SSD hard drives in the test 2022: list of the best and purchase advice [Mai]

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SDD test: In the PCGH list of the best, we regularly present you with recommended SSD hard drives along with suitable alternatives for almost every budget. In addition, after the product recommendations, we tell you what you should consider when you start looking for the right SSD for you. First of all, before it is discussed anew with each update of the article: Strictly speaking, “hard disks” is the generic term for HDDs and SSDs – and not just the term for conventional magnetic hard disks, as many people may use it in everyday language. Even if there are no more “fixed disks” in the SSD, they count as permanently installed mass storage under the hard disks. Google also seems to like the term “SSD hard drive”. So are we just writing for the soulless search algorithm? No, because Google wouldn’t like it if a lot of people were looking for a hard drive but actually meant the SSD. It can therefore not be wrong to also be found with the hard drives with this detailed purchase advice, which de facto includes SSDs.

updated: For the May update we have updated all prices and included new videos.

SSD test: introduction and basics

Solid state drives promise to bring a new PC feeling. Hardly any other component gives a PC such a “kick”; Aside from gaming fps, the computer will feel like it has been freshened up. Almost all smaller but annoying waiting times are reduced or eliminated completely, the response behavior is simply sensational – not even a RAID array of conventional magnetic hard drives can keep up. The 64 GB capacity is no longer recommended, since some larger games don’t even fit on it anymore. A long time ago it made sense as a good start, but the heyday of small SSD hard drives is now over. Because for users who are spoiled by HDD storage space dimensions, the limitations and performance losses compared to 128 and 256 GB SSDs are simply too great and the price-performance ratio is no longer good. A capacity of around half a terabyte makes sense, especially for gaming computers.

Price development: SSDs should become cheaper in 2022

Flash memory prices have been falling steadily in recent years. One could think that the SSD would contest the HDD’s ultimate right to exist as a data grave. Although there are now lush solid state drives with up to 8 TiByte, the price increases in direct proportion to the capacity, which is not necessarily the case with an HDD. It is still significantly cheaper than an SSD in price per gigabyte.

It’s hard to believe that this year, 2022, anything will be cheaper. But according to Trendforce, a market research institute, NAND flash should “drop significantly” in the first quarter of this year – that is, almost now. The reason for this is the ended lockdown in the Chinese city of Xi’an, where Samsung and Micron have factories. Trendforce assumes that companies have stocked up well in advance with Flash, which should result in lower demand.

Is that why you have to wait extra for the next quarter? We say no. The price development of popular models shows that the price itself only falls slowly over the years. If you need an SSD now, you don’t have to speculate back and forth for a few euros.

Crucial MX500 (1TB)

Market analysts report rising SSD prices in spring 2021. There are several reasons to blame for this, such as the increasing demand for notebooks during the pandemic. There are also delivery bottlenecks for SSD controllers. The situation is not really critical at the moment, even if our example of price development above shows a slight increase.

SSD test in test 2022: Frequently asked questions answered

Which SSDs are the best?

The Corsair MP600 Pro XT currently leads our rating system with a top score of 1.33. The differences between the SSDs, both in terms of performance and equipment, are quite small, so that there are hardly any noticeable differences among all(!) SSDs. A larger performance gap between SATA SSDs and PCIe SSDs only occurs when copying large amounts of data. A SATA SSD is actually enough for a gaming PC – game start or Windows boot is not really faster with PCIe. However, SSDs with PCI Express 3.0 are hardly any more expensive than SATA models. In addition, the M.2 form factor is more practical – the latch is simply plugged onto the mainboard. We recommend a PCI Express 3.0 SSD to anyone who doesn’t necessarily have to pay attention to single-digit euro differences when building a PC.

Which SATA SSD is the best?

The Crucial MX500 and the Samsung SSD 870 Evo share the throne among the SATA SSDs. Apart from the fact that the noticeable difference in performance compared to PCIe SSDs is not noticeable and in practice only when copying. In addition, other models with QLC flash are popular because they are even cheaper, such as an SSD 870 QVO. We would only recommend such models as a second drive and not necessarily for the system partition. In addition, not all SATA SSDs offer a DRAM cache, which not only boosts performance but is mainly needed to protect the flash. This cache is about the difference between a Crucial MX500 (with cache) and a BX500 (without), which is often only slightly cheaper, which is why we only recommend SATA models with cache.

Which is the best NVME SSD?

Among the NVME SSDs, we primarily recommend models with TLC flash and DRAM cache. In contrast to SATA SSDs, a missing DRAM cache is less of a problem with NVME SSDs because they use the system RAM thanks to the Host Memory Buffer (HMB). Nevertheless, many good models with a cache are not necessarily more expensive. That would be a Samsung SSD 970 Evo or WD Black SN750. Non-cache models include a Samsung SSD 980 (non-Pro) or WD Black SN770, to name just two.

Which is faster, SATA or PCIe?

PCI Express is always faster in reading and writing data. The manufacturer’s marketing only mentions the peak values, which do not do justice to practice. A maximum of 550 MB/s is mentioned for SATA, a maximum of 3,500 MB/s for PCI-Express 3.0 (x4) and double that again for PCI-Express 4.0. This does not mean that you are seven times faster with PCIe – on the contrary: Windows, games and program starts are hardly faster. Only those who frequently move large amounts of data would notice a difference of a few seconds.

How fast should an SSD be?

In short: For a gaming PC, the speed of an SSD (still) doesn’t matter, simply because the game loading times differ only slightly, as can also be seen in the benchmark diagram shown below. Only those who work with large amounts of data, such as often copying large amounts of images or rendering video files, will notice a difference between SATA and PCI Express 3.0. In any case, the one between 3.0 and 4.0 is still absolutely imperceptible. That may change when games come out that support DirectStorage, which was introduced with Windows 11. But we are still a long way from that.

What are the differences between SATA, M.2, NVME and PCIe?

Here you first have to differentiate between interfaces and form factors: With M.2, the physical connection is the small bar. This has established itself among PCIe SSDs, but was also previously available as a SATA SSD. PCIe and SATA, on the other hand, are interfaces via which the SSDs are connected to the system. In the meantime, however, SATA is only available in the 2.5-inch form factor and all PCI Express bars in the M.2-2280. NVME is the software protocol that all PCIe SSDs now use. The first models still used AHCI, which is still used with SATA. In order to clearly differentiate between the individual connection types, we are almost exclusively talking about SATA and PCIe SSDs.

What is 3D NAND?

This is the data storage device (NAND Flash). 3D means that the cells are now also stacked vertically for reasons of space, currently in over 200 layers. This flash layer, as it is called in English, increases with each new generation and thus enables a higher storage density per component. Samsung calls the same principle V-NAND, while 3D is used more by Micron and Toshiba/Sandisk. This stacking and thus the number of flash modules is irrelevant for the user.

What is SLC MLC, TLC and QLC in Flash?

This describes the state of charge within the cells, which also increases the storage density, but also the susceptibility to errors and the durability of the flash. The abbreviations mean the following:

• SLC: Single Level Cell, 1 bit
• MLC: Multi Level Cell, 2 bits
• TLC: Triple Level Cell, 3 bits
• QLC: Quad Level Cell, 4 bits

SLC and MLC are now extinct. TLC flash is currently used in most SSDs, while QLC is used in cheaper models. The higher the number of bits, the fewer write operations the cell can tolerate. In theory, therefore, the durability decreases with more charge states within the cell. In practice, however, it rarely happens that a private user “writes to death” an SSD. The disadvantages are somewhat compensated for with various techniques. The so-called wear leveling (every SSD has it these days) ensures that all cells wear out equally. The pseudo-SLC cache, for example, ensures that the cells are only written with one bit, provided capacity allows. In short: yes, with more bits per cell, the flash itself is slower and less durable, but not necessarily the entire SSD including the controller. Penta Level Cell (PLC) is not yet on the market, but experiments are already under way.

SSD test: General market overview

If you enter the keyword “SSD” in the PCGH price comparison, you will be overwhelmed with hundreds of search hits in the usual 2.5-inch SSD category alone: ​​Between Samsung, Corsair, Crucial, Intel, Gigabyte, Western Digital and Sandisk, between mSATA, Expresscard/34 and USB 3.0, between Indilinx, Arowana, Phison, Marvell and Sandforce, between single, multi and triple level cells, toggle DDR and eMLC, one is hopelessly lost – even if the decision for a size category has already fallen due to the available budget. Our recommendations will help!

As always, the current best-in-class SSD list and purchase advice includes all of the models in our comparison tests. There are several recommended and proven 256 GB models for around 30 euros. The GB classes below, which hardly exist anymore, are no longer recommended.

A lot is happening in the high-end class, i.e. with the PCI Express SSDs: With the SSD 980 Pro, Samsung had recaptured the lead among the PCI-E 4.0 models, only to replace it a short time later with the WD Black SN850 to share again. Then Corsair came up with the MP600 Pro XT around the corner and took the lead. The M.2 bars with PCI-Express 3.0 are growing more and more from the expensive niche into the mainstream. Initially, they were only available as PCIe x4 cards, such as the WD Black AN1500, which is connected with eight PCI-E 3.0 lanes. In the meantime, however, the M.2 form factor has prevailed. Current mainboards also offer an M.2 slot that uses the four PCIe 3.0 lanes so that the adapter card can be omitted.

Don’t miss: SSD hard drives: How they work, technical terms and properties explained

With the information on this page and the video above, you have a well-founded basic knowledge to be able to decide between the respective categories. We have sorted the following pages by interface, i.e. SATA III (6 GBit/s), PCI Express 3.0 and PCI Express 4.0. In the end, we left the low-end section with the smallest drives and the list of all our SSD tests.