Articles about SSD

There are many manufacturers of solid state drives, but in my experience, Samsung's SSD offerings are amongst the best. They are reliable, affordable, and quite often, blazing fast too. If your data is important to you, a reputable brand is a must, and you can never go wrong with Samsung in this regard.

How does Samsung continually provide excellent solid state drives? The enormous company is constantly pushing boundaries, likely due to large R&D budgets that other SSD makers can't come anywhere near matching. Today, Samsung unveils its latest groundbreaking SSD. Called "PM1731a," the 2.5-inch drive is notable for utilizing Zoned Namespace (ZNS) technology and the company's sixth-gen V-NAND flash memory.

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The transition to PCIe 4.0 is in full effect, with more and more computers and motherboards having the new standard. Whether consumers truly need the benefits of PCIe 4.0 today is debatable, but it is still cool regardless. After all, it is important to continually push boundaries.

One of the best aspects of PCIe 4.0 is faster solid state drives, of course. For instance, today, Western Digital unveils its latest NVMe PCIe Gen4 SSD. Called "WD_BLACK SN750 SE," it is designed for both gamers and PC enthusiasts.

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Solid state storage is constantly getting faster. The truth, however, is while PCIe Gen 4 SSDs are now available, they are total overkill for most consumers. Heck, most people would be more than fine with a meager SATA drive. With that said, the previous-generation PCIe Gen 3 SSDs are now very inexpensive (and quite speedy) making them a smart purchase whether you truly need the extra speed or not -- as long as your computer is compatible.

Today, Silicon Power launches its latest NVMe M.2 solid state drive for both desktops and laptops. Called "XPOWER XD80," this PCIe Gen 3 SSD has fairly modest specifications in the grand scheme of things, but it is definitely more than fast enough for the majority of consumers.

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If you need to store a lot of... legally obtained media files... such as films and TV shows (piracy is bad, mmkay?), a network attached storage device, or "NAS," is a great way to do so -- especially if it has a built-in Plex server. This is what I use in my home -- some hard drives set up in RAID filled with media that my family enjoys streaming through Plex on Apple TV. For the most part, this works well. There are only two problems -- the hard drives are rather slow and loud. The latter is a major issue, as the NAS is stored in my living room and hearing the drives spin up can be annoying.

I can obviously replace the hard disk drives with solid state drives, although it would mean a decrease in overall capacity. Still, it would be nice to have faster transfer speeds and less noise -- the cooling fan would still whir a bit though. SSDs are not typically ideal for constant reading and writing, however, but a new such drive from Transcend apparently is. Called "SSD250N," it is a 2.5-inch SSD designed specifically for NAS usage. The focus of this drive is reliability and longevity.

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The transition to PCIe 4.0 is in full effect, with more and more computers and motherboards having the new standard. Whether or not the user truly needs the benefits of PCIe 4.0 is debatable, but it is still cool regardless. After all, it is important to continually push boundaries. "To Infinity and Beyond!" as the great Buzz Lightyear says.

One of the best aspects of PCIe 4.0 is faster solid state drives. For instance, today, Patriot launches a new such SSD under its VIPER gaming brand. Called "VP4300," this speedy M.2 2280 PCIE Gen4x4 SSD comes with interchangeable heatsinks -- a very neat cooling option. Essentially, you can opt for the thicker aluminum heatsink if it fits in your computer, or the thinner graphene heatsink if space is tight -- both come included in the box.

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The transition to PCIe 4.0 is in full effect, with more and more computers and motherboards having the new standard. Whether or not the user truly needs the benefits of PCIe 4.0 is debatable, but it is still cool regardless. After all, it is important to continually push boundaries.

One of the best aspects of PCIe 4.0 is faster solid state drives. For instance, today, TEAMGROUP unveils a new M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD. Called "T-FORCE CARDEA A440," this speedy gaming-focused SSD comes with interchangeable heatsinks -- a very unique cooling option. Essentially, you can opt for the giant aluminum heatsink if it fits in your computer, or the graphene heatsink if space is tight.

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Does anybody truly need a PCIe 4.0 solid state drive? Well, "need" is a tricky word. Nobody will die as a result of using a slower and cheaper PCIe 3.0 SSD, but at the same time, some people very strongly crave having the latest and greatest. Gamers in particular are constantly looking for an edge with better hardware, even if doesn't really end up helping with their gaming.

Today, ADATA launches an insanely fast solid state drive under its XPG gaming brand. Called "GAMMIX S70 BLADE," it is a PCIe Gen4x4 M.2 2280 SSD with read speeds up to 7,400MB/s and write speeds up to 6,400MB/s. Yeah, folks, that is extremely high performance and both gamers and enthusiasts are going to want it badly.

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Solid state storage is constantly getting faster. The truth, however, is while PCIe Gen 4 SSDs are now available, they are total overkill for most consumers. Hell, most people would be more than fine with a meager SATA drive. With that said, the previous-generation PCIe Gen 3 SSDs are now very inexpensive (and quite fast) making them a smart buy whether you truly need the extra speed or not. In other words, a SATA SSD should probably be avoided nowadays -- unless your PC simply isn't compatible with anything else.

Today, Kingston launches its latest NVMe M.2 solid state drive for both desktops and laptops. Called "NV1," this PCIe Gen 3 SSD has fairly modest specifications in the grand scheme of things, but it is definitely more than fast enough for the majority of consumers. Most importantly, it is priced very competitively. Just how affordable is the NV1? It starts at less than $65!

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Earlier today, we told you about an all-new NVMe solid state drive from Lexar. That SSD looks quite nice, as it is both fast and affordable. Not to mention, the Lexar brand is synonymous with "high-quality." That company has been cranking out great memory products for many years.

Of course, Lexar is not the only trustworthy maker of SSDs. Along with more-known manufacturers like Samsung are lesser-known companies like Transcend. If you have shopped for storage products lately, you have probably come across Transcend, and yes, that brand can absolutely be trusted too. Today, Transcend launches its latest NVMe SSD. Called "MTE240S," it is designed for both content creators and gamers. With that said, it should be a solid choice for any computer user, really.

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There are many companies producing quality solid state drives these days in various capacities, speeds, and form factors. SATA variants are perfectly fine, but NVMe models are significantly faster. If your computer has an M.2 slot and supports NVMe, you should consider replacing your current SATA drive with one.

Today, Lexar releases a new solid state drive that looks to be pretty solid. Called "NM620," this M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3x4 NVMe SSD is not only fast, but rather affordable too.

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There are many companies producing quality solid state drives these days in various capacities, speeds, and form factors. SATA variants are perfectly fine, but NVMe models are significantly faster. With all brands considered, one company's offerings have stood out among the rest thanks to speed and reliability -- Samsung. Remarkably, the wildly popular company's storage drives are competitively priced too, making them an absolute no-brainer.

Today, Samsung launches its latest solid state drive. The "980 NVMe SSD" as it is called, is notable for not having added DRAM. Wait, isn't that normally a bad thing? For most drives, yes, but in this case, no. You see, the 980's use of Host Memory Buffer technology will make sure this drive has the performance consumers have come to expect from Samsung -- along with reliability and affordability too.

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While solid state drives make wonderful internal boot drives for computers, they are also great options for external storage. Not only are they smaller than mechanical hard disk drives, but they use less power, and are much faster too. Quite frankly, if you are someone that needs to transport data on a portable drive, you'd be insane to still use HDD in 2021.

If you want a diminutive external solid state drive, you cant go wrong with Micron's Crucial X6 Portable SSD. Not only is the drive fast, durable, and small, but it utilizes USB-C too. Not to mention, its design is so cute -- I absolutely adore the square body and its rounded corners.

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Solid state drives are one of the best computing innovations in years, as they provide a huge performance boost without breaking the bank. By simply upgrading from a mechanical hard drive to an SSD, your computer will feel brand new. Best of all, SSD manufacturers are not resting on their laurels, but instead, continually pushing performance boundaries.

Currently, PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSDs are all the rage with enthusiasts, and today, CORSAIR launches two new models -- the MP600 CORE and MP600 PRO. There is even a "Hydro X Edition" variant of the latter, which utilizes water-cooling to reduce temperatures.

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There are a lot of companies manufacturing 2.5-inch SATA solid states drives these days. For the most part, these drives are relatively all the same. They have similar speeds and performance, so you should just choose whatever brand costs the least, right? Whoa there, cowboy -- not so fast. Don't forget about reliability! You should always stick to drives from reputable companies. After all, speed doesn't matter if your data gets lost forever...

There are several trustworthy brands on the market, but none are more respected than Samsung. For years now, Samsung solid state drives have proven to be fast and reliable. And today, the company launches its latest SSD. Called "870 EVO," this 2.5-inch SATA drive promises improved performance over its predecessor -- up to 560/530 MB/s read/write. Best of all, it can be had in capacities up to 4TB.

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While I am not a "Mac guy," I recently bought a 2020 Mac mini. Why? Well, I was quite intrigued by Apple's new M1 processor, and the $699 starting price was actually reasonably affordable. And so, I went with the base model (8GB RAM, 256GB SSD), as Apple's prices for more memory and storage are a total rip-off. For instance, to go from 8GB to 16GB RAM costs $200. Sorry, but I can't drop two bills on 8GB. Not happening, Apple.

Unfortunately, you cannot upgrade the RAM, so the 8GB decision might bite me in the ass one day, but I'll cross that bridge later. However, since the little computer has two Thunderbolt and two USB ports, I knew I could always add fast storage later on. And now, Other World Computing (aka OWC) has a new rugged drive (for macOS and Windows 10) that is perfect for this.

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