SABRENT M.2 NVMe SSD 8TB, Internal Solid State 3300 MB/s Read, PCIe 3.0 2280, M2 Hard Drive High Performance Compatible with PCs, NUCs Laptops, and Desktops (SB-RKTQ-8TB)

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An external NVMe SSD is excellent if you can utilize its speed to improve your workflow, but these SSDs fall behind what SATA SSDs can offer when it comes to price and endurance. The Oyen Digital U32 Shadow is an example of a well-built SATA SSD that is a great storage medium for those who need a fast and reliable way to transfer their data between devices.

I recommend this drive for compact, high capacity, relatively static data storage installed inside a computer. It would not be suitable for use as an external drive unless the drive was powered up frequently and mostly read rather than written to. If you’re new to the landscape of SSDs, it can seem challenging to differentiate between the different types available in the market. All SSDs available today essentially use the same basic technology to store data in the form of an electrical charge. SSDs typically use a cell structure to store bits of data. A typical TLC flash SSD stores three bits of data, while QLC flash will store four bits.Typical SATA drives come in the 2.5-inch form factor similar to hard disks but is way lighter and faster in data transfer. We recommend SATA SSDs if you plan on migrating to a more rapid form of storage from existing hard drives. SATA SSDs are also cheaper than NVMe SSDs, but at 8TB, the difference is not much, so endurance should be the main factor you consider. Final Thoughts The key thing to remember about M.2 is that it is a form factor, a shape. The bus—the data pathway over which the data travels to and from an M.2 drive—is distinct from M.2 itself and can vary. And it can make all the difference. (Credit: Molly Flores) That's not a bad thing. Especially in the case of laptops, an older machine might support only M.2 SATA-bus SSDs, and that will be the boundary of your upgrade path...end of story. As a result, the only reasons you'd upgrade the drive, in that situation, would be to get more capacity, or if the old one failed. It took around 18 hours to populate one partition with 3.225TB of data. Transfer speed from a 2.5" 4TB MLC SSD was throttled by SATA interface of the source drive so there was no speed advantage to be gained by the NVMe drive for me. Even when being read inside the computer, there will be no noticeable speed advantage unless working with enormous files (say 50GB-100GB or more), which I will not be doing. Drive temperature during population never exceeded 35°C with a 25.5° ambient temperature and no heat sink on the SSD. Know which bus you're on. In a laptop-upgrade scenario, you're almost certainly swapping out one M.2 drive for another, with the intent of gaining capacity. Make sure you know the specifications of the drive coming out of your system—and whether it's reliant on the SATA or PCI Express bus—so you can install the same, presumably roomier kind going in.

Now, to reiterate an important point: A drive may come in the M.2 form factor, but that says nothing about the bus that it makes use of. Determining that is just as important as making sure it fits. The Crucial T500 is for users willing to pay a little extra to get the best PCI Express 4.0 SSD performance. At a time when many low-priced DRAM-less SSDs are hitting the market, the T500 has a full DRAM cache (as well as a top-shelf Phison controller and 232-layer TLC NAND flash), which could give it an advantage in sustained large-file transfers, as well as in use with the PS5.

Meet NVMe: The Speed Booster

M.2 drive length isn't always an indicator of drive capacity, but therearelimits to NAND-chip density and how many memory modules engineers can stuff onto a PCB of a given size. As a result, most of the M.2 drives we've seen to date have topped out at 2TB, though you can find a few 4TB and 8TB models at lofty prices. The typical capacity waypoints are as follows: Installing the drive is quite simple, but remember that the slot on the motherboard could be under the graphic card or hidden a bit by the CPU cooler depending on your mother board design. If you have no idea of what you are doing, get help from a friend that does or visit a store to get it installed. Building a PC is quite easy, but if you don't know how that works and you don't want or have time to go through the learning curve, it is better not to risk it. We mentioned NVMe above. NVMe is another technical hurdle to consider, because systems and motherboards need board-level support for these drives to be bootable. All late-model motherboards now support NVMe M.2 drives, but older boards are not guaranteed to support booting from an NVMe-based drive. Outside of new motherboards, these high-bandwidth, NVMe-capable slots are also found in some recent laptops. Also note that in some cases, a laptop may support a PCI Express NVMe drive, but it may be soldered to the motherboard and thus not upgradable. So, if you're thinking of upgrading a recent laptop or convertible, be sure to consult your manual very closely before buying one of these drives. (Credit: Zlata Ivleva) But first, the shape issue. Any M.2 drive you are looking at will be labeled with a four- or five-digit number as part of its specifications or model name. It's a measurement, in millimeters: The first two numbers define the drive's width, the second two the length. The drive utilizes the Phison E12S PCIe 3.0 controller. Although newer drives with PCIe 4.0 arrive with the newer Phison E16 and E18 controllers. But unless these SSDs use TLC, the QLC flash will still be a limiting factor in speed.