During my time as a hardware writer, I've picked up a pithy nugget of wisdom or two. For instance, it turns out the old adage 'sometimes less is more' still holds true even in hardware. To be more specific, I've learnt that extra storage need not come at a premium, and with the October Amazon Prime Day tomorrow, that's true now more than ever.
While it's true that a 1TB drive doesn't necessarily give you much room to swing your backlog of Steam games, it's a fine enough perch for your operating system. Besides a speedy boot, you'll still have enough room for a few of those games you've been saying you'll get to for ages now. The 1TB version of the Lexar NM790 SSD is just such a drive fit for your OS and a few of your games to come home to roost—especially now that it's only $66 at Amazon.
So, why is this particular SSD so cheap? Well, besides the smaller 1 TB capacity, this NVMe M.2 form factor drive features no DRAM. It's still worth your time as a potential game and OS drive because a lack of DRAM tends to mean slower write speeds rather than read speeds. As such, the Lexar NM790 offers a write speed of up to 6500 MB/s write speed and an up to 7400 MB/s read speed.
DRAM can still be an expensive inclusion that drives up the price of SSDs, so dropping it makes a lot of sense if you're on a budget. Even without DRAM, though, this drive advertised speeds offer far more than a snail's pace—and when our Jacob put the 4TB model to the test in his Lexar NM790 SSD review, he found the drive was "very nearly bang on what's advertised."
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Jacob also found that this drive handled random workloads well, turning in a performance that places it "in the mix with some of the faster Gen4 and first-wave Gen5 drives we've tested." If you're just looking for the numbers, Jacob's testing puts this drive at a random read speed of 75MB/s and a random write of 291MB/s.
As you may well have spotted from that review, the Lexar NM790 SSD is definitely an older offering as far as SSDs go. Again, that doesn't mean you're getting shortchanged so much as picking up a two-year-old drive that's been out long enough now to enjoy some delectable discounts.
Add to that this SSD is one cool customer to boot, and it feels like you're getting a lot for less than 70 bucks. Jacob really put the pricier 4TB model through its paces, but still only reports a temp of 72°C when copying over a 200 GB test folder. As Jacob rightly calls out, "That's an admirable temperature from a drive with no active cooling solution and high speeds."
Check out Amazon's SSD deals here
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
9. Best SATA:
Crucial MX500
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