Solid-state drives

Box speed versus working speed

The figures on the package show peak throughput in short cached bursts. Real work is thousands of small reads, and there the gap between models is far narrower than the charts suggest. The jump you actually feel is SATA to NVMe. Moving from one NVMe generation to the next is barely noticeable in everyday tasks.

Where a newer interface genuinely shows is large-file work: video, virtual machine images, datasets. That is when the cache runs out and whatever sits underneath starts doing the work.

What to look at

• Form factor and connector. M.2 NVMe for the system and applications, SATA for a second archive drive. Laptops sometimes limit the module length.
• Capacity. A drive filled to the brim slows down. Keeping about ten percent free is normal practice.
• TBW endurance. Barely critical for a system drive, worth checking for a drive used for editing and project builds.
• Cooling. Fast PCIe 5.0 models run genuinely hot. A board heatsink or the drive's own heatsink is not decoration.

A simple two or three drive layout

One NVMe for the system and applications, a second roomy one for working files, and a large SATA drive for the archive if needed. That way the fast drive is not filled with things you open once a month.

Tell us what you store and on which machine. We will point out where a plain NVMe is enough and where a model with endurance and a heatsink is worth it.