Most workaday SSDs don't come close to saturating this interface, so there's no point in paying a premium for a Thunderbolt drive unless you specifically need the port and the speed because of your computer. You can plug a USB-C drive into a Thunderbolt port, so you're not obliged to buy a Thunderbolt drive if you don't need the speed but have the port.

Generally, the higher a drive's capacity, the cheaper it will be per gigabyte. But that's not always true; sometimes the very highest-capacity drives come at a per-gigabyte price premium. The basement for budget external SSDs is currently about 7 cents per gigabyte, mostly from second- or third-tier vendors. Calculate your bottom-line price when comparing a host of drives. Yes, faster drives will be released to the market near the end of the year, but for now, the T700's 12.4 / 11.8 GB/s of throughput leads the market, not to mention the beastly up to 1.5 million random read/write IOPS that remains uncontested by any SSD on the market. The Crucial T700 can take a beating, too: The T700 doesn't lose as much steam as other drives during heavy sustained workloads, making it a suitable drive for even the heaviest of workloads, like workstation-class video editing. Finance is only available to permanent UK residents aged >18, subject to status, terms and conditions apply.

Crucial X9 Pro

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clienttons-s.akamaihd.net, 684dd305.akstat.io, 684dd306.akstat.io, 684dd307.akstat.io, 684dd308.akstat.io, 684dd309.akstat.io, 684dd30a.akstat.io, 684dd30c.akstat.io, 684dd30d.akstat.io, 6852bd07.akstat.io, 6852bd08.akstat.io, 6852bd09.akstat.io, 6852bd0a.akstat.io, 6852bd0b.akstat.io, 6852bd0c.akstat.io, 6852bd0d.akstat.io, 6852bd0e.akstat.io, 6852bd0f.akstat.io, 6852bd10.akstat.io, 6852bd11.akstat.io, 6852bd12.akstat.io, Average speeds for PCIe/M.2 SSDs range from around 1.2GB/s up to around 1.4GB/s – and if you’ve got the budget there are even some that can reach 2.2GB/s. g2nlvmqcchiscx5bva5a-pwotro-14b66ca5a-clientnsv4-s.akamaihd.net, g2nlvmqccuqvax5bs7hq-p4vzcl-ad59a5fd9-clientnsv4-s.akamaihd.net, g2nlvmqccuqxax5bsz6q-pm3a6a-3feb7d021-clientnsv4-s.akamaihd.net, g2nlvmqxzp4swx5bs5uq-pd12b9-62c8cb38d-clientnsv4-s.akamaihd.net, g2nlvmqxzp4swx5bt3va-p7puv0-d4fafcfea-clientnsv4-s.akamaihd.net, g2nlvmsy3wdkax5bs5zq-p675cj-d0b1fd299-clientnsv4-s.akamaihd.net, g33b4vqccuqvax5btwhq-pfp8ei-5c0ea4329-clientnsv4-s.akamaihd.net, Why you can trust Tom's Hardware Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.el3lnwiccuqvax5bstvq-pch0tk-1cdf76638-clientnsv4-s.akamaihd.net, el3lnwiccuqvax5buy2q-pqnfkn-f673b4feb-clientnsv4-s.akamaihd.net, el3lnwiccuqvax5buzkq-pl30i3-08d7d87df-clientnsv4-s.akamaihd.net, el3lnwiccuqwcx5bu4ya-pyg66y-cb19a994e-clientnsv4-s.akamaihd.net, el3lnwiccuqxax5bstjq-puyi2b-1f022524f-clientnsv4-s.akamaihd.net, el3lnwiccuqxax5bsuua-pioden-695058c8f-clientnsv4-s.akamaihd.net, el3lnwiccuqxax5bsvta-pqns0s-b6979dbf5-clientnsv4-s.akamaihd.net, If you want the most capacity for the least amount of money, HDDs are the way to go. Manufacturing processes for traditional HDDs mean they're now relatively cheap to produce, which makes them more affordable. Alas, there are enough different flavors of USB to make your head spin—made worse by the confusing nomenclature surrounding USB these days. For example, today's USB 3.2 standard is for all intents and purposes identical to USB 3.1, simply renamed. (It gets even more confusing with the latest kind of USB: The forthcoming USB4 will absorb Thunderbolt.) That said, you'll still see older USB terminology on your PC or Mac and on many SSDs, so you need to know what term correlates to what.

If none of the drives we've selected for this roundup sounds appealing to you (or you already own an extra internal SSD), there's one more option available: SSD enclosures. These are plastic or metal housings into which you can put your own SATA 2.5-inch or M.2 solid-state drive to take with you on the go. Since hard drives are mechanical devices that use mature technology, you can get relatively large amounts of storage capacity for the money. But the same tech that makes hard drives a tantalizing value becomes their biggest liability when used on the go. If you drop the drive, you could damage the interior mechanism and make your data inaccessible. By contrast, if you jolt an SSD while you're reading or writing data, there is no risk that your files will become corrupted and unreadable. Samsung’s PCIe® Gen 4-enabled PM1733 SSD will have double the throughput capabilities of current Gen 3 SSDs, giving it the highest performance of any SSD on the market today. The two NVMe™ SSD series come in two form factors, 2.5-inch and HHHL, with capacities ranging from 0.8TB to 30.72TB to suit the diverse needs of OEMs worldwide. The drives also ensure endurance of one or three drive writes per day (DWPD) over a five-year period. SATA is slowest: SATA isn't as fast as an M.2 PCIe or a PCIe add-in card, but the majority of desktops and many laptops support 2.5-inch SATA drives, and many doing typical mainstream tasks users won't notice the difference between a good recent SATA drive and a faster PCIe model.So is an SSD or a HDD best for you? While SSDs are faster, more robust and more power-efficient, HDDs are more affordable – especially when it comes to larger capacities. Just make sure you get an enclosure that matches your drive, be that SATA or NVMe. And also keep in mind that DIY external drives usually aren't sealed, so they're not as likely to stand up to dust and dampness as well as external SSDs and portable hard drives that are designed to do so. Finding Discounts on the Best External Storage Drives