The best SSDs of 2020: Samsung’s PCIe 4.0 drive leaves other SSDs in the dust

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Switching to a solid-state drive is the best upgrade you can make for your PC. These wondrous devices obliterate long boot times, speed up how fast your programs and games load, and generally makes your computer feel fast. But not all solid-state drives are created equal. The best SSDs offer solid performance at affordable prices—or, if price is no object, face-meltingly fast read and write speeds.

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Many SSDs come in a 2.5-inch form factor and communicate with PCs via the same SATA ports used by traditional hard drives. But out on the bleeding-edge of NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) drives, you’ll find tiny “gumstick” SSDs that fit in M.2 connections on modern motherboards, SSDs that sit on a PCIe adapter and slot into your motherboard like a graphics card or sound card, futuristic 3D Xpoint drives, and more. Picking the perfect SSD isn’t as simple as it used to be.

That’s where this guide comes in. We’ve tested numerous drives to find the best SSDs for any use case. Let’s take a look at PCWorld’s top picks, and then dive into what to look for in an SSD. Quick note: This roundup only covers internal solid-state drives. Check out PCWorld’s guide to the best external drives if you’re looking for a portable storage solution.

Updated November 24 to add the XPG Gammix S50 Lite to our reviews and PCIe 40 sections.

Latest SSD news

• Absolutely massive SSDs are suddenly exploding in popularity. In recent weeks, we’ve reviewed the 4TB OWC Aura P12, while the Sabrent Rocket Q and Samsung 870 QVO bump that up to 8 terabytes. Ludicrous. You pay up for all that space, but now you don’t need to sacrifice HDD-class capacity for delicious SSD speeds.

• DirectStorage—the backbone of the Xbox Series X’s ultra-fast storage technology—is coming to Windows in 2021, letting your GPU talk directly to your NVMe SSD to accelerate storage performance. Here’s how Microsoft and Nvidia plan to kill game-loading times on PCs.

Best SSD for most people

Samsung’s mainstream EVO series of SSDs has sat atop our recommended list ever since 2014, and the current Samsung 860 EVO is still a great option for people who want a rock-solid blend of speed, price, compatibility, and the reliability of Samsung’s 5-year warranty and superb Magician management software. But for the first time in recent memory, the king has been knocked off its thrown, and by a newcomer that isn’t really new whatsoever.

Most people would be better off buying the SK Hynix Gold S31. Not only is it among the fastest SATA SSDs we’ve ever tested, but the price is right too. At $44 for a 250GB drive, $57 for a 500GB drive, or $105 for 1TB, the Gold S31 costs much less than Samsung’s line, which charges $75 for a 500GB model. “When all was said and done in those real-world 48GB copies, the Gold S31 proved the fastest drive we’ve ever tested for sustained read and write operations,” our review proclaimed. Enough said.

Well, maybe not. Let’s talk a bit about the brand itself, since SK Hynix isn’t exactly a household name. Despite that, it’s one of the largest semiconductor manufacturers on the planet. The company has been developing NAND and controller technology since the get-go, and while it’s been the SSD manufacturer for numerous large computer vendors, it generally hasn’t taken a place for itself on the shelves. Now it has, and the results are sterling.

If you need larger capacities, though, still look to the Samsung 860 EVO, which is available in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB models as well, albeit at steeper premiums. The Samsung 870 QVO is another strong contender, with capacities ranging from 1TB all the way to a whopping 8TB, but we’ll discuss that in the next section.

Best budget SSD

The best budget SSD is also the best SSD for most people, as the SK Hynix Gold S31 discussed previously delivers fantastic performance at extremely affordable prices. If you aren’t interested in that drive for whatever reason, though, you have more options.

Now that traditional multi-level cell (MLC) and triple-level cell (TLC) solid-state drives are plummeting in price, manufacturers have rolled out new-look quad-level cell (QLC) drives that push SSD prices even lower. The new technology lets drive makers stuff SSDs with hard drive-like levels of capacity while simultaneously coming close to the juicy SSD speeds we all love so much—most of the time. The first round of QLC drives, including the still-superb Samsung 860 QVO, saw its write speeds plunge to hard drive-like levels when you transfer dozens of gigabytes of data in one go.

The Addlink S22 QLC SSD doesn’t suffer from the same fate. While traditional TLC SSDs (like the ones mentioned in our “best SSDs for most people” section) still maintain a speed edge versus QLC drives, the Addlink S22 is no slouch, and it’s dirt-cheap for an SSD, at just $59 for 512GB or $99 for 1TB. Ludicrous—though it’s worth noting that SK Hynix’s Gold S31 now goes for about the same low rate.

If you don’t plan on moving around massive amounts of data at once and need more space, the Samsung 870 QVO—Samsung’s second-generation QLC offering—is a great option. It’s actually a wee bit faster than Addlink’s SSD. But it’s also more expensive, at $110 for 1TB, $205 for 2TB, $450 for 4TB, or $900 for 8TB (oof) on Amazon. Lower capacities aren’t offered. The older Samsung 860 QVO remains a good option too, but the newer 870 QVO bests it in every way.

But what if you’ve got a newer motherboard that supports the faster, newfangled NVMe M.2 drives? Keep reading!

Best NVMe SSD

If performance is paramount, the Samsung 970 Pro or Seagate FireCuda 510 are the fastest NVMe SSDs you can buy—but most people should buy the SK Hynix Gold P31. Yes, SK Hynix is on a roll, dominating our budget, NVMe, and best overall SSD categories.

The Gold P31 is the first NVMe SSD to feature 128-bit TLC NAND, and it pushes SK Hynix’s drive beyond other options, which use 96 NAND layers. The model we tested absolutely aced our CrystalDiskMark 6 and AS SSD synthetic benchmarks, nearly hitting the blistering 3.5GBps read and write speeds claimed in the press release. It also held its own against SSDs that cost much more in our real-world 48GB and 450GB file transfer tests. “The SK Hynix Gold P31 performs like a top-tier drive, but it’s priced just slightly higher than bargain drives,” we stated, and well, that says it all. You can get a 500GB model for $75 or a 1TB model for $135 on Amazon.

The Crucial P5 is another great, affordable NVMe SSD that performs on par with much costlier options, and would likely be our top pick if the SK Hynix Gold P31 didn’t exist. The Gold P31 is both slightly faster and slightly cheaper, however, so go for that first. Crucial’s drive is a killer alternative though.

You can find compelling options for slightly less money if you’re on a budget, though. The Western Digital Blue SN550 NVMe SSD isn’t the flashiest NVMe drive, nor is it quite as fast as the alternatives mentioned above. But it costs far, far less. Despite its entry-level price—$45 for 250GB, $65 for 500GB, or $130 for 1TB—the WD Blue SN550 runs circles around other bargain NVMe drives and falls within spitting distance of the performance of those higher-priced enthusiast options. It’s from a known, established brand with a good track record for reliability, too, and comes with a longer-than-average five year warranty.

If you want just a wee bit more performance, the Addlink S70 NVMe SSD is another stellar option, earning our Editors’ Choice award. We slightly prefer its performance to the WD drive’s, but Addlink’s SSDs now cost more than its rival’s after receiving price increases, and the WD Blue SN550’s performance is more than enough for everyday computer users. Addlink isn’t as well-known as WD, but also offers a 5-year warranty on its drive.

The PNY XLR8 CS 3030 is another good option, offering fast performance at a good price. It gets bogged down during especially long writes, however, though it should be excellent for everyday use.

If you don’t mind spending up for faster, Samsung 970 Pro-level performance, the Adata XPG SX8200 Pro and Kingston KC2500 also run with the big dogs, but at more affordable prices. “While it didn’t reach the top step of the podium in any one test, the KC2500 was always within easy hailing distance of the leader,” we said in our review of the Kingston drive. “It’s available at about the same price as the competition and should be at the top of your short list when you’re shopping for a high-performance NVMe SSD.”

And now, you can finally get blistering NVMe speeds without sacrificing capacity thanks to a new breed of supersized SSDs, though you’ll pay up for the privilege. The OWC Aura 12 delivers average NVMe performance (read: faster than most) paired with a big 4TB of performance for $929. The superb Sabrent Rocket Q amps everything up with top-notch performance and a crazy 8TB capacity, but it’ll set you back a cool $1,500. The bleeding-edge isn’t cheap. 

Best PCIe 4.0 SSD

Most NVMe SSDs use the standard PCIe 3.0 interface, but even faster PCIe 4.0 drives exist now—at least on systems that support the bleeding-edge technology. Currently, only AMD’s Ryzen 3000 processors support PCIe 4.0, and even then only when they’re inserted in a X570 or B550 motherboard. If you meet that criteria, though, PCIe 4.0 SSDs leave even the fastest PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSDs in the dust.

Corsair, Gigabyte, and Sabrent rolled out the first PCIe 4.0 SSDs available, with all offering similar performance from 1TB models at around $200. Our favorite PCIe 4.0 drive costs slightly more, though.

We’ve only recently added a PCIe 4.0 test bench to our setup, but the champion thus far is the Samsung 980 Pro. The drive exceeded Samsung’s claimed 7GBps read and 5GBps write speeds in our testing. To drive home just how ludicrous that is, the SK Hynix Gold P31—our favorite standard NVMe drive—wowed us with write speeds half as fast. Samsung’s drive also blazed through our real-world file transfer tests, though it can occasionally slow down a bit if you throw a massive amount of data at it, as we discovered in our 450GB transfer test. Most people will never stress their SSD this hard, though.

All that performance comes at a premium, though. You’ll pay $90 for 250GB, $150 for 500GB, or $230 for 1TB of capacity.

If you want an SSD with fast PCIe 4.0 speeds, but don’t want to spend up for Samsung’s best-in-class performance, consider the XPG Gammix S50 Lite. 

“The XPG Gammix S50 Lite is the first PCIe 4 SSD we’ve tested that doesn’t carry a hefty next-gen surcharge,” we said in our review. “In the real world, you’d be hard-pressed to tell the difference between a system running it, and one running the far more expensive Samsung 980 Pro. Very long transfers aside, it’s a very good deal.”

The Gammix S50 Lite costs $140 for 1TB or $260 for 2TB.

Fastest 3D Xpoint SSD

If performance is paramount and price is no object, but you don’t have a system with PCIe 4.0 capabilities, Intel’s Optane SSD 905P is the best SSD you can buy, full stop—though the 8TB Sabrent Rocket Q NVMe SSD discussed above is a strong contender if you need big capacities and big-time performance.

Intel’s Optane drive doesn’t use traditional NAND technology like other SSDs; instead, it’s built around the futuristic 3D Xpoint technology developed by Micron and Intel. Hit that link if you want a tech deep-dive, but in practical terms, the Optane SSD 900P absolutely plows through our storage benchmarks and carries a ridiculous 8,750TBW (terabytes written) rating, compared to the roughly 200TBW offered by many NAND SSDs. If that holds true, this blazing-fast drive is basically immortal—and it looks damned good, too.

But you pay for the privilege of bleeding edge performance. Intel’s Optane SSD 905P costs $600 for a 480GB version and $1,250 for a 1.5TB model, with several additional options available in both the U.2 and PCI-E add-in-card form factors. That’s significantly more expensive than even NVMe SSDs—and like those, the benefits of Intel’s SSD will be most obvious to people who move large amounts of data around regularly. And the Optane SSD 900P actually uses the NVMe protocol to communicate with your PC, so you’ll need to meet some additional criteria to be able to boot from it—which we’ll cover more in depth in the next section.

The step-down Intel Optane SSD 900P is like a miniature version of the 905P, still beating out traditional SSDs (albeit by a smaller margin) at lower capacities and prices—though at $390 for a 280GB version and $599 for a 480GB model, it’s still drastically more expensive than most NVMe drives.

Coming up next: Everything you need to know to buy the right SSD for you