SABRENT M.2 NVMe SSD 8TB, Internal Solid State 3300 MB/s Read, PCIe 3.0 2280, M2 Hard Drive High Performance Compatible with PCs, NUCs Laptops, and Desktops (SB-RKTQ-8TB)

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I have an Aorus motherboard and wanted to use the second M.2 slot, as the Samsung Evo Plus already installed and the couple of spare slower SATA SSDs were not enough anymore, with a single game taking 100gb easily. Capacity: 1TB | Sequential read speed: 7,300MB/s | Sequential write speed: 6,000MB/s | NAND type: 3D TLC | TBW: 1,000TB The Addlink AddGame A93 is a good choice for budget-conscious users looking for a high-performing general-purpose PCI Express 4.0 SSD, either as an upgrade for a desktop computer or to add extra storage space to a PS5.

Flash memory prices have been on a downward trajectory for years. A decade ago, this trend was helping SSDs establish a foothold in the consumer market—largely for enthusiasts. Now, SSDs have taken over as the default storage medium for consumer PCs and further advances in flash memory are no longer pushing consumer SSDs into new product segments. Instead, cheaper flash is driving an increase in SSD capacity. An external NVMe SSD is excellent if you can utilize its speed to improve your workflow, but these SSDs fall behind what SATA SSDs can offer when it comes to price and endurance. The Oyen Digital U32 Shadow is an example of a well-built SATA SSD that is a great storage medium for those who need a fast and reliable way to transfer their data between devices. The market has settled on 22mm wide as the standard for desktop and laptop implementations; the aftermarket drives available and the accessible slots we've seen have all been that width. The most common lengths we've seen are 80mm ("Type-2280") and 60mm ("Type-2260"). The lengthier the drive, the more NAND chips you can tend to stuff on it (plus, M.2 drives can be single- or double-sided), though know that length isn't an absolute measure of capacity. 42mm, 60mm, and 80mm M.2 SSDs (Credit: Intel) Even in mSATA's heyday, though, a replacement was in the works. During development, it was known as NGFF, for "Next-Generation Form Factor." As it took shape, though, it took on its current, final name: M.2. The drives would be smaller, potentially more capacious, and, most important, not necessarily reliant on SATA.

That's not a bad thing. Especially in the case of laptops, an older machine might support only M.2 SATA-bus SSDs, and that will be the boundary of your upgrade path...end of story. As a result, the only reasons you'd upgrade the drive, in that situation, would be to get more capacity, or if the old one failed. This flash is more or less equivalent to 128-layer TLC from other manufacturers, such as that found on the 980 Pro by Samsung or on the Gold P31 by SK hynix. BiCS5 should come with a bit lower latency than the old 96-layer BiCS4 flash that’s been used in many products and often as an alternative to Micron’s 96-layer B27B TLC. We’ve seen good results from it on the SN570 and, especially, the SN770. The SSD’s read speed stands at 3,480MB/s, while the write speed is 3,000MB/s, which will begin to throttle as it fills up. Most QLC-based SSDs typically use about one-fourth of their capacity as an SLC cache for the rest of the drive, which shrinks as more data is written, reducing speed significantly. But in the case of an 8TB SSD, this substantially decreases as the space available is pretty large. While PCIe 5.0 SSDs have arrived on the scene, they're not great for everyone for a few reasons: they're expensive, they're very hot, and all that extra performance doesn't mean much for most users today. PCIe 4.0 SSDs will remain the go-to for the average user for the time being, and one of the best you can get (perhaps even the best) is Corsair's MP600 Pro NH, a superfast drive that comes in a wide variety of capacities and costs very little. Installing the drive is quite simple, but remember that the slot on the motherboard could be under the graphic card or hidden a bit by the CPU cooler depending on your mother board design. If you have no idea of what you are doing, get help from a friend that does or visit a store to get it installed. Building a PC is quite easy, but if you don't know how that works and you don't want or have time to go through the learning curve, it is better not to risk it.

It didn't make sense to use another SATA SSD, as prices are just a bit lower but speed is like 4 times lower than a good M.2.M.2 drive length isn't always an indicator of drive capacity, but there are limits to NAND-chip density and how many memory modules engineers can stuff onto a PCB of a given size. As a result, most of the M.2 drives we've seen to date have topped out at 2TB, though you can find a few 4TB and 8TB models at lofty prices. The typical capacity waypoints are as follows: