Best SSDs of 2024: Reviews and buying advice

If you’re looking to add some storage via a traditional 2.5-inch SATA drive rather than a tiny M.2 “gumstick,” Samsung’s spectacular 870 EVO is your best bet. It’s the fastest SATA SSD we’ve tested, it’s available in up to 4TB of capacity, and it’s exceedingly affordable given its speed. Enough said, really—though Samsung’s killer Magician SSD management software and long warranty period also deserve a shout-out. The EVO series is a legend among SSDs for a reason.

That said, the SK Hynix Gold S31 is also worth considering. It’s just a hair behind the 870 EVO in benchmarks and costs $12 less in its 1TB version, at $98. The SK drive is only available in a 1TB flavor these days, however, while the 870 EVO ranges from a 250GB model for $60 all the way up to a massive 4TB goliath for $450. Samsung’s 1TB offering costs $110.

The Samsung 870 EVO offers an intoxicating blend of performance and affordable pricing, but if you want as much capacity as possible for as cheaply as possible, consider the Crucial BX500. You can get its 1TB model for $41.99, a whopping $50+ less than the equivalent EVO, while a 480GB version costs just $24.99. 240GB and 2TB versions are also available.

“We recommend this QLC drive in the larger capacities for those who want good everyday performance for a budget price,” we said in our review. “The smaller capacities will likely run into more slowdowns during heavy writes.”

Sure, PCIe 4.0 SSDs scream during big file transfers, but if you’re still using an older system with PCIe 3.0, upgrading to an NVMe SSD still provides substantial benefits to your PC’s speed and overall responsiveness. Better yet, you don’t need to break the bank to take advantage. The Crucial P3 is a very good daily performer, but it’s available for a bargain rate of just $44 for a 500GB model or $84 for a 1TB model. Though it doesn’t have top-tier PCIe 4 performance and the TBW rating is pretty low, the P3 does have excellent real-world write times and unless you really stress the drive you shouldn’t notice much of a difference anyhow.

All told, this drive is an outstanding choice for anyone looking to snag a solid everyday SSD at a great price.

Cutting-edge PCIe 4.0 SSDs aren’t quite as cheap as SATA or PCIe 3.0 NVMe drives, but now that the technology is becoming more established, we’re starting to see several models available at compelling prices. The best of the affordable bunch? The WD Blue SN580 NVMe SSD—and by quite a large margin. At just $50 for a 1TB model, you won’t likely find any PCIe 4.0 drives with storage that cheap. In our testing, the SN580 turned out both stellar benchmark and real-world results. It did slow down considerably in the large 450GB transfer test, but seeing as how it’s unlikely anyone will write that much contiguous data it likely doesn’t matter. In the end, the SN580 is a wonderfully high-performing PCIe 4.0 SSD that well undercuts the cost of competitors. At this price point it simply can’t be beat.

The Solidigm P44 Pro is the fastest PCIe 4.0 drive we have ever tested bar none. In fact, it finished within the top five fastest drives in our tests, and was only beaten by three next-gen PCIe 5.0 drives. Plus, it becomes even faster when you install the Solidigm Windows driver, which further improves random performance in small read/writes.

Not only does the Solidigm P44 Pro provide top-notch performance, but it also comes in at a very reasonable price if you shop at the right place—we found that pricing varies widely online from retailer to retailer. This is one of the best SSDs on the market, and holds its own at the top despite stiff competition from a crowded field of other excellent PCIe 4.0 drives.

As with any PCIe 5.0 SSD, there are important caveats to bear in mind. For starters, you’ll pay a premium over extremely fast, and in some cases even faster NVMe PCIe 4.0 drives that employ a host memory buffer (HMB) design, as you can see in our review of the Solidigm P44 Pro — our pick for best PCIe 4.0 SSD.

But if you use multi-threaded software and your system sports a 13th/14th-gen Intel CPU (which the Phison PS5026-E26-52 controller inside this drive is optimized for), you can be assured of benchmarking-busting performance.

Now, in all fairness the Z540 isn’t the fastest PCIe 5.0 drive we’ve tested. It traded benchmark wins with our previous top pick the Crucial T705. But the Teamgroup Z540 has that competitor beat, decisively, when it comes to price, making it the clear pick for this category.

How can you argue with the Z540’s $143, $247, and $470 asking prices for 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB, respectively, compared with the T705’s $155, $280, and $515 prices, when performance is so close? That’s the kind of savings that pushes a close-second winner into the lead, in our book.

That being said, keep an eye on those prices, because they are always changing, and today’s alternative pick could easily become tomorrow’s best buy. Similarly, Corsair’s MP700 Pro SE offers very competitive performance that could make it a tasty option if its prices are to come down.

Bottom line: PCIe 5.0 shoppers have lots to choose from!

In the past, you were out of luck if you wanted to upgrade your storage in a smaller-sized device such as a handheld gaming console. The full-size 2280 NVMe SSDs wouldn’t fit. Thankfully, with the advent of more advanced handheld gaming consoles such as the Steam Deck, manufacturers are changing all of that. There are now a whole host of half-sized 2230 small form factor SSDs on the market. The latest from Western Digital, the WD Black SN770M is our favorite. It comes with up to 2TB of capacity and shockingly good real-world performance. It’s only 30mm long, which means it’ll fit perfectly into small devices such as the red-hot Steam Deck.

This HMB (Host Memory Buffer) drive has great everyday performance and a decent capacity-to-cost. In our testing it aced the 48GB and 450GB transfer tests—even beating out other top-notch full-sized PCIe 4.0 drives. The SN770M is a great SSD, but if your device is able to handle the longer 2280 drives, you’ll likely have more options to choose from and might be able to find better price-for-performance at that standard size. Regardless, this drive expertly fits a niche that is only growing more common with devices such as the Steam Deck.

The Seagate Game Drive PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD was made specifically for next-gen consoles—the PS5 in particular. And it doesn’t disappoint. Instead of HMB, it features DRAM for primary caching duties, which is practically essential for Sony’s console system. This is important because the PS5 doesn’t support HMB, so a drive such as this with DRAM cache is a must. The drive comes in 1TB and 2TB models, which means you’ll have plenty of space to store all of your games should you need it.

While the Seagate Game Drive is optimized for a PS5, it’s no slouch as a regular SSD either. In our speed tests it did remarkably well, earning the spot as the second-fastest PCIe 4.0 SSD with random ops that we’ve ever tested. Seagate also provides a generous five-year warranty with the drive and it has an astounding 1,275TBW rating—more than double the industry norm. The drive is a bit pricey, but the special optimizations for PS5 means that console owners can rest easy knowing that their money is going to good use with the Seagate Game Drive.

With great everyday performance and an affordable price, the Crucial X9 Pro is our favorite external SSD. This svelte beauty will give you transfer rates of 10Gbps and comes in 1TB, 2TB, or 4TB capacities with reasonable prices for each. In our testing we found that the X9 Pro performed admirably against the other 10Gbps competition. It especially excelled in the real-world 48GB transfer test and the 450GB write time test where it smoked other similar 10Gbps drives we’ve tested.

Crucial also has an X10 Pro model on offer that gives you 20Gbps transfer speeds, but you’ll pay quite a bit more for that extra speed. Regardless, we think that the X9 Pro will serve the average user perfectly fine with excellent all-around performance and a cheaper price point. You can’t ask much more from a 10Gbps USD external SSD than what the Crucial X9 Pro gives you.

No SSD we’ve seen can match Adata’s Elite SE880 for portability. Indeed, measuring in at only 2.55 inches long, 1.38 inches wide, and 0.48 inches thick, it reminds you more of a USB thumb drive than a standard SSD. It weighs a mere 1.1 ounces to boot, virtually disappearing when placed in your pocket.

The Elite SE880 is also very fast at everyday tasks. In real-world 48GB transfer tests, the drive displayed outstanding marks. However, it did lose significant ground in the longer contiguous write tests meaning photo and video pros with large files might want to look at other options. Considering the respectable transfer rates and the small form factor, the Elite SE880 is a great pick for those looking to take their SSD on the go.