I've been keeping track of SSD prices for some time now, and unfortunately, the ceiling for what I consider a 'good' price on an SSD these days has risen quite a bit. The memory supply crisis is still raging, making the downright sensible SSD prices of last year feel more and more like a distant memory with every passing day.
As such, doling out more than 200 bucks for any SSD feels like a lot right now, but I'd make the case that spending that money on a speedy PCIe 5.0 drive. Right now, you can scoop up a 1 TB Samsung 9100 Pro for $207 at Amazon.
It's worth noting that Amazon Germany is selling a PCIe 5.0 SSD from Crucial for less cash than this. But if you're not feeling overly confident about shipping from Deutschland, the 9100 Pro is still well worth considering. It offers sustained read/write speeds of up to 14,700 MB/s and 13,400 MB/s, respectively.
In his Samsung 9100 Pro 2 TB SSD review, our Zak offers a handy technical breakdown of what makes this drive so nippy, but in short: dedicated LPDDR4X cache memory plus a 365 GB pseudo-SLC cache makes SSD go 'brrr'. As a result, Zak writes that this drive "absolutely [rips] across sequential performance."
Unfortunately for PC gamers, the 8100 Pro's random 4K performance is a bit of a let-down in comparison. Game loads are rarely pulling up files all neatly lined up, which is why random 4K performance tends to be a more valuable metric for us.
Zak writes, "The 2 TB unit [lands] at a fairly average 88 MB/s on the read and an astoundingly low, 237 MB/s on the write. That's not great for a drive that's meant to be this 'fast'. In contrast, every other Phison-based SSD I've tested lands a write speed in the 300 MB/s and above range. In fact, every SSD I've ever tested here sits around that mark, even the 4.0 drives. That is not ideal."
As such, this drive may be better suited to supplementing the storage you already have rather than outright replacing your main internal SSD. Otherwise, Zak was impressed by the drive's efficient thermal performance—though notes that you're better off avoiding the version that comes with a heatsink.
"The included heatsink is a bit naff," he writes, adding, "This is one efficient drive when it's cooled correctly. Given the heatsinked variant costs more though, I'd highly recommend opting to ignore that added extra, and instead bury it underneath a solid, dependable, thick, mobo heatsink instead."
Some cheaper but slower alternatives...
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1. Best overall:
WD_Black SN7100
2. Best budget:
Biwin Black Opal NV7400
3. Best PCIe 5.0:
WD_Black SN8100
4. Best budget PCIe 5.0:
Crucial P510
5. Best 4 TB:
TeamGroup MP44
6. Best 8 TB:
WD_Black SN850X
7. Best M.2 2230:
Lexar Play 2230
8. Best for PS5:
Silicon Power XS70
