What’s the Best Budget M.2 Nvme SSD

[Celestial9087]

I’m looking for a m.2 that is relatively fast read and write speeds and medium size cache. I have a budget of £100/$137.

[Downkey]

7 minutes ago, Celestial9087 said:

I’m looking for a m.2 that is relatively fast read and write speeds and medium size cache. I have a budget of £100/$137.

(Assuming you need 1TB)

SN550 or A2000

[Brooksie359]

Intel p660 is usually at a fairly reasonable price and has good performance. 

[NattyKathy]

dunno if they're available where you are (UK?) but the Inland-branded SSDs are good. They have a lot of variants, some have DRAM cache and some don't but they're all quite affordable.

[aisle9]

30 minutes ago, Celestial9087 said:

I’m looking for a m.2 that is relatively fast read and write speeds and medium size cache. I have a budget of £100/$137.

https://ssd.borecraft.com/SSD_Buying_Guide_List.pdf

 

If this is a boot drive, avoid QLC. It's where TLC was in 2014: not ready to be a boot drive yet. DRAM is important, but on NVMe drives, not having it isn't an instant disqualifier. Finding a 1TB drive off of NewMaxx's list in your price range shouldn't be too hard. There are drives in the Consumer category that regularly go at $100 for a 1TB drive here, and if you catch the right sale in the US, a Prosumer 1TB drive can drop to that level.

 

[tire]

could get a sn750 500gb like I got for 60 bucks, performs amazing for a gen 3 drive

[NewMaxx]

Fast read and write means an 8-channel drive in most cases. That's for SLC speeds, for TLC you also need DRAM due to design. Medium-sized cache rules out some of the static SLC options (SN550, SN750) even though they have high TLC speeds for sustained writes. There's a few exceptions on the channels, the primary being the Gold P31 due to its use of 128L flash. In fact that's the perfect drive - the problem is it can be hard to find in many regions. Next best would probably be something E12-based (with TLC) as they have 24GB of cache or more (which is larger than the SN550/SN750) and acceptable TLC speeds.