The 10 Best Solid State Drives

Editor's Notes

October 18, 2026, by Ezvid Wiki Admin:

Raw speed didn't decide the top spot. The Samsung 990 PRO leads because it pairs fast PCIe 4.0 speed with a DRAM cache and high endurance, and it runs cooler than the PCIe 5.0 Samsung 9100 PRO, whose extra speed rarely shows in games. Almost nothing from the last version of this list can still be bought new. The Adata XPG SX8200 Pro, Sabrent Rocket Nano External, Samsung X5 and Samsung 970 Evo Plus are gone or discontinued, and the Sabrent Rocket XTRM-Q, Sabrent Rocket Extreme, Sabrent Rocket Nano Internal, Gigabyte Aorus and XPG Gammix S50 are older designs that newer drives beat on speed and warranty. We also swapped the Samsung 870 QVO for the Samsung 870 EVO because of availability concerns, and the EVO's TLC flash is rated for more writes anyway.

The new list covers each kind of drive readers ask about: PCIe 4.0 and 5.0 M.2 sticks, a 2.5-inch SATA drive and three portables. Samsung holds six spots. We looked for more brands, but Samsung's drives are the ones with independent lab tests and steady stock right now.

One warning: a worldwide memory chip shortage has pushed SSD prices well above last year's, and they change week to week. If a 2TB drive is a stretch, the 1TB versions cost much less.

December 23, 2020:

The average PC will be sped up significantly and reasonably and future-proofed wit the Samsung 970 Evo Plus or Adata XPG SX8200 Pro, but if you want to take it to the next step, a PCIe 4.0 model like the Gigabyte Aorus or Sabrent Rocket Extreme is worth a look, although the latter uses an especially bulky heatsink that won't fit in all setups. The XPG Gammix S50 is in the same speed class, and also comes in a light version, but doesn't come with a heatsink, which you'll probably need to avoid throttling and potential damage.

On the external side of things, the Sabrent Rocket XTRM-Q leverages both the USB 3.2 standard and Thunderbolt 3, making it highly versatile, while the Sabrent Rocket Nano External is about as small as portable NVMe storage gets. The Samsung X5 is, of course, still a great choice, and promises top-of-the-line speeds, although at a similarly high price.

December 16, 2020:

The world of solid-state-drives continues to rapidly evolve and grow. As with most computer hardware, there are many specifications, different form-factors, and compatibility issues that can be very confusing. If you're looking to build a new system or upgrade, the one imperative thing to keep in mind is what type of connections your system will support.

Models such as the Samsung 860 QVO and the Crucial MX500 rely upon a Serial ATA, also known as a SATA connection. Some of the portable devices, such as the Samsung T5 and Sandisk Extreme are able to be plugged into a USB Type-C port, and can also function with an older USB ports as well. Most recent computer systems will have both of these kinds of connections.

Devices such as the Seagate Barracuda 510 and the Samsung 970 Evo Plus need a different kind of interface, known as PCI Express. They require a special slot on your motherboard, and aren't compatible with traditional SATA connectors.

When looking at the numbers and specifications, feel free to delve as deeply as you like, as that's certainly part of the fun when it comes to picking out new hardware. Any of these options will provide a noticeable increase in speed over traditional HDDs. We've attempted to pick out the best options and included varying models for different needs.

For this update, we've removed four items, the Samsung X5, the OWC Envoy Pro EX, My Passport, and the Adata SE730H. We've replaced with models we feel offer better value. We've also updated the listings for the Samsung T5, the Samsung 970 Evo Plus and the Crucial MX500. We also removed the previous listing for the Samsung 860 Evo due to availability issues. It has been replaced with the more popular SATA form-factor version, the Samsung 860 Evo Internal, and its description and details have been changed to match the new item.

The Sandisk Extreme is an excellent portable option and is built to sustain drops of up to two-meters. The Samsung 860 Evo Internal is one of the best 2.5 inch models available, and has a reliability that has been praised by critics and customers alike. The Samsung 980 Pro, the WD_Black SN750 Internal Gaming are both PCIe compatible drives that offer exceptional performance for gamers or professionals. Finally the Seagate Barracuda 510 is the company's NVMe style addition to its famed line up of traditional HDDs.

May 27, 2019:

There are a handful of different form factors, connectors, and bus speeds to be aware of here. The SATA bus tops out at 6 gigabits per second, which theoretically equates to 600 megabytes per second, although in the real world the ceiling is lower than that, usually around 450 megabytes per second. The PCIe bus can move considerably more data and is able to accommodate multiple gigabytes per second.

Most modern external drives connect using USB Type-A or Type-C connectors. USB 3.1 Gen 1 and Gen 2 will generally have SATA chipsets inside them, as they share a similar top end limit. Western Digital's My Passport, Adata SE730H, and Samsung's T5 are great examples. They're all highly shock-resistant and should hold up well over time, though the Samsung does have a somewhat more respected pedigree. The Samsung X5 and the OWC Envoy Pro EX, on the other hand, utilize the ultra-quick Thunderbolt 3 standard and make good use of the PCI NVMe drives inside of them. They are, however, conisderably more expensive than a more run-of-the-mill USB model.

When it comes to the stuff inside your PC, there are even more things to remember. The buses are the same but the connectors are very different. The most compact personal computers use M.2 drives such as the ultra-small Samsung Evo, which has a small form factor and uses the SATA III bus. It's about as fast in large file writing than any SATA drive, though for random read and power-up speeds, it can definitely excel.

If you're upgrading an older machine and moving on from the generally antiquated hard disk drive, the Crucial MX500 or Samsung QVO are worth a look. They work with a huge range of older motherboards -- in fact, they're basically plug-and-play swaps for the old clicking magnetic media of an HDD, they're just much smaller (though, interestingly, they consume about the same amount of electricity, despite having zero moving parts).

Anyone who is looking for speed, though, will want to look into the NVMe drives. Once again, Samsung comes out on top here. This is very common now and has been for a couple years, as Samsung has been on the cutting edge of NAND flash memory development and quality control. Their 970 Evo Plus is consistenly considered the fastest and most reliable. However, while it's the best, it's also very pricey. If you don't want to wait for resource-intensive games to load or files to copy, and you don't want to spend a ton, Consider one of Adata's high-speed offerings. They can't quite match the read speeds of Samsung's offerings, but in terms of affordability, they're quite superior.