How to Choose the Right SSD?

The easiest way to slow down a PC with one of the greatest CPUs for gaming is to pair it with sluggish storage, so getting one of the best SSDs for your system is essential. Although your CPU is capable of doing billions of cycles per second, it frequently has to wait for data from your disc before using it. Because their platters must spin up and their read/right arms must physically go to the data sectors you’re looking for, hard drives are very slow. You need a decent solid-state drive for the best performance (SSD).

Know your computer: Keep a look at your motherboard to see whether it has an M.2 drive slots. If not, a 2.5-inch drive might be required.

500GB to 1TB capacity: A drive with less than 256GB of capacity shouldn’t even be considered for buying. A reasonable compromise between cost and capacity is provided by 500GB.

SATA is cheaper but slower: Consider buying a drive that uses one of these technologies if your computer supports NVMe/PCIe or Optane SSDs. SATA drives, however, are more widely used, typically cheaper, and still provide outstanding performance for everyday tasks.

Any SSD is better than an HDD: Even the worst SSD is at least three times as fast as a hard drive in most common use scenarios. Depending on the workload, the performance delta between good and great SSDs can be subtle.

What Kind of SSD Does Your Computer Support?

These days, solid-state drives are available in a variety of form factors and may be connected to many types of hardware and software. Depending on the device you have, you’ll require a certain type of drive. Your system could be able to support most modern drive types if you have one of the finest gaming PCs or are building a PC with a recent mid-to the high-end motherboard.

Additionally, there is no room for a conventional 2.5-inch laptop-style drive in contemporary compact laptops and convertibles, which have mostly switched exclusively to the gum-stick-shaped M.2 form factor. Additionally, more and more laptop manufacturers are soldering the storage directly to the circuit board, making it impossible to update at all. To determine alternatives before purchasing, you should check the handbook for your device or use Crucial’s Advisor Tool.

Which Form Factor Do You Need?

Solid-state drives are defined by three form factors; the size of the drive, the type of connection interface, and the physical space the drive will occupy in the computer.

2.5-inch Serial ATA (SATA): The most popular variety, these drives have an appearance similar to that of traditional laptop hard drives and connect using the same SATA cables and interface that any upgrader with a fair amount of expertise should be familiar with. These drives should be plug-and-play compatible if your laptop or desktop has a 2.5-inch hard disc bay and an extra SATA connection.

SSD Add-in Card (AIC): These drives have the potential to be much faster than most other drives, as they operate over the PCI Express bus, rather than SATA, which was designed well over a decade ago to handle spinning hard drives.

Compared to most M.2 SSDs, they can access more PCIe lanes. AIC drives fit into motherboard slots that are often reserved for RAID controllers or the top graphics cards. Obviously, that means they are just a desktop option, and installing them requires an empty PCIe x4 or x16 slot.

You could be out of luck if your desktop is small and you already have a graphics card installed. These drives, however, can be among the fastest ones available (take the Intel Optane 900p, for example), thanks in large part to their greater surface area, which allows for better cooling, assuming you do have room in your current desktop and a spare slot. Extremely fast data movement produces a significant amount of heat.

M.2 SSDs: They resemble RAM sticks but are considerably smaller, have become the norm for thin laptops, but you can also find them on the majority of desktop motherboards. Even more, M.2 slots are available on many high-end boards, allowing you to run the SSDs in RAID.

While the majority of M.2 drives are 80mm long and 22mm broad, some are shorter. You may determine this by looking at the four- or five-digit number in their names, where the first two digits indicate the width and the remaining digits indicate length. M.2 Type-2280 is the name of the most popular size. Many desktop motherboards feature anchor points for longer and shorter drives, although laptops typically only support one size.

The largest M.2 drives have a capacity of 2, 4, or even 8TB. There is an M.2 for you if you have a large budget and want a lot of storage capacity.

U.2 SSDs: These 2.5-inch parts first resemble conventional SATA hard drives. They are bulkier than 2.5-inch hard drives and SSDs, but they utilise a different connection and transmit data via the quick PCIe interface. Compared to standard M.2 drives, U.2 drives are often more costly and have greater capacities. This form size is rather unusual in consumer PCs, although it might be useful for servers with a lot of free drive bays.

What Capacity Do You Need?

128GB Class: Avoid it. Due to their small number of memory modules, these low-capacity drives often run slowly. Additionally, you will run out of space after installing Windows and a few games.

250GB Class: Even while these drives are less expensive than their bigger counterparts, they are still fairly little, especially if you use your PC to store your operating system, PC games, and perhaps a sizable media collection. Moving up at least one capacity tier to a 500GB-class drive is advised if your budget allows it.

500GB Class: Although 1TB drives are starting to become popular, drives at this size class still provide a respectable amount of space for reasonable pricing.

1TB Class: A 1TB drive should give you adequate capacity for your operating system and essential programmes, as well as enough place for upcoming software and data unless you have a sizable media or gaming library.

2TB Class: A 2TB drive is frequently worth the extra cost if you work with huge media files or just have a large gaming collection that you want to be able to access without having to switch between many instals.

4TB Class (and above): If you have a desktop computer or a gaming laptop with many drives and need a lot of capacity, you’re better off choosing two smaller SSDs. You’ll frequently save hundreds of dollars while getting nearly the same amount of storage and speed. 4TB and greater drives will only be available to experts and hobbyists with enormous budgets until prices come down and there is more competition.

Wrapping Up: How to Choose the Right SSD?

Your choices should be clear now, you are aware of all the crucial aspects that distinguish SSDs. Keep in mind that even though high-end drives are technically faster, they won’t always seem faster than less expensive alternatives when doing regular tasks.