The best SSDs of the moment (SATA, M.2, PCIe, August 2020)
In the world of the hardware, today if you want to improve the performance of the PC everything happens for choosing a good solid-state drive or SSD -for its acronym in English- characterized by high-speed data transfer and a time minimum access to information.
SSDs are offered in various formats, with M.2, used in notebooks and for motherboards with one of these card slots, is increasingly common. SSDs are still cheaper in 2.5-inch disk format, which usually provides the best value for the consumer. But they are also offered in various types of interfaces. To make your choice easier, we bring you this SSD shopping guide.
How to choose your SSD
But choosing a suitable SSD is not always easy because it is a new technology that has only been on the market for a few years, and less than two years at reasonable prices and they have continued to drop in recent months. So in the end we will give you some instructions to choose the SSD for quality/price best suited to your needs or what you want to spend on one if you are looking for the cheapest one.
SSDs are ideal for portable as a way to improve performance in Macbook Pros and laptops in general since the Macbook Air and ultrarportátiles or ultrabooks are sold with this type of storage -under consumption and fast start as large advantages- . Especially you have to look for those that have lower consumption in idle, of only a few milliwatts.
The disks from 240 to 256 GB are the ones that will have the most interesting prices for most users, although the 500 GB models usually have the best prices in terms of them. By Giga it means. The indicated speed parameters are the sequential and the reading of files of size 4 KB, although neither reflects the actual use on a day-to-day basis. It should be borne in mind that the improvement of the SSD comes mainly from the minimum times of access to information and from a greater speed of reading and writing small files.
The recommended SSDs
The following list includes the models with the best value for money, so they are good purchases. Although, yes, as the price can vary between that we review the article, check that it is still at a good price. The performance of these SSDs is very good, although in general all SSDs provide very good performance, with some specific exceptions. They are also SSDs with good durability and protection against errors or power outages.
Starting with the Samsung 970 EVO Plus series, it is the best series of SSDs on the market, with high performance, great durability, and suitable for any type of use. It is also one of the most expensive SSDs on the market, making it likely to be best suited for those who want a highly reliable SSD, with encryption, high durability, maximum performance, in semi-professional or professional use. This type of SSD is better to leave them for, the incapacity of 250 to 500 GB, the operating system, and to use other cheaper models for mass data storage, such as games, movies, etc.
The Kingston KC2500 series is sold in M.2 2280 format and has a PCIe 3.0 × 4 interface and a high-performance controller, a Silicon Motion SM2262EN, giving it high performance in all its available models. It is a strong competitor against Samsung’s 970 EVO Plus series.
The Spectrix S40G series includes RGB lighting and is M.2 format with a PCIe 3.0 × 4 interface, with a high speed that reaches 3500 MB / s and 290 kIOPS of sequential and random reading.
The Kingston KC600 series in 2.5-inch drive format and SATA3 connection is very fast, reliable, and among the best of its kind on the market right now.
Crucial MX500 series is the benchmark in performance-price, while also having great reliability. Unless you want to cut the cost, it is more recommended than other cheaper models with which there is little difference in the field of cost per giga.
The Gammix S5 series has good performance as a PCIe-type SSD and a very competitive price, which includes an integrated disperser to keep temperatures at bay. It also has good durability for more intensive uses of writing.
This SSD Plus series has a lower cost per giga, but also a somewhat lower performance. It is ideal for inexpensive office-oriented computers that do not require heavy use of disk writing.
Samsung’s 860 EVO series is also a benchmark for SSDs in the performance arena, and suitable for those who prefer a highly reliable model with good performance and high durability, but also require hardware encryption.
The Rocket Q series by Sabrent is of the PCIe 3.0 × 4 type although with a very competitive price. They perform well in general use, and only in unusual situations can they lose their performance, such as in sequential writing of huge files (over 250GB each). Therefore, like the rest of the Sabrent units, for general use they are ideal for their value for money.
The best SSDs
The best SSDs generally have great read and write consistency , or in other words, they maintain the highest possible speed at all times. There are some lower priced models that also have less consistency, and therefore in prolonged hard disk activities (for example film ripping or graphic design), a poor transfer consistency directly affects the maximum performance that can be obtained with them. . They also have better error protection and greater durability.
The Corsair Force MP600 has a PCIe 4.0 × 4 interface that can be used with motherboards with a compatible chipset at that speed, such as the X570 for Ryzen 3000 onwards. They can be used on motherboards with a PCIe 3.0 × 4 connection, but their maximum speed will be limited.
Seagate’s FireCuda 510 series is high performance, with up to 3100/3400 MB / s sequential read / write PCIe 3.0 × 4 connection and 600 kIOPS random read / write. It has a very high durability, up to 1825 TB in the 2 TB capacity model, and a low consumption of 5.4 W in writing.
The ADATA XPG Gammix S50 series is another model with a PCIe 4.0 × 4 interface, and is therefore one of the fastest on the market today, with speeds of up to 5000 MB / s sequential read / write and 750 kIOPS of random read / write .
And yet another PCIe 4.0, the Aorus NVMe Gen 4 , suitable for AMD’s X570 chipset motherboards and Ryzen 3000 processors.
Kingston’s UV500 series gives good performance results in all scenarios.
Other SSD options
M.2 form factor
Kingston’s A2000 series is made up of inexpensive models with a PCIe 3.0 × 4 interfaces, although its performance is far from the best PCIe but is clearly above the SATA3. Therefore, as is often the case with these low-cost series, the farther apart your prices are from the higher-performing PCIes, the better.
Crucial’s P1 series includes QLC-type NAND memory to offer an affordable SSD (Dec. 2018) with M.2 format and PCIe connection. Its performance is adapted to the price it has, so it is not the fastest M.2 PCIe type SSD on the market, but it is much faster than SATA3 SSDs. Its durability is adequate for daily use.
Portable SSDs or external SSDs
The SD600Q series is made up of rugged, small models, so you get the benefit of SSD speed in a pocket-size. They have good speed and manufacturing quality.
Crucial’s X8 Portable series is an external SSD with USB 3.1 interface and USB Type-C connector, which allows a maximum speed of 1050 MB / s, being compatible with USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 but with lower speeds. Internally it works with a PCIe 3.0 interface and is based on the P1 of the same company.
The Savage Exo series of external SSDs have good performance, making use of good USB-SATA controller and bridge. That includes good 4KB file read / write speed, which is usually the main problem with external SSDs due to data encryption by the USB standard. The design is a little more particular, since HyperX is Kingston’s playful brand, and therefore somewhat more aggressive, but just as small and portable.
Samsung’s Portable X5 series uses a Thunderbolt 3 interface for connection, and is the fastest portable external SSD on the market (as of late 2018).
Samsung’s Portable SSD T5 series includes models between 250 GB and 2 TB, being small and light, so they can be carried anywhere and fit in any pocket (74 × 57.3 × 10.5 mm and 51 g). They have AES-256 type hardware encryption , and have a USB Type C connector.
What is an SSD?
An SSD or solid-state drive ( Solid State Drive ) is a device that uses flash memory chips like USB memory but higher quality. They can come in different formats, from those typical of laptop hard drives to small cards that are connected using special formats (mSATA or M.2).
The difference between a hard drive and an SSD is in the time of access to information and in the time of transfer. On hard drives, the cymbals are spinning all the time and only read the information when the spindle passes through the point where the information is. In the SSD memories, information is directly accessed when required. The transfer speed of hard drives depends on the spin speed of the cymbals, but it is something that cannot be happily increased, especially for hard drives for home users.
The transfer of a hard disk is usually about 100 to 150 MB / s in those of 7200 RPM, and in a standard home SSD it reaches more than 500 MB / s — both transferring large files between devices with the same speed or higher — Although there are others that can reach a speed of more than 3000 MB / s.
How to choose the capacity of the SSD
The price of solid-state drives is still much higher than that of traditional hard drives, so you need to choose the right capacity for your storage needs. Here are some guidelines on how to choose the capacity of the SSD that best suits your needs.
Computers can use external hard drives, either on a NAS or in a portable disk format, to store everything from music, large files, and more generic storage like personal photos and videos. It is not necessary today, especially thanks to the speed of USB 3.0 (USB 3.1 Gen. 1) and the new USB 3.1 (Gen. 2), to have this information stored on a disk inside the PC, which makes it easier to choose the SSD size for those on a tighter budget.
About 120 GB
This amount is usually the ideal to have an SSD to quickly boot the operating system and benefit from low application load times. It is sufficient for a Windows operating system, and in the case of Mac, it is preferable to opt for 240 to 256 GB.
Over 250 GB
This price range usually offers enough capacity for the operating system, common applications, and user data, but it is also the minimum that I recommend for a Mac. In the case of Windows, it is enough to have a 120 GB disk for the operating system and Frequent applications, although opting for 256 GB also allows you to have a game installed, gaining performance in loading textures, levels, and scenery.
Over 500 GB
This category is not really profitable in terms of price of Giga of storage per euro invested in the SSD, but those who want to have more storage in addition to the most reliable and fast disk on the market, this price is for him. It is usually more than enough to have the operating system, the applications that are used on a daily basis, and various games installed on the same disk. Therefore it is a good option if you want a team that has a single unit and that will not limit you in the future.
1 TB or more
Due to the price of SSDs, perhaps in some offers, you can buy a cheap 1 TB SSD, but in general, it is not profitable. 1 TB is enough to have enough Steam games installed — 30 games that take up a lot of space — , personal photos and videos, and more. Even so, in these cases, it is better to install the operating system on a 120 or 250 GB disk so that you can reinstall it at any time, and leave this 1 TB disk separate for the storage of other data.
Different 2TB SSDs have started hitting the market, but their price per giga is usually much higher.
Form factors: M.2 and 2.5-inch disk
M.2 is a specification that describes several different possible form factors for SSDs. Each can have different interfaces. Now there are many options SSD using any of the sizes M.2, especially after the arrival of motherboards Intel 200 series, some models even have two or three grooves M.
2 . The common interfaces are SATA3, common in the rest of the SSDs with the usual 550 MB / s read and write, but more interesting is the PCIe. SSDs with this speed has a greatly increased speed, and those using four PCIe 3.0 channels are common, with up to 32 Gbps speed or 4 GB / s. The least common are PCIe 4.0 with theoretical speeds of up to about 8 GB / s.
Adapters
Since SSDs can come in different form factors (mSATA, M.2, 2.5 inches), you may find yourself at some point in the situation of reusing an mSATA from a laptop for your PC in which you do not have the appropriate Connection.
Euro / Giga SSD comparison table
Below you can see several tables with which to know the price for each giga of the SSD. Since except 64GB models often have other comparable speeds or not be able to distinguish a normal user -consultádmelo if you have doubtfully, perhaps a more interesting measure is to know the cost per gigabyte.
Things to consider when buying an SSD
If what you want is to have a computer to play, the most recommended is to always have an SSD disk for the operating system. If not, also, since the operating system will boot in about 10 seconds. By installing on a normal hard disk — preferably 7200 RPM — the games will allow us to access different information at the same time on the same disk as we play, improving the response time of the computer.
A backup power unit (UPS) may also be convenient for computers using an SSD. Although for older disks SSDs had a high probability of losing information or being damaged if they suddenly shut down as a power outage may occur, the newer an SSD the more prepared it will be to avoid such data loss.
That is why I always recommend current discs instead of older ones, even if they are cheaper since in many cases these loss problems do not occur or occur as much as on hard drives. In many cases, if it’s for a desktop PC, you’ll also need a standard-size adapter from a 2.5-inch SSD to a 3.5-inch bay, although many cases come pre-assembled with multiple 2.5-inch bays.
In my case, I do not have it fixed inside the PC since it does not have moving parts that make this essential — in addition to that I mess around a lot inside it — but the normal thing is that everything is placed inside the PC. In addition, you must also make sure that the motherboard or laptop supports SATA 3 that allows you to take advantage of up to 6 Gbps of SSD transfer instead of the 3 Gbps that SATA 2 allows. If not, the maximum speed of reading and writing it will be limited to 300 MB / s.
The price will depend greatly on the reliability, capacity and speed of the SSD due to the firmware used by the manufacturer, as well as the production method used. In disks before 2014, it was generally necessary to enable a function called TRIM of the operating system that simply works as a garbage collector on the disk to free up unoccupied space since, unlike a hard disk, the deleted files continue to occupy the space in the disk until TRIM is done.
Now, most of the SSD drivers do it periodically without OS intervention, and in others, like macOS, they do it by default if the SSD is the one provided by the serial manufacturer. It can be activated in addition to the control made by the SSD, but in practice, it is not totally necessary.
SSDs, to keep their performance as high as possible, should have a part of their free space, so I usually recommend leaving at least 10 to 20 percent of the total space of SSDs free. This is due to the way the information is saved to disk, which I will not go into much more detail in this article. In some models, the need for free space will be greater and in others much less, depending on their firmware. The newer ones usually include enough over-provisioning for possible bad sectors and also avoid the slowdown due to being close to being full, although it is recommended to leave at least 10%.
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