIe 3.0 standard. The speed of reading is close to the maximum for the interface of this generation — 3100 Mb / s (read — 2000 Mb / s). In real zavdannyah shvidkostі povnіstyu vіdpovіdat declared. And beware that when you load the SLC cache (for moving more to less than 55% of the SSD capacity), the speed will decrease by about twice. Heat sink is supplied with a set with a massive heatsink. Yogo ¾ sens install less at that point, as the M.2 slot is known directly under the video card. Rich in tim, sho accumu- lated to inspire opportu- nities to work at temperatures of 39-42 °C. Miraculous universal solution for a variety of platforms for daily business.
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This indicator is the shortest, lower than that of the most available analogues (the speed decreases by 3-4 times). The old series of storage devices through QLC-memory have a low resource — approximately 60 TBW, at a time the resource should be set to over 650 TBW. Reading yoga for an hour of three-fold guarantees will be easy to find a team who regularly copies a lot of files. 
8 million years spent on water or more below 600 TBW. Warranty — 5 years. nine0003 
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64-ball TLC 3D Nand memory is the budget standard. nine0011 
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