In our SSD buying guide, we will excite you
with all the knowledge you need to help make informed purchases
decision. We will help you target the right brands, teach you about the difference
SSD technology and explain how much you should spend on different SSDs
types.
Hope, by the end of our tutorial, you will
Know everything you need to know about buying an SSD. If you are not buying an SSD
Today, be sure to bookmark this page so you have information available
for when you decide to buy one.
Why buy an SSD?
It's very simple - SSDs are much faster than standard hard drives and are less likely to fail. SSDs use electrically charged flash cells. Cells remember their state forever. Your PC reads a cell that counts as 1 and a zero-charged cell in binary.
The hard drive, on the other hand, is like a recorder with moving parts. A real arm must press down on the disc to write to physics. When reading the disc, the same thing must be done.
As you can imagine, the moving parts are not good
Hard drive life may slow down over time and completely fail. SSD
can also break down, because cells are used and reused many times, but they are
Predictions will last, much longer.
Obviously, lifespan is not the main selling point for SSDs. It has it all about speed. For comparison, high-end 7200 RPM drives have read / write speeds of up to 210 MB / s, while entry-level SSDs like CT250MX have read / write speeds of up to 560/510 MB / s. Higher-end SSDs can go much faster.
In terms of real world performance, this means
something:
- Boot time is much faster
- The program loads faster
- Less hitchhiking and freezing in video
Game - Faster file transfer time
- Programs run better side by side
What types of SSD are there?
If we omit different form factors for one
Secondly, there are two SSD technologies being sold right now. We have
The typical AHCI SATA 3 SSD and then we have the NVME SSD. Both NVME and AHCI
types of software ‘controllers are used to communicate with storage drives.
AHCI is an older, more outdated technology, while NVME is newer and much faster. Therefore, NVME SSD is significantly more expensive than SATA SSD. To make things more complicated, the full potential of NVME is only achieved if you move through large files. We have further explained in our SSD technology overview.
For warm-up time, gaming or light office
operation, speed difference in NVME and SSD AHCI in seconds.
To move large files or edit videos and photos, the difference will be
Very noticeable. We talked about 7 times faster. Here is an overview of
Different file transfer speeds and boot times.
Reading and writing
speed:
- 7200 rpm HD - up to 210 MB / s
- SSD SATA 3 - up to 550MB / s
- SSD NVME - up to 3500MB / s
Boots up
times (estimated):
- 7200 rpm HD - 36 seconds
- SSD Sata boot time 3 - 9 seconds
- SSD NVME - 6 seconds
Boot time based on This video.
As you can see, the boot time decreases from hard drive to SSD is huge. The jump from SSD to NVME is very small. However, NVME still leads in file read / write speed when larger files are involved.
So with that in mind, look for an NVME if you are
is after the fastest possible speed to move large files. If you do not have
Necessary that, you can put the same budget into a higher capacity SSD
driver.
How much should you pay for one
Sata 3 SSD?
While SSD prices are constantly falling, they are still more expensive than traditional hard drives. The amount you pay per GB will depend on the brand you choose and the size of the drive. At the time of writing, we tracked the prices of different SSDs on Amazon and concluded that the average price paid for each drive has a different capacity as shown below.
- 1TB drive: Average $ 135
- 500 GB drive: Average $ 67
- 250 GB drive: Average $ 44
- 120 GB drive: Average $ 24
How much should you pay for one
NVME drive?
As mentioned earlier, NVME drives are more expensive than standard SSD drives. You must also ensure that you have a suitable M.2 connector on your motherboard before you purchase. An M.2 connector looks like this:
While the standard SSD price is very
The same goes for brands, it's a different story from NVME drives. For example,
You can pay around $ 250 for the Samsung 970 PRO 1TB or $ 145 for the Crucial P1
1TB.
If the price is less than $ 200, it usually is
Take a sample Take P1 - its maximum speed is 2,000MB / s and read
1,500 MB / s write. Samsung 970 PRO, on the other hand has up to speed
3,500 MB / s read / write.
For a true NVME SSD with full speed potential,
You look at the following average price:
- 1TB drive: Average $ 240
- 500 GB drive: Average $ 130
- 250 GB drive: Average $ 80
- 120 GB drive: Average $ 50
If you see a significantly lower product
rate, carefully read the description and read the reviews online to
understand why.
Which SSD brands are reliable?
Buy SSD from a trusted brand
Important because flash memory can be a difficult thing to get right. If longevity
As a concern, you should target brands with proven track records about
long-term drive production.
An Interesting experiment show that Kingston, Samsungand Corsair drive survived after writing 1000 TB of data. Keep in mind, lots of data. Other lesser known brands may not last long.
The best thing you can do when choosing a drive is to read customer reviews about life expectancy and research brands on the internet about potential issues. Finally, is the price really worth it when you can choose a brand that is less reliable than a trusted brand?
While this study was conducted on typical AHCI
SATA 3 drives, we are confident that the same results will be seen on NVME drives.
Summary
Thanks for reading our SSD buying guide. We
Hopefully this guide is informative enough to help you get ahead
buy, lean on, hold on.
Any more questions about SSDs? You can welcome to send me a tweet and please reply. Enjoy!
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