Top SSD Picks: The Best Buy Guide for 2024
For this edition of the SSD Best Buy Guide, we were able to test several new models. Moreover, the SSD market is currently in such a state of disarray that anyone who has doubts about a larger or faster SSD should take action now. Solid-state drives have rarely (I’d say never) been so cheap and so frequently on offer.
Just two years ago, NMVe drives, SSDs with PCIe interface, and M.2 connection for convenience were much more expensive. A 1TB drive costing 100 euros was not the world’s fastest model in 2021 and you had to look for budget models that were at the then ‘magical’ limit of 10 cents per gigabyte. A 1TB drive now costs more like 50 euros and the real budget models are even lower than that. The question is how long that will last because manufacturers are significantly reducing production. This should bring supply and demand back into better balance and enable them to sell SSDs for higher prices.
On the next page, we take a quick look at the latest drives we tested and then continue with our recommendations. For this edition, we only tested NVMe drives in the M.2 form factor. We have a relatively new test platform, especially for the latest generation of Gen5 SSDs. There are still not very many of them, so they do not play a major role in this BBG yet. Moreover, given the extremely low prices, we tested almost exclusively 1TB and 2TB SSDs. Deviating capacities are relatively expensive and these two capacities form the sweet spot in terms of both price and use.
We limit ourselves in the recommendations to drives with a capacity of 1TB and 2TB. With current SSD prices and current storage requirements in mind, 500GB and especially 250GB drives are not a logical choice for a desktop. They are more expensive per gigabyte than the 1TB and 2TB models and fill up quite quickly.
Best 1TB SSD
WD Black SN770 1TB
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M.2 80mm • PCI-e 4.0 x4
The SN770 from WD offers good performance and combines it with a low price. Although the drive is a so-called dram-less design, the performance is excellent. The SN770 is not the fastest drive, but an excellent all-rounder. The function of the Dram cache is taken over by the working memory, which makes it possible to save on components. This results in a fast drive that is readily available at many stores and only costs over 70 dollars.
Fastest 1TB SSD
Crucial T700 (without heatsink) 1TB
M.2 80mm • PCI-e 5.0 x4
Crucial produced one of the few Gen5 SSDs that are available and that we were able to test. While we’re still waiting for the big explosion of Gen5 SSDs, this is currently the fastest we’ve tested. Please note that you need a motherboard with an M.2 slot that has PCIe Gen5 lanes. You can find this on AMD AM5 motherboards and Z790 boards from Intel, among others. The drive also works on older motherboards, but it does not achieve the same speeds. If you want the fastest, this is a good choice, but we would recommend waiting until there are more to choose from; that will also improve prices.
Budget SSD
Lexar NM620 1TB
M.2 80mm • PCI-e 3.0 x4
This summer is a great time to buy an SSD; the offers are flying around your ears. Nowadays, even 5 cents per gigabyte is no longer the cheapest; you can buy them for less than 4 cents per gigabyte. The NM620 from Lexar is a good example of this. You can buy this drive at various stores for less than 40 euros. The performance is fine for average use, but don’t expect speed records. You could also consider its more high-end brother, the NM790, also as an alternative to the Samsung 980 1TB. The performance is marginally better, but the price is also a few euros higher.
2TB drives
Best all-around 2TB SSD
Kingston’s KC3000
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M.2 80mm • PCI-e 4.0 x4
The 2TB SSD we would recommend is a difficult one. Numerous drives perform well and with all the offers in recent months, the choice is difficult to make. Right now, Kingston’s KC3000 is a solid choice. The drive is available at many stores and performs excellently. For a practical price of only around 120 euros, a significant drop compared to the big 160 euros of April, the KC3000 offers a good mix of performance and price.
Fastest 2TB SSD
Crucial T700 (without heatsink) 2TB
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M.2 80mm • PCI-e 5.0 x4
Just like the smaller 1TB version, the 2TB version of the T700 is also the fastest SSD we have tested. The drive is slightly faster than the Gigabyte Aorus Gen5 10000 and also a little cheaper. Again, though, if you want the fastest, this is a great choice, but if you’re willing to wait, we would. You then get more options and more choice often means lower prices, because this SSD is roughly three times as expensive as a fast Gen4 SSD of 2TB. Also check whether your system is suitable for Gen5 drives so that you can make optimal use of the speed, and ensure good cooling.
Lexar NM790 (without heatsink) 2TB
M.2 80mm • PCI-e 4.0 x4
There is also a lot to choose from for the 2TB drives. We regularly see high-end drives offered for low prices. For example, Silicon Power’s UD90 has been on sale at Amazon Marketplace for some time, but that is only one seller. The Kingston NV2 is also very cheap, but given the lottery of hardware it contains, we don’t recommend it either. Then we come to the NM790 from Lexar. That drive is one of the cheapest 2TB drives we tested, but its performance is almost as good as the KC3000. You can buy a fast 2TB drive for about 100 euros.
WD Blue SN580
We’ve added a few drives to our test range that are competing for our Best Value awards. For starters, WD has released the successor to its popular entry-level WD Blue series, the SN570. We tested the 1TB version of the WD Blue SN580. The drive has a proprietary WD controller and Kioxia BiCS5 TLC with 112 layers on board. There is no Dram cache, but the big difference with the SN570 is that the SN580 has a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface instead of a Gen3 link. The 1TB drive can be purchased in WD’s own webshop for 56 euros; the 2TB version should cost 112 euros there.
Transcend 115S and 400S
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From Transcend we received the 115S, a Gen3 SSD that costs about 60 euros. This is also a dram-less drive, which, given its specified speeds, competes with the lower segment. Transcend’s 400S is also a Gen3 SSD, but this one is special. It is a 42mm long SSD, which makes it much shorter than the usual 80mm. The 400S is therefore suitable for very compact PCs or your SteamDeck. Because this format is less common, the price is also somewhat higher; 1TB model costs about 70 euros.
Silicon Power
The XS70, UD85 and UD90. 1TB version and a 4TB version of the first one. We use the 4TB variant in our test platform for GPUs and video cards, and we were able to test it on the SSD test system during an SSD change. The XS70 is significantly more expensive than the UD85 and UD90, and while all three are PCIe Gen4 drives, the XS70 is the drive with much higher performance on paper. The UD90 is equipped with a Phison E21T controller that controls Micron TLC NAND with 176 layers without dram cache. The UD85 is more budget-oriented, with a Phison E19T controller and Chinese YMTC Nand. The XS70 features a more powerful Phison E18 controller and 176-layer Micron NAND.
Lexar
Finally, we tested Lexar’s NM790 in 1TB and 2TB versions. Just like Lexar’s NM710, these drives have Maxio’s MAP1602 controller on board, which controls a modern 232-layer YMCT NAND. To save costs, dram cache has also been omitted here, which is partly why you can buy the 2TB version for less than 100 euros.
We wanted to highlight the above drives because they are new in the comparisons, but also because we regularly see some of these drives on offer. We use the price points of August 1 to put together, so if you are reading this, an offer can suddenly make a drive much more interesting. Our advice is therefore: keep a close eye on those offers; they can easily save you tens of thousands.
