Top 11 Best SSD For Graphic Design 2023 Buyer’s Guide

The focus of this post is streamlining your design workflow. I’ll outline my study and compile a list of the Best SSD For Graphic Design. In addition, give a thorough explanation and respond to any inquiries you might have about SSDs. In this manner, we may select the SSD that best suits your requirements. Move along!

For graphic designers to increase productivity, a PC with the right specifications is crucial. Your productivity is impacted by long load times and sluggish or frozen PCs.

In addition to the more obvious changes to your computer’s CPU, RAM, and graphics card, you may also increase the performance of your SSD. Solid-state drives, often known as SSDs, are faster than conventional hard disk drives (HDDs), but it can be challenging to locate the ideal SSD given the variety of options, configurations, and types.

If you’re searching for one of the best 2.5-inch SATA SSDs in value and performance for the money, search no further than Samsung’s SSD 870 QVO, a stellar follow-up to its first QLC-based routing.

I briefly discuss SSDs in this post, including what you should know about them and how they boost PC performance for graphic design. I wrap everything off with a list of the top SSDs for graphic artists on the market.

Our Recommendation

Image	Product Name	Global Rating	Price
	SAMSUNG 870 EVO SATA SSD	4.8 Out Of 5 Stars	Check Price and Reviews on Amazon
	Corsair MP600 PRO LPX 1TB M.2	4.8 Out Of 5 Stars	Check Price and Reviews on Amazon
	SAMSUNG 970 EVO Plus SSD 1TB	4.8 Out Of 5 Stars	Check Price and Reviews on Amazon
	Corsair MP600 PRO	4.8 Out Of 5 Stars	Check Price and Reviews on Amazon
	Kingston XS2000 2TB	4.5 Out Of 5 Stars	Check Price and Reviews on Amazon
	ADATA SE800	4.5 Out Of 5 Stars	Check Price and Reviews on Amazon
	ADATA XPG SX8200	4.6 Out Of 5 Stars	Check Price and Reviews on Amazon
	SK hynix Gold P31	4.8 Out Of 5 Stars	Check Price and Reviews on Amazon
	PNY CS2140	4.7 Out Of 5 Stars	Check Price and Reviews on Amazon
	Crucial BX500	4.8 Out Of 5 Stars	Check Price and Reviews on Amazon
	SAMSUNG 870 EVO	4.8 Out Of 5 Stars	Check Price and Reviews on Amazon

Top 11 Best SSD For Graphic Design 2023

Following are the Top 11 Best SSD For Graphic Design 2022:

Our Top Pick SSD For Graphic Designers And Video Editors – SAMSUNG 870 EVO SATA SSD

The 870 Evo is the 970 Evo Pro’s less potent cousin, and as you can assume, it has far less hardware and performance than the latter. This SSD is a 2.5-inch model rather than the M.2 standard used by the two SSDs above it.

There is nothing wrong with being 2.5-inch, and I explain the distinctions between the two in my SSD buying guide, but for what it’s worth, most manufacturers are moving away from 2.5-inch SSDs, and toward M.2 type SSDs, so 2.5-inch SSDs are now regarded as somewhat outdated.

It is a SATA-based SSD as well. NVME-type SSDs are slightly quicker than SATA SSDs using the ACHI data transmission protocol (but are still substantially faster than HDDs). There may be a 50x difference in speed.

This means that the Samsung 870 EVO performs less well than the other two options above and needs to be more future-proof. Its drive’s read/write speeds measure out at a convenient 530MBpS/560MBps, which is almost 60% slower than the 970 EVO. Its endurance rating of 600TBW is also not the highest on the market.

Yet, despite the performance decrease (600TBW is still resilient enough), the cost has dropped dramatically. The 870 EVO retails for a pitiful $79 at the time of writing (this price will drop further). While you might be concerned about the performance loss, keep in mind that this is still fast enough to increase the overall capability of your system. This is a fantastic value for an SSD.

SSD engineering could be better, but if you’re on a tight budget, it’s a helpful method to boost the performance of your storage without going bankrupt or, better yet. Hence, you have money on other crucial performance components like your CPU and graphics card.

Personal Review

If your computer is loud (any audible sounds coming out) and old, or if you have an HHD, upgrade to this and be delighted. My computer went from being slow to booting up slowly and making a lot of noise virtually immediately.

Really, I didn’t even notice, but I can’t turn around now. I won’t need to update for at least another year or more because my 8 (nearly 9) year-old desktop still functions just as well, if not better, than when it was brand new.

Best Internal Hard Drive For Graphic Designers – Corsair MP600 PRO LPX 1TB M.2

Corsair’s MP600 Pro LPX SSD performance is slightly better than the 970 Evo. On paper, this drive has sequential read/write rates of 7364MBps/6870MBps and random read/write speeds of 3021MBps/2687MBps, making it a PCIe gen-4 drive as opposed to the 970 Evo’s PCIe gen-3 drive.

These figures are significantly higher than what you’ll receive from the 970 Evo plus, which shows in the improved performance bump this drive offers.

It ranks second on this list of the best SSDs for graphic designers since, generally, you may only require some of the speed improvements the MP600 Pro offers, and it is questionable whether the addition of aluminum cooling fins qualifies as essential. Even yet, the MP600 is a fantastic deal when you weigh all of its features excessive or not along with the 20% price premium over the 970 Evo Pro.

It’s the finest offer for anyone who isn’t on a tight budget and requires an SSD that performs at the top of the list of consumer-type SSDs. Without additional cooling fins, the 970 Evo Pro may perform admirably, but it is well-known that heat can cause SSDs to enter throttle mode at high workloads.

The MP600 Pro LPX’s cooling fins were built expressly to address “thermal throttling.” You can see why this drive is worth the extra money when considering the considerable performance improvement you get by choosing the MP600 over the 970 Evo Pro.

Personal Review

The SSD installation was relatively easy! I watched a YouTube video to install it, which took me no more than ten minutes. Although I know little about the SSD’s technical details, it operates quickly, and I have not encountered any problems.

After sending all my PS5 games to the additional storage, I have plenty of space. I looked into PS5 SSDs and found that this one was highly regarded. Extremely simple installation, extra game storage, and fantastic performance all for a fair price!

Best Internal SSD For Video Editing – SAMSUNG 970 EVO Plus SSD 1TB

For a good reason, Samsung’s most popular consumer-grade SSD is the 970 Evo plus. It’s the fastest consumer-grade SSD for less than $150. Performance-oriented since the 2TB version of this SSD has a 1200TBW endurance rating and a peak read/write speed of 3500MBps/2300MBps, among other performance-oriented features.

This means that the first 1200TB of data you write to the disk is guaranteed not to fail. This is an astounding statistic because the typical graphic designer only writes roughly 20TB of data to their storage device each year.

The maximum number of IOPS (input/output operations per second) for read operations is 620,000, whereas the maximum number of IOPS for random write operations is 560,000. Sequential read/write figures are indicative of testing carried out in optimal conditions, but they also indicate the performance threshold of an SSD.

As IOPS measures random operations in non-optimized circumstances, they provide a more accurate representation of real-world performance. Better is having higher numbers. Its TLC NAND SSD base architecture makes it superior to QLC-type SSDs, which you’ll get from many other SSD producers.

Check out my introduction to SSDs, where I detail SSD architecture if you wish to comprehend the distinctions between SSDs of the SLC, MLC, TLC, and QLC types. The 970 Evo plus is the most excellent SSD you can buy at its meager price. More significantly, it’s an SSD that was made to withstand the test of time.

It has everything you need to boost storage performance to speed up things as you go about your graphic design duties. You may purchase it in the 512GB, 1TB, or 2TB variations, but I recommend choosing the top-tier 2TB choice because it has more storage and the most high-end performance hardware.

Personal Review

Most individuals find this segment challenging. If your boot drive is currently an m.2 SSD, you should know how to install or migrate to this drive. The Samsung Migration App is straightforward to use and intuitive.

Yet there are a few obstacles. Initialize the drive first; I didn’t know I needed to do so since NVMe is read through a PCIe slot, so don’t worry if you don’t see the drive being read on the initial boot. SATA is easier because it has its connection.

Top SSD For Graphic Designers : Corsair MP600 PRO

According to my evaluation, It is an editor’s choice and highly recommended. For a lot less money than its fellow hot-rod competitors, this SSD is an “absolute barn-burner” that competes with and occasionally outperforms the fastest drives we’ve ever tested.

Hundreds of written gigabytes are guaranteed before failure within the product’s five-year warranty. For a small premium, a version is also made to fit into the liquid-cooling system of exotic PCs if you want to be fancy.

There isn’t much to grumble about. To unleash those heart-stopping rates, you’ll need a recent PC from the past two or three years with PCIe 4.0 capability, but this kind of cutting-edge performance isn’t cheap. You can purchase the Corsair MP600 Pro XT in 1TB and 2TB capacities.

The Kingston KC3000 and Seagate FireCuda 530 are two choices that are on par with Corsair’s drive in terms of performance. Nevertheless, Seagate’s drive is considerably more expensive, and the KC3000 is only formally offered through Kingston’s website. We give the MP600 Pro XT our highest endorsement because of its greater accessibility.

Personal Review

I enjoy this product since I use it on my PS 5, and even though I don’t generally do well with installations, this one was simple and quick. I can now have much more software on my system without removing some to make room for them (although I’m not sure if this is the case). My game loading speeds also appear to have improved. I suggest this item.

Runner Up Pick SSD For Designers : Kingston XS2000 2TB

The Kingston XS2000 is an SSD. It may not be the smallest, fastest, or largest disk in these categories, but it performs above average in most of them. With up to 4TB capability, it offers far more storage than any other ultra-portable drive now available and is compact enough to carry in your pocket.

Although the Kingston XS2000’s data transfer rates are only up to 20Gbps, this is faster than the 10Gbps competing portable drives. This incredibly little, reasonably priced, and speedy SSD is a great device, especially if you need to carry a lot of data.

Personal Review

Since I use it on my Playstation 5, I adore it, and even though I’m poor at installing things, this one was a breeze. I don’t think I’ll have to remove any games to make way for the new ones now that I have extra space on my system. Loading times appear to be improving as well. It is best to load graphic design software. I think you’ll like it.

Editor Choice SSD For Graphic Design : ADATA SE800

No SSD I’ve encountered is as portable as Adata’s Elite SE880 because of its small size 2.55 inches long, 1.38 inches wide, and 0.48 inches thick. It looks more like a USB thumb drive than a typical SSD. Additionally, it is extremely lightweight at 1.1 ounces, practically vanishing in your pocket.

Additionally, the Elite SE880 completes daily activities quickly. The drive scored highly in 48GB transfer tests conducted in the real world.

Photo and video professionals with huge files might wish to consider other solutions as they did suffer a substantial loss of performance in the longer contiguous write tests. The Elite SE880 is a fantastic option for people wishing to take their SSD on the move because of the reasonable transfer rates and compact form factor.

Personal Review

The ADATA SE800 portable SSD is small and incredibly quick. However, you should know that it can feel heated to the touch, reducing longevity. It would not be a good idea if you intend to leave it plugged in all the time, but if you want to travel and only use it when necessary, I wouldn’t worry about it.

Customer Pick Graphics Designer SSD : ADATA XPG SX8200

Bleeding-edge Although PCIe 4.0 SSDs aren’t quite as affordable as SATA or PCIe 3.0 NVMe drives, now that the technology is gaining traction, we’re seeing several models offered at attractive rates. The best among the group? The Atom 50 from Adata.

A 1TB model costs about $120 and has deceptively good performance. The Atom 50 placed second in our artificial benchmarks, yet it tied for first place in our PCIe 4 real-world transfer testing. Our assessment stated that “The Atom 50 is a terrific value and a solid fit for your PC.”

The Atom 50 works well with Sony’s PlayStation 5. However, performance may suffer slightly on the console because the drive uses your system RAM as a primary cache.

Personal Review

I wish Samsung’s magician did what the Adata tool kit software does, which provides information you how many sectors have been exchanged and how many are still in reserve. The most recent version, however, has problems reading the drive’s temperature and the number of bytes written with the most recent edition of Windows 10 x64.

Best SSD For Content Creation : SK Hynix Gold P31

The SK Hynix Platinum P41, which recently replaced Samsung 980 Pro’s on this list with its delicious blend of exceptional performance and enticing pricing, is the best option if you’re searching for a reliable all-around PCIe 4.0 SSD.

The Platinum P41 costs far less than second-generation PCIe 4.0 SSDs like the Corsair MP600 Pro XT, and its 1TB version costs around the same as the much slower 980 Pro. It is just slightly slower than the fastest of these SSDs, though.

You won’t notice the difference between the P41 and those top-charting songs in daily use, but you’ll notice the extra $50 in your pocket. But if you only have a PCIe 3.0 system, don’t get this. On those PCs, it still performs admirably, but not noticeably better than the less expensive alternatives.

Personal Review

Great 2TB SSD. My Legion 5 Pro’s automated 2TB detection and the SK Hynix copying software they provided were quick and easy. It appears to be a little bit faster than the 1TB version, but still faster than I require.

I hope my streak of not having to file an SSD warranty claim during the month I’ve been using it as my operating system drive keeps up. I’ve heard the warranty procedure for this particular SSD is difficult.

Best SSD For Graphic Design : PNY CS2140

While PCIe 4.0 SSDs scream during large file transfers, upgrading to an NVMe SSD significantly improves your PC’s speed and responsiveness if you’re still running an older system with PCIe 3.0. Even better, you don’t have to spend a fortune to benefit.

This is partly due to the drive’s utilization of your system memory for data caching. Although it is a PCIe 4.0 SSD in theory, its performance is quite low. But given its low price, the CS2140’s PCIe 3.0 performance is sufficient to merit this recommendation.

Even though PNY’s drive has a five-year warranty, its poor TBW ratings considerably lessen its value. This drive is a superb option for anyone seeking to purchase a reliable everyday SSD at a fantastic price. Other good choices include the Crucial P5 and the SK Hynix Gold P31, both of which cost $15 to $20 more.

Personal Review

A great purchase for Windows and games. There is more than good space on the 500GB I purchased for both games! It is very quick and affordable. I heartily endorse it.

Best External SSD For Graphic Design : Crucial BX500 

The Samsung 870 EVO offers a seductive blend of performance and low pricing, but the Crucial BX500 is a better option if you want the most storage space for the least amount of money. Its 1TB device costs just $80, $30 less than the similar EVO, while the 480GB variant is only $45. There are an additional 240 GB and 2TB variants available.

We stated in our evaluation that “we recommend this QLC drive in the bigger capacities for people who want solid everyday performance at a budget price.” During heavy writes, the lesser capacity “may probably experience additional slowdowns.”

Personal Review

The installation of the SSD went without a hitch. The SSD is 7 mm thick and may be swapped out for the old one (9 mm thick). A separate mounting frame was not included in the packaging, by the way. I once more used the original hard drive’s frame. There was not a single issue in this place. Since the frame keeps the SSD lightweight and loose, I did not utilize spacers.

Best SSD For Video Editor : Samsung 870 EVO

The great 870 EVO from Samsung is your best option if you want to add storage using a conventional 2.5-inch SATA drive rather than a tiny M.2 “gum stick.” It’s the fastest SATA SSD we’ve tested, comes up to 4TB capacities, and is incredibly cost-effective considering its speed.

Enough said, but Samsung also deserves praise for its excellent Magician SSD management software and lengthy guarantee duration. There is a reason why the EVO series is legendary among SSDs.

However, the SK Hynix Gold S31 is also a viable option. It performs slightly worse than the 870 EVO in tests. However, the 870 EVO comes in various sizes, from a 250GB variant up to a gigantic 4TB goliath, whereas the SK drive is now only offered in a 1TB version.

Personal Review

The Samsung 870 EVO 1TB has so far performed well. I replaced the 850 EVO 500GB that I bought five years ago. I saw a slight but discernible decline in the 850 drive’s performance.

When I transferred my operating system to the new 870 EVO using the Samsung Migration Software, the difference in performance was phenomenal. Fast boot up, taking only 18 seconds on average from a cold boot.

Product Comparison

A swift NVMe PCIe SSD designed for speed freaks like video editors and gamers is the Samsung SSD 970 Pro. I find it challenging to advocate this drive for several reasons. To begin with, the WD Black NVMe costs less per gigabyte. Second, compared to the Samsung 970 EVO, its less expensive sister, it only delivers moderate performance advantages.

The 970 Pro’s dependability is one of its key selling points, which can store 1200 TBW (Terabytes Written), which is twice as much as the 600 TBW of the WD Black NVMe. In conclusion, this SSD is for you if you prefer the Samsung SSD brand and require long-term dependability.

For designers that require blazing-fast NVMe PCIe SSD performance, the Samsung SSD 970 EVO is a fantastic choice. For the price, it offers performance that is challenging to match. Remember that the Samsung SSD 970 Pro costs more and has a threefold increase in read reliability.

The 970 EVO, however, warned that after writing 300 TB, it might become worn out. Most power users will only ever read that restriction, though. As a result, it’s probably okay to spend less money on the 970 Pro.

Seagate has been quiet in the M.2 NVMe SSD market for the past few years. However, with the recent introduction of the FireCuda 510 and BarraCuda 510, Seagate has solidified its position as a serious rival to Western Digital and Samsung, with justification. Without question, the FireCuda 510 is among the fastest and toughest SSDs on the market right now.

For graphic designers and video editors searching for NVMe SSD speed at a reasonable price, the WD Black SN750 NVMe SSD is a fantastic option. The Samsung EVO 970 SSD may not have top-tier read/write performance.

The WD Black SN750 does, however, come with features like a heatsink and power management software. This SSD is fantastic for creative workers with a robust 5-year guarantee of 600 TBW and a per-gigabyte cost of £0.25.

Product Testing

Whether a conventional 2.5-inch drive or a cutting-edge M.2 drive, a desktop or laptop upgrade to solid-state storage is a quick and frequently affordable method to give an outdated system some much-needed performance.

You can significantly reduce the time it takes for files, programs, and even operating systems to load, install, or copy by placing a solid-state drive (SSD) on your desktop or laptop instead of traditional platter-based hard drives. The quantity of movies, pictures, and games you may transfer onto or off one device is practically endless as long as you have the required slots, ports, or bays.

We at PC Labs have created a thorough testing suite to ensure you always get the most storage for your money. It runs each drive we review through real-world and synthetic scenarios to help us identify which drives are the fastest, the slowest, and who falls in between. It does this using a combination of industry-standard tests, “trace-based” measures, and home-cooked trials.

Yet, speed is only part of it with SSDs. Also, we assess drives based on their value for money and extra features like warranties, durability ratings, and additional software. Yet because SSDs have recently improved so much, only little differences can often distinguish a good disk from a great one.

The Testbeds

Depending on the connection protocol (M.2 or 2.5-inch for internal SSDs; USB or Thunderbolt for external SSDs) and bus architecture (PCI Express vs. SATA), we test every drive that enters the laboratory on a specific single testbed or pair of testbeds, among three testbed systems.

PCIe 3.0-Based M.2 Internal SSDs

Our primary Windows-based storage testbed is used to evaluate these devices. A resolutely high-end Computer for the year 2020. It has an Asus Prime X299 Deluxe motherboard and an Intel Core i9-10980XE CPU with a 4.6GHz maximum boost clock speed.

The system uses an Nvidia GeForce RTX discrete graphics card to power video, and we employ 16GB of DDR4 Corsair Dominator Memory clocked at 3,600MHz. This computer is a cutting-edge high-end desktop setup, with the drive being tested as auxiliary storage and an SSD boot drive serving as the main drive.

On this setup, M.2 drives are set up as secondary storage and installed in a second M.2 slot beneath the video card. (The X299 motherboard we use supports SATA M.2 and PCI Express M.2 SSDs.) Conventional 2.5-inch SSDs are mounted in a 2.5-inch bay and connected to the motherboard’s primary SATA controller through the first SATA connector.

PCIe 4.0-Based Internal SSDs

M.2 SSDs that use PCI Express 4.0 has better theoretical sequential-throughput speeds than PCI Express 3.0. Only late-model AMD-based systems with the X570/B550/TRX40 chipset (with Ryzen 3000 series CPUs or later) and Intel systems with Z490 or more modern motherboards typically support PCI Express 4.0. (Using 11th Generation “Rocket Lake” CPUs or later).

M.2 drives are used in all PCIe 4.0 SSDs. A PCI Express 4.0 SSD can be used on a motherboard that only supports 3.0. However, it will default to 3.0 speeds.

As a result, we required a separate testbed from our X299 build to evaluate the speed potential of these SSDs. The AMD Ryzen 9 3950X CPU is mounted on an MSI Godlike X570 motherboard in this more recent testbed. The system also uses an Nvidia GeForce RTX discrete graphics card and the same 16GB of 3,600MHz DDR4 Corsair Dominator Memory.

Speedsters using PCI Express 4.0 frequently produce a lot of heat. If a drive has a heatsink, we test it with the attached heatsink. We test it utilizing the testbed’s motherboard in cases when it doesn’t have a heatsink or only has a simple heat spreader.

The first consumer-level SSDs that support the newest standard, PCI Express 5.0, are expected to hit the market in early 2023. This standard’s theoretical maximum sequential read speed is more significant than 15,000MBps, or roughly twice as fast as PCI Express 4.0. Shortly, we will upgrade our testbed and protocols to accommodate the testing of PCI Express 5.0 SSDs.

External SSDs

Here, we employ two testbeds. The first is identical to our PCI Express 3.0 testbed (Asus Prime X299 Deluxe motherboard, Intel Core i9-10980XE processor, 16GB of DDR4 Corsair RAM, Nvidia GeForce RTX card).

Depending on whether an external drive complies with the almost universal USB 3.2 Gen 2 standard or supports the fast USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 version of USB, it is tested either connected to this motherboard’s single USB 3.2 Gen 2 USB Type-C port (a 10Gbps port) or the 20GBps USB-C port on a USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 expansion card, manufactured by Orico, that is connected to our central storage testbed.

After the tests for external drives outlined below, we convert the drive to exFAT and do further tests on a 2016 Apple MacBook Pro, testing over Thunderbolt 3 (if necessary) or USB Type-C. We only run the MacBook-based tests if the drive is a Thunderbolt 3-only.

Best SSD For Graphic Design Buyer’s Guide

2.5-Inch SSDs: The Basic Drive

The most prevalent internal solid-state drive size is the 2.5-inch Serial ATA SSD. It was one of the first consumer-facing SSD implementations and is still very popular, particularly for updating older PCs.

Although the drive electronics are significantly smaller than 2.5 inches, the shell will be slightly bigger (2.75 inches wide, despite the name), allowing it to fit into the same mounting brackets in your laptop or desktop that 2.5-inch hard drives utilize.

They are the best option if you want to replace an old laptop’s platter-based boot disk. A 2.5-inch drive may be installed in a 3.5-inch hard drive bay on practically any desktop PC nowadays, and most of them have 2.5-inch bays.

You should also consider a 2.5-inch SSD’s thickness if updating an older laptop. Modern SSDs are almost always 7mm thick, although older laptops with SATA hard drives may have drive bays that can accommodate drives with a 9.5mm clearance.

To prevent a thinner 7mm drive from bouncing around in a bay with more space, several SSD manufacturers include a space-filling frame with their SSDs. However, it happens less frequently now than it did in the past.

M2 Drives: Stick-Of-Gum Speedsters

In modern desktop motherboards, M2 slots are already commonplace, and in late-model laptops, they are nearly universal. M2 SSDs are the 2.5-inch drive reduced to its bare minimum in design and execution. However, they are also the most difficult to comprehend before purchase.

First, think about the sort of bus. M.2 drives are available in SATA bus and PCI Express bus varieties and need a suitable slot to function. Make sure the SSD you purchase is compatible with the bus type made available on the M.2 slot in question because some M.2 slots allow both buses on a single slot, but drives only support one or the other.

M.2 drives can be found in a variety of lengths. Physically, Type-2280, which stands for 22 millimeters wide and 80 millimeters long, is the most popular of the five M2 SSD formats. (All SSDs you’ll find for consumer PC upgrades span width from 22mm to 110mm).

However, some M2 drives (especially those of the PCI Express 4.0 version) now arrive with reasonably large heatsinks installed on top to keep them cool or in the box as accessories. Most M.2 drives are circuit boards with flash memory and controller chips.

Type Of SSD

Let’s delve a little more in-depth into the topic of bus type. You won’t always have a choice in the type of bus you require. To determine what you have and should buy, you must have some background knowledge.

SATA: The Old Standard

Both a physical interface and a bus type, serial ATA. Consumer SSDs, like the hard drives that came before them, were the first to connect to motherboards via the SATA interface. It continues to be the most common cable-based interface for 2.5-inch solid-state drives.

In an ideal situation, the SATA interface can sequentially read and write at a maximum of 600MBps, less for overhead processing. In sequential workloads, the real-world difference between the best SATA drive and the ordinary one is minimal; most of our testing has indicated that the average drive tops out at approximately 500MBps to 550MBps.

The 4K random read and write performance speeds must also be considered. These speeds demonstrate how rapidly the drive completes routine activities. (Consider starting up Windows 10, starting up programs, loading levels in those programs, or using Adobe Photoshop).

4K random read/write speeds influence how much you truly feel a drive’s “speed” for most gamers and everyday users. If you intend to use your next SATA-based SSD as a boot drive or backup storage for your vast collection of games or creative endeavors, these specifications should be the ones you pay the most attention to.

The Samsung SSD 870 EVO has demonstrated that SATA-based SSDs, in particular, in 4K random read and write, aren’t yet out of the running, providing performance for loading games or programs comparable to…

PCI Express: Where Speed Is Going?

Using carrier cards, M.2 drives can still be plugged into standard PCIe slots. To begin, PCI Express cards for SSDs were installed on a desktop motherboard’s PCIe slot to connect to them.

However, most of today’s PCI Express SSDs mount in an M.2 slot; however, as previously indicated, you should verify that your M.2 slot supports PCIe drives before making a purchase. Some motherboards support both PCIe and SATA.

Another quirk regarding the PCIe bus is that some drives and slots support the NVMe transfer protocol (for Non-Volatile Memory Express). A standard called NVMe was created with flash storage in mind (in contrast to the previous AHCI protocol, which was designed for hard drives with platters).

In summary, look for an SSD with NVMe in the name if you want the fastest consumer-ready model. Additionally, you must confirm that the drive and the slot both support NVMe. Earlier, M.2 PCIe implementations and drives supported PCIe but not NVMe, which is why. The distinction between PCI Express 3.0 and 4.0 is another.

Although PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSDs have long been the industry standard, PCIe 4.0 is currently breaking peak-sequential speed records for consumer storage. The particular desktop or laptop platform must support PCIe 4.0.

AMD’s third- and fourth-generation Ryzen processors support PCIe 4.0, and Intel’s 500 Series chipset platforms with 11th Generation “Rocket Lake” CPUs on the desktop also support PCI Express 4.0. It’s a component of the 11th Generation “Tiger Lake” mobile chip platforms, according to the company.

Capacity

You’ve determined the drive’s bus type, interface, and form factor. The drive’s capacity is the next thing to consider when making your next SSD purchase. However, gamers and content producers must acquire at least 1TB to keep enough games and 4K videos comfortably on their drives.

A drive larger than 250GB or 500GB should be plenty for a rarely used Windows or macOS machine’s main boot drive. On a desktop, they might also want to think about moving their collection of video games or scratch disks onto less expensive, more spacious standard hard drives.

The drive might fill up once more before you can line up a sniper shot because titles like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare require over 100GB of capacity for just one title.

These days, 2TB is the recommended capacity for games if you’re looking to buy just one drive (or maybe you have to, like on a laptop), but hard-core content creators working with 8K RAW video will require much, much more. (An 8K RAW file lasting an hour will take up 7.92 gigabytes of space.)

However, large drives are expensive (particularly when speaking of SSDs as opposed to hard drives); thus, knowing an SSD’s value and how much it costs per gigabyte is another crucial consideration for your upcoming update.

The cost per gigabyte will provide you a benchmark to compare drives against one another and determine whether or not they appear to be a good deal based on their features and durability rating, regardless of their capacity, be it 128GB or 4TB, or any other size.

An internal SSD typically costs between 9 and 10 cents per gigabyte (for instance, the 2.5-inch SATA-based Mushkin Source, with 1TB for slightly over $90) and 50 cents per GB or more (say, for the pricey, specifically-for-filmmakers Sony SV-GS48).

Any drive with less than 240GB will typically cost more per gigabyte than those with capacities of 500GB, 1TB, and 2 TB. But occasionally, a 2TB or 4TB disk will cost more per gigabyte than the lower-capacity devices in a range (for example: the Sabrent Rocket Q model mentioned earlier).

The quantity of “layers” in an SSD has significantly lowered prices in recent years. Over the past five years, many new technologies have been developed for SSDs (and the NAND flash memory modules from which they are built), and one of these technologies is 3D NAND.

The phrase describes a fabrication technique that allows storage cells to be piled on top of one another in layers instead of only being set out in a horizontal plane. With additional layers, storage capacity may be packed into a smaller area, which lowers the cost of materials.

Speed

The maximum theoretical sequential read/write speeds (expressed in megabytes per second) or the theoretical maximum random or “4K,” as in four-kilobyte blocks read/write speeds (expressed in input/output operations per second) are typically used when an SSD manufacturer advertises the speed of a particular drive. However, 4K read/write results can be stated just as simply as MBps in real-world applications.

Sequential write speeds are typically (though not always) correlated with the outcomes you can anticipate when transferring large single files (consider transferring a high-resolution movie or ISO optical disc image), whereas 4K read/write results are more indicative of things like game loading times or how rapidly your operating system can fetch files.

The theoretical maximum sequential read speed for a SATA drive is 600MBps; however, as we mentioned above, we haven’t seen any SSDs hit that level even under ideal testing circumstances.

Although the Samsung SSD 870 EVO, which reached a maximum read speed of 3,372MBps in the Crystal DiskMark 6 benchmark, is currently the fastest drive we’ve tested in-house, the theoretical peak sequential read speed for PCI Express 3.0 x4 drives is substantially faster 3,940MBps.

Finally, as was already noted, PCI Express 4.0 requires either a new Intel 500-Series motherboard with an 11th Generation “Rocket Lake” CPU or an AMD Ryzen desktop motherboard with an X570 B550 or TRX40 chipset.

The maximum sequential read speed for PCIe 4.0 x16 solid-state drives is 31,500 MBps. Still, the only scenario in which that kind of record-breaking throughput might be noticed (or even reached) is when large files are transferred between two PCIe 4.0 M2 drives installed on the same motherboard.

(If not, the drive acting as the source or destination will become a bottleneck.) The true speed limit is roughly 7,000MBps, and even then, only in the newest drives like the ADATA XPG Gammix S70 or the Samsung SSD 980 Pro.

SSD’s Warranty

An SSD measure known as terabytes written (TBW) describes the point at which the drive’s cells fail after a particular amount of data has been written to the drive. While a result, the drive’s usable space will decrease as the drive electronics make up for and decommission the failing cells.

Based on the make, the capacity, and the use case, a drive’s TBW rating can range from 100 to 3,500 TBW, but this number typically won’t affect daily users.

That being said, anybody purchasing an SSD for professional purposes such as filmmaking, server hosting, or anything else requiring large file transfers of the order of hundreds of gigabytes per day would want to select a drive that can survive that kind of abuse for months, if not years, at a time.

This amount also accounts for the warranty time for a drive, which, except for a few outliers, is typically three to five years or until you reach the TBW requirement.

Make sure you haven’t exceeded your TBW before the warranty period has passed before submitting any warranty requests. Manufacturers have ways of reading a disk to calculate how many terabytes have been written to it over its lifetime.

Controller Type

Only ultra-geeks will care about controllers when purchasing an SSD, but they are still crucial. The SSD’s controller is a module that effectively serves as the drive’s processor and traffic cop, converting firmware instructions into capabilities like error code correction (ECC) and SMART diagnostic tools and modulating the SSD’s overall performance.

By employing similar controllers, it is possible to identify some commonalities among drives (such as the Phison controllers used by many drive OEMs). While some SSD manufacturers use third-party controllers, others develop their own.

The controller model may be listed on drive spec sheets or in reviews, but be aware that this information is entirely inside baseball for casual buyers.

In our testing of drives like the Crucial P5, the Samsung SSD 980 Pro, and the Samsung SSD 870 EVO, a pattern has emerged that may indicate manufacturers who employ internal controllers can produce drives that perform well while still being more affordable. However, before drawing conclusions based on a controller model, you should look at the testing results.

Internal SSD Outliers: U2, mSATA, HHHL

If you’ve read through this complete buying guide and a specific port or slot still isn’t covered, you likely have installed one of your system’s U.2 or mSATA oddball ports.

U.2 is uncommon in consumer PCs, typically created with business clients. Using a special cable or an adapter, a U.2 drive, such as the Intel SSD 750 Series, is connected to a motherboard’s U.2 connector or a PCI Express M2 slot.

These drives nearly always have a form factor of 2.5 inches. You can disregard them unless your desktop motherboard has a U.2 port that you want to use. (And you can probably still connect an M.2 drive.)

The M.2 form factor was preceded by mSATA, short for mini-SATA. Although certain older desktop motherboards might include an mSATA slot on board, it was mostly put into laptops. Unlike M2, which supports SATA and PCIe, mSATA uses the SATA channel for its slots and drives. mSATA is essentially a dead end, though you might encounter it if you have an outdated laptop or desktop.

Conclusion

I’m convinced that switching to a high-speed PCIe Gen 4 SSD will provide more loading power and enable you to edit your photographs and movies more quickly than ever. Just be sure to purchase the Best SSD For Graphic Design for your PC or Mac!

Your opinion of this article? What equipment do you use to edit photos? Have you ever had any problems? If you know of any further resources for quicker and more effective photo editing, please share and leave a comment.

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Frequently Asked Questions