Switching to solid state drives is the best upgrade for your PC. This magical device can reduce startup time, improve the responsiveness of programs and games, and generally make your computer feel faster.

When looking for the best gaming PC, laptop, or more productive machine, it’s important to find the SSD or solid-state drive that best fits your specific system and needs. To find the best SSD for gaming and productivity, we test dozens of drives each year and show you the best. It also adds a category of SSDs that are best suited for NAS. Ideal for gaming, SSDs are fast buddies for important PC parts. With a fast NVMe M.2 drive, you can play your favorite games as fast as possible. Still, with Microsoft’s release of Direct Storage API (which opens in a new tab) for Windows, it’s expected to become increasingly important to have a fast SSD nearby.

It is undeniable how fast the current SSD is, especially compared to older rotating hard disks. The same is true for SATA drives and PCIe 4.0 SSDs. Games like Skyrim and GTA V that used to take a few minutes to launch a few years ago will load in seconds. Once you experience this, you won’t be able to return to your hard drive anymore.

1

Samsung 980 Pro

SAMSUNG 980 PRO SSD

Best fast SSD for gaming in the mid-range

If you can afford to spare the money to get a storage drive, the Samsung 980 Pro may be the best SSD for you. It is the fastest SSD we have ever tested and is ideal for securing the future of your rig, particularly if you have a 1TB capability. It is not the cheapest SSD on the market, but it achieves its speed without significantly increasing its price compared to its rivals. However, remember that Gen4 SSD is essential to take full advantage of its speed.

Like other major SSD launches, the Samsung 980 Pro has three storage capacities: $89 for 250GB, $149 for 500GB, and $229 for 1TB. These prices seem expensive at first glance, especially if you are paying attention to the rapid decline in SSD prices in recent months. However, it is priced to be a good match compared to competing drives such as the $199 1TB Gigabyte Aorus Gen4 SSD and $229 Sabrent Rocket with the same capacity.

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2

Samsung 870 EVO

SAMSUNG 870 EVO SATA

Best budget affordable SSD for Gaming

If you like to add storage with a classic 2.5″ SATA drive rather than a tiny M.2 “Gumstick,” Samsung’s spectacular 870 EVO is the most suitable option. This product is the fastest SATA SSD we’ve tested and has a capacity of up to 4TB, making it very affordable given its speed. The long warranty period with Samsung killer SSD management software “Magician” is also admirable, but real enough. There is a reason why the EVO series is a legendary part of the SSD.

However, SK Hynix Gold S31 is worth considering. Benchmarks are slightly less than 870 EVOs and cost $98, which is $12 lower for the 1TB version. However, the SK drive is currently only 1TB, and the 870 EVO offers a wide range from the 60-dollar 250GB model to the huge 450-dollar 4TB model. The Samsung 1TB drive is priced at $110.

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3

Kingston Fury Renegade SSD

Kingston Fury Renegade

High-capacity SSD for high-power users

Kingston is selling this SSD drive for “gamers, enthusiasts and high-power users,” and that’s true. Up to 4TB of capacity with reading speeds of up to 7,300 MB/s and compose rates of up to 7,000 MB/s is feasible, but for less expensive cases, you can choose a smaller (and less expensive) model of this SSD.

While we won’t delve deeper into the technical aspects of Kingston Fury Renegade SSD, we have some of the most promising and best-performing technologies currently available for NVMe Solid State Drives. As long as you have time, you will fully understand that no matter how you decide to use them, they will still perform well.

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4

Corsair MP400

Corsair MP400

Best massive storage gaming SSD

The Corsair MP400 is a gem. With SATA SSD at a lower price point, Corsair MP400 offers massive storage to help you get the most out of your money. However, this is not SATA SSD. It is PCIe NVMe SSD, and it’s not slow at all. It competes with many other PCIe 3.0 SSDs at speed and is less expensive than them. Low durability is the only drawback, but it won’t be a big problem for the average user who doesn’t write much data.

If you want your PC game to load as fast as possible, Corsair MP400 is the perfect drive, thanks to its speed and capacity. It may not be as fast as the PCIe 4.0 drive, but it is almost as fast as the PCIe 3.0 SSD and at a great price for storage.

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5

WD BLACK SN850

WD_BLACK 1TB SN850 NVMe

Best low-price, high-performance SSD

The WD BLACK SN850 features the SSD (open in new tab) recommended by Sony executives when upgrading storage on PlayStation 5. For us, this shows that this is a reliable, high-performance solid-state drive (and the fact that it is an industry veteran Western Digital product makes us even more confident).

500GB, 1TB, and 2TB of capacity, with up to 7,000MB/s read and 5,300MB/s write speeds depending on capacity. While there are no additional features like hardware encryption, WD Black SN850 is offered at an affordable price, and overall, this is one of the best SSDs.

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