Best SSDs 2024: From Budget SATA to Blazing-Fast NVMe (2024)

Picking the Best SSD for You

Best SSDs in 2024 at a glance (more info below):

Here's the shortlist of our rankings, but we have deeper breakdowns for these drives below, along with far more picks for other categories, like PS5 SSDs, RGB SSDs, workstation SSDs, and SATA SSDs, among other categories.

• Pick a compatible interface (M.2 PCIe, SATA, Add-in Card): Look at your user manual or a database like the Crucial Memory Finder to determine what types of SSD your computer supports.
• 500GB to 2TB: 1TB is the practical minimum for any PC build that costs more than $500 (perhaps one of the best PC builds). 2TB is the best SSD capacity for anyone that can spend $200+ on a drive. 500GB is the bare minimum anyone should consider at any price. 4TB drives have also plummeted recently, so good deals abound.
• M.2 SSDs are the fastest: M.2 PCIe NVMe SSDs are the most common type of SSD on modern systems. These small, rectangular drives look like sticks of RAM, only smaller. They are usually 80mm long by 22mm wide, described as size 2280, but some may be shorter or longer, so make sure you get one that matches your slot.
• SATA is the slowest: SATA isn't as fast as an M.2 SSD, but the majority of desktops and many laptops support 2.5-inch SATA drives.

Below, you'll find our list of the best SSDs. For even more information, check out our SSD Buyer's Guide.Iif you're looking for an external SSD, you can check out our Best External Hard Drives and SSD page, or learn how to save some money by building your own external SSD.

Best SSDs You Can Buy Today

Samsung hit back at its competitors with this impressive update to the 980 Pro. New hardware and new options, including a heatsink with RGB and a 4TB variant, have allowed Samsung to retake the M.2 SSD crown. Performance is excellent across the board, setting a few new performance records, such as with 4K random read performance. In our testing, the drive was consistent, power-efficient, and cool. Samsung has also updated its software for this drive, giving it the best SSD toolbox available, and the drive is backed by a competent warranty and decent support.

$20 extra for a heatsink and RGB is a good deal, and Samsung will likely discount this drive over time. Competing PCIe 5.0 drives on the market offer faster performance, but they still carry a premium.

Read: Samsung 990 Pro Review

WD has taken its popular Black SN850 SSD and turned it up to 11. The Black SN850X leverages an improved controller and newer flash to get the most out of the PCIe 4.0 interface. Performance is improved across the board, and the drive rivals most of the top contenders in the PCIe 4.0 market. There's also a heatsink option that comes with RGBat 1TB and 2TB. WD also supports the SSD with its decent Dashboard application and a respectable five-year warranty.

The M.2 Black SN850X was a bit pricey at launch, however, with a daunting MSRP, but those prices have largely come down. The touted Game Mode 2.0 feature felt incomplete in our testing, although WD ensures us that this will improve with future firmware updates. All-in-all, this is a good compromise if you can’t find the Samsung 990 Pro.

Read:WD Black SN850X Review

Fastest Best SSDs 2024

The Crucial T705 is the fastest drive we have tested to date, finally breaking the 14 GB/s barrier. Careful work with Phison’s Max14um reference SSD design has led Crucial to eke out even more performance, taking the excellent T700 - a previous Fastest SSD position holder - up a notch. The optional heatsink design remains passive, which is a bonus, and you can also purchase the drive bare. Aside from the solid sequential performance, the T705 also has good sustained performance and can reach an incredible 1,550K / 1,800K random read and write IOPS at 2TB.

This is the fastest drive for now, but there will be others. The Sabrent Rocket 5 is not too far behind, and there are drives built on non-Phison controllers - like the InnoGrit IG5666-based Teamgroup T-Force GE Pro - that also promise over 14 GB/s of potential throughput. PCIe 5.0 drives remain an enthusiast product due to cost and availability concerns, and so far, they have proven inefficient and unwise for laptops and the PS5. Still, if you want the fastest consumer storage you can buy, the T705 is the fastest drive on the market.

Read: Crucial T705 Review

The Sabrent Rocket 5 has the distinction of providing the fastest direct-to-TLC write performance we have ever seen. During the longest of workloads, it can average write speeds of 4.45 GB/s, outclassing any PCIe 3.0 drive in existence and beating our previous high points with TLC flash with either 4.0 or 5.0 SSDs. It’s otherwise similar to other drives based on the Phison E26 controller, but it’s at the upper end of those, too. This allows it to provide excellent all-around performance with DirectStorage-optimized firmware for future-proofing.

It has the same downsides as other ultra-fast drives - namely, high power consumption and poor power efficiency. Idle power consumption in a desktop PC, which is the most likely destination for the drive, remains quite high. The Rocket 5 can also put out a lot of heat when it’s pushed. If you can provide an ample heatsink, though, this drive will run cool enough even under sustained workloads without any throttling. This makes it one of the fastest overall drives on the market, and the absolute fastest in extended heavy workloads.

Read: Sabrent Rocket 5 Review

Best Laptop SSDs 2024

The Crucial T500 combines cutting-edge flash with a customized controller that manages to be power-efficient with just four channels but also squeezes in the coveted performance-boosting DRAM cache. The T500 is also a single-sided drive with TCG Opal support, making it perfect for professional laptop use.

Many laptops are still stuck with PCIe 3.0 slots, and that’s fine. The T500 will be even more efficient when run at 3.0, and its benefits, aside from bandwidth potential, do not disappear. While the T500 does offer a heatsinked version, which we have in our all-around best SSD category, you’ll be going bare for a laptop. In this respect, it can even be better than DRAM-less drives, as the T500’s controller has more surface area and a metal IHS to prevent controller overheating. It’s simply the finest drive for laptops at this time unless you really want more horsepower. That’s on the menu, too, especially once the 4TB version arrives.

Read: Crucial T500 Review

The Sabrent Rocket 4 replaces the original Rocket 4 with a faster, more power-efficient design. Although this is a DRAM-less drive, the performance is excellent, and the drive’s single-sided nature makes it great for laptops. This is an easy drop-in part that falls short of the T500 only in its omission of DRAM, but luckily, DRAM isn’t as much of a requirement as it once used to be. The Rocket 4 also tops out at only 2TB of capacity - the T500 promises 4TB this year, and there are some good 4TB options like the Lexar NM790 already available.

Read: Sabrent Rocket 4 Review

4TB has become a more attractive capacity point for SSDs as time has gone on. While there are now many options available, most come with compromises of one sort or another. You may have to settle for QLC, a weaker controller, no DRAM, unreliable hardware, etc. This is not always a big deal, especially if the drive is intended to be a secondary gaming drive. In the PlayStation 5, however, extra cooling is beneficial, so it’s convenient to have a heatsink option available. At the same time, laptops favor bare drives and especially single-sided drives, the latter of which have been very rare with TLC until recently.

Samsung has managed all of this with its high-performing 990 Pro SSD. You have a powerful controller with DRAM, cutting-edge TLC flash, and a single-sided drive with or without heatsink even at 4TB. WD’s SN850X has been out a while at 4TB but has no heatsink option and is double-sided, with the SN850P being a latter heatsinked version for the PS5. There has been an increasing amount of 4TB TLC drives, including the Lexar NM790 and Addlink A93, but these cannot compare to the power and brand power of Samsung’s 990 Pro. You do have to pay for that privilege given the high MSRP, but at this time there is no substitute.

Read: Samsung 990 Pro Review

Best 4TB SSD Alternative

The Crucial T700 was the first 12 GB/s drive we reviewed, and it still remains one of the fastest drives we’ve ever tested. It’s also the first and only 4TB drive of its caliber that we tested. It’s been challenging to get 4TB of flash to maintain this level of performance, and 1TB isn’t enough to really get the most out of a Gen 5 SSD like this. That leaves 2TB as the only real solution, but there is a lot of demand for higher capacities as part of a storage upgrade. At this time, the T700 can best meet that role for PCIe 5.0 SSDs, given its relatively affordable price at the 4TB capacity.

The T700 won’t be the very fastest drive possible as we begin to see more 14+ GB/s options roll out. But it is still very fast, and faster than all Gen 4 and many Gen 5 SSDs. It has a nice passive heatsink option and the warranty you would expect, so no real compromises there. You’re paying a lot extra for the PCIe 5.0 bandwidth, though, but if you want a drive that will hang around a while - with its DirectStorage-optimized firmware - then the T700 is the best option. If you don’t need that much bandwidth, stick with the excellent Samsung 990 Pro for top 4TB performance.

Read: Crucial T700 4TB Review

Best Budget M.2 SSD 2024

The Teamgroup MP44 is one of those drives that remains a value champion just for being in the right place at the right time. It feels like a natural successor to the Teamgroup MP34, a drive that was once the most popular 4TB choice among budget PCIe 3.0 drives. The MP44 is even better than that, though, as it has a more reliable controller with up-to-date flash. As such, performance is good everywhere it matters and the drive is power-efficient, too.

It’s probably not the best SSD for laptops as the controller can act as a hotspot, but otherwise it’s a good choice at any capacity. However, it faces more competition below 4TB. There are faster drives either way, but it’s difficult to argue about the MP44’s price. Its most direct rivals would be the Patriot Viper VP4300 Lite, the Lexar NM790, and the Addlink A93, but it generally beats them all with its lower cost, particularly at the coveted 4TB.

Read:Teamgroup MP44 Review

While the Teamgroup MP44 is the value champion if you want the newest hardware and the fastest PCIe 4.0 speeds, going with its smaller sibling - the MP44L - is a good choice if budget is your top priority. Neither drive has DRAM, but both perform well enough that, in most cases, you’ll notice no difference between the MP44L and more expensive drives. There are no real performance pitfalls here and, further, the drive is efficient and single-sided for laptops or the PS5. It’s an easy pickup on sale.

The downside is that there are faster DRAM-less PCIe 4.0 drives around, like the Lexar NM790, Addlink A93, and Patriot Viper VP4300 Lite. However, extra power is often inconsequential if you’re on a budget. The MP44L competes more directly with WD’s Blue SN580, Black SN770, and Blue SN5000, as well as drives that share the MP44L’s hardware like the Silicon Power UD90 and Addlink S90 Lite, but sometimes these drives have swapped to QLC at higher capacities - the UD90 certainly has. The MP44L usually comes out on top as the best value, though.

Read: Teamgroup MP44L SSD

The Crucial P310 came as a bit of a surprise, but a welcome one. M.2 2230 SSDs have ratcheted up in popularity ever since Valve’s Steam Deck launched, and now there are more portable gaming systems than ever. There’s also Microsoft’s Surface Pro line and some laptops that take M.2 2230 or M.2 2242 - this drive can be extended up to M.2 2280 if needed - which used to mean going to eBay for OEM options like the WD SN740. This hasn’t been the case in a while, but finding a decent 2TB drive has remained difficult. The P310 handles that challenge like a champ.

Sure, it’s QLC-based, which means it’s not quite as fast or consistent as it could be, but it’s more power-efficient than the TLC-based WD Black SN770M and has more throughput. In fact, it’s the fastest 2TB M.2 2230 SSD we’ve ever tested. We expect the updated Corsair MP600 Mini would beat it, but the P310 has better availability and should be less expensive. It’s fast enough where it matters, which makes it the best option if you’re looking purely for capacity, but your host system should be able to take PCIe 4.0 drives to fully benefit.

Read: Crucial P310 SSD review

Corsair’s second run at the MP600 Mini, now with a faster controller and flash, is an example of how to do things right. It takes M.2 2230 SSDs to the next level in terms of performance while maintaining excellent levels of power efficiency. To top it off, it brings TLC flash at up to 2TB in a single-sided package. Previously, it was necessary to go with QLC flash - which in some cases is slower than TLC flash - or the power-hungry WD Black SN770M, which in any case isn’t as fast. This isn’t as big a deal with the PCIe 3.0 Steam Deck, as you can’t reach the full potential of today’s drives with that interface.

The new MP600 Mini comes at a price, though. Literally - it costs a bit more than the competition. The least expensive way to get this level of performance is to go with the Crucial P310, the best choice for M.2 2230 on any PCIe 4.0 platform if you want the highest capacity and 7 GB/s. For a 3.0 platform like the Deck and TLC flash, the Black SN770M remains solid. If you want the best performance possible, then the updated MP600 Mini is the way to go. For the time being, it is even good for M.2 2242 with an extender, otherwise, the native Rocket Nano 2242 will do the trick at 1TB.

Read: Corsair MP600 Mini (E27T) SSD Review

The WD Black SN770M is unique in that it offers 2TB of TLC NAND flash in the tiny M.2 2230 form factor in a single-sided design. This makes it optimal for use in the Steam Deck, ASUS ROG Ally, and other portable gaming/computing devices. Some of these can take double-sided drives or longer drives, but the most popular of them all - the Deck and Deck OLED - work best with this form factor. For a long time, it was only possible to get a drive with less-desirable QLC if you wanted 2TB, but with the SN770M, that compromise is no longer required.

This comes at a cost as the older hardware on the SN770M - which is the same as the popular M.2 2280 Black SN770 - pulls more power and puts out more heat. For regular gaming use, this wasn’t an issue in our testing. The difference in battery life is essentially negligible, and the drive is usually not pushed enough for its direct heat output to be an issue. Therefore, it offers the best baseline performance in this form factor for now, but QLC-based alternatives may be more affordable.

Read: WD Black SN770M Review

With the growing popularity of M.2 2230 SSDs, it was only a matter of time before we saw retail 2242 options. The Sabrent Rocket Nano 2242 is one of these, alongside the Corsair MP600 Micro. Alternatives include OEM and last-gen drives, like Sabrent’s original Rocket 2242, but some are double-sided. Not so with the Rocket Nano 2242, which will fit in the Lenovo Legion Go and many laptops with at least one M.2 2242 slot. It’s an easy drop-in solution with good performance and power efficiency.

The drive is only currently available at 1TB. However, with dual NAND packages, we expect larger capacity options in the future. M.2 2230 SSDs can also be extended for M.2 2242, but the 2TB options currently on the market all have their own drawbacks, except perhaps for the imminent Corsair MP600 Mini (E27T). However, the Rocket Nano 2242 gives plenty of performance for portable devices as it stands and is an easy pickup for M.2 2242.

Read: Sabrent Rocket Nano 2242 SSD review

PNY had its heart set on producing a very fast RGB-capable SSD, and with the CS3150 XLR8, or CS3150, it succeeded. This PCIe 5.0 SSD also has a heatsink with dual fans to ensure it never overheats. PNY’s software allows control over the RGB and fans, with synchronization possible for the former if you have other PNY RGB products. The warranty is standard, but the drive does support hardware encryption via the TCG Opal 2.0 specification, which may be a selling point for some.

The CS3150 isn’t perfect, though. It’s expensive and can be difficult to find. It’s only available at 1TB and 2TB capacities, needing 2TB to hit its maximum performance numbers. There are also other drives equal or faster to it, although for many workloads this isn’t particularly relevant. If RGB isn’t your thing, this drive also comes without the RGB in both white and black variants. Regardless of the model you go for, the drive can operate without throttling, and its performance is good across the board.

Read: PNY CS3150 Review

Best Workstation SSDs 2024

The Corsair MP600 Pro LPX has come a long way since our original review. Its performance has been straightened out and Corsair has also added an 8TB SKU. The drive has good availability and fair pricing, which is what helps it stand out in this category. While there are many drives similar to it, including our original pick - the Seagate FireCuda 530, which is now hard to find, Corsair has focused more on simply having the drive available. Throw in a heatsink - in black or white, to match your decor - and you have an attractive and very consistent all-around performer.

What makes this drive good for workstations is that it has a powerful, eight-channel controller with DRAM, in an era when four-channel DRAM-less drives are becoming more popular. PCIe 5.0 SSDs still carry too much of a premium. The MP600 Pro LPX also has tried-and-tested hardware that’s mature and reliable, which isn’t the case with some IG5236-based drives like some Silicon Power XS70s. Corsair also offers this drive from 500GB up to 8TB, which gives a ton of flexibility to suit your needs. It’s not power-efficient by today’s standards, but this isn’t a huge factor for workstations and HEDTs, making it a safe choice.

Read: Corsair MP600 Pro LPX Review

Best NAS SSDs 2024

At first glance, the Adata Legend 960 Max seems like just another drive among many. That’s true, as there are better drives in almost every category. There’s faster drives, drives with more IOPS, more efficient drives, etc. What the Legend 960 Max does right is typically of little interest to desktop users: it has good sustained performance and runs cool while maintaining that speed. It also has DRAM, living in a world where DRAM-less drives are becoming more popular and are affordable but aren’t always ideal for heavier workloads.

The fact is, this drive is quite consistent, which is potentially useful for NAS and even workstation use. Its warranty doesn’t lag behind and the addition of a heatsink means it’s ready to go right out of the box - or you can get the regular Legend 960 without a heatsink. It’s also pretty much the least expensive drive of this type, with DRAM, at 4TB, when ignoring drives with problematic hardware like the Silicon Power XS70 or Adata S70 Blade. It’s one of those drives that goes unnoticed which means at the right price it could be a niche solution for a tucked-away server.

Read: Adata Legend 960 Max Review

The Addlink NAS D60 is a niche drive but fills its designated role pretty well. If you have a NAS system, a workstation, or other servers - whether for home lab use or SOHO - this drive may be worth looking at. Assuming your server can take an M.2 NVMe drive or two, the NAS D60 can do caching duty in tandem with mechanical hard drives or even be used in an all-flash array. Whichever way you go, some special features of this drive help it step away from other retail consumer drives, which justifies its price premium. But it’s still more affordable than full-out enterprise solutions.

The first thing that stands out about this drive is that it’s using enterprise-grade flash. Such flash is more reliable with higher baseline endurance. This lets Addlink extend the warranty to 1 drive write per day (DWPD), which is three times the retail standard. The second thing that stands out is that it has capacitors on-board for power loss protection. This means improved integrity for data-in-flight. Lastly, the NAS D60 foregoes any pSLC cache, which, while hurting all-around performance, does give more consistent sustained performance. This combination makes it particularly good for a write cache, singly or in RAID, for NAS and other systems.

If you’re looking for a more traditional drive or one with a larger capacity option, the Adata Legend 960 Max remains viable. It also has a heatsink, which the D60 NAS lacks. Pick the D60 Max if you want the higher TBW, the PLP, and/or the non-cache performance characteristics. Oh, and remember that the NAS D60 will not be very power-efficient if that’s a factor for you.

Read: Addlink NAS D60 SSD review

Best SATA SSDs 2024

You can get a SATA drive in the M.2 form factor, but most SATA drives are 2.5-inch models, which allows them to drop into the same bays that hold laptop hard drives. SATA drives are the cheapest.

If you don’t want to dish out big bucks on something in the NVMe flavor but still want strong SATA performance, the MX500 is a great choice. As an alternative to the Samsung 860 EVO, it offers similar performance and has a strong history of reliability. Usually priced to sell, the MX500 is a top value at any capacity you need.

Read: Crucial MX500 Review

Restrained by the SATA interface, but still need the absolute highest endurance and performance you can get? As the pinnacle of SATA performance inside and out, Samsung’s 860 PRO is the SSD to buy.

Like the Samsung 970 PRO, the 860 PRO uses Samsung’s 64L MLC V-NAND, which helps propel it to the top of the charts in our rounds of benchmarking and makes for some incredible endurance figures. You can get capacities up to 4TB, and endurance figures can be as high as 4,800 TBW. But with prices that are triple that of your typical mainstream SATA SSD, the 860 PRO is mainly for businesses with deep pockets.

Read: Samsung 860 Pro Review

Finding Discounts on the Best SSDs in 2024

Whether you're shopping for one of the best SSDs or one that didn't quite make our list, you may find savings by checking out the latest Crucial promo codes, Newegg promo codes, Amazon promo codes, Corsair coupon codes, Samsung promo codes or Micro Center coupons.

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