Still got more questions? No worries! We're employing all our knowledge and experience to help you make an informed purchasing decision. Should I buy a 1TB or 2TB SSD for PS5?

IDC Whitepaper: “Optimizing Performance with Frequent Server Replacements for Enterprises” commissioned by Dell Technologies and Intel, March 2021. Results are based on interviews with 18 IT practitioners and decision makers at midsize and large enterprises and a web survey of 707 IT practitioners and decision makers at midsize and larger enterprises using Dell Technologies server solutions across 7 industries. See full whitepaper: https://www.delltechnologies.com/resources/en-us/asset/white-papers/products/servers/server-infrastructure-resiliency-enterprise-whitepaper.pdf In our testing, we found that the Nextorage NEM-PA performed as good, or even better, than many flagship models from other companies running the same hardware for much cheaper price point. What was most encouraging about the 4TB variant especially is how the drive actually gets faster when under heavy loads instead of slowing down, meaning it's a dream to transfer over the contents of your PS5 game library to internal storage in minutes.

Customer reviews

We also make sure to measure the SSD's heat and controller-reported data on how much data has been written to the drive and how much life the drive has left before failing to determine whether the manufacturer's claimed endurance measures up to the time the drive itself estimates it has left.

The PNY XLR8 CS3140 M.2 SSD is one of the best SSDs around, both for gamers and PC enthusiasts alike. Available in three capacities—1TB, 2TB, and 4TB—this SSD is a great swan song for the PCIe 4.0 era as PCIe 5.0 SSDs start to roll out. Having a dedicated workspace, setting priorities and eliminating distractions are just a few ways to increase productivity from home. The Samsung 990 Pro is our top choice if you have the budget to spend. It's pricey, but you'll be rewarded with ultra-fast performance.

If you want a high-performance M.2 SSD that goes the distance, the Viper VP4300 will still be running strong long after its rivals falter. Early examples of the latest generation of M.2 drives, using the PCI Express 5.0 bus, also come in the Type-2280 format, but it's expected that some PCIe 5.0 slots on new motherboards will be built to support the larger Type-25110 format (25mm by 110mm), so we may well see PCIe 5.0 SSDs with these dimensions as well. PCIe 5 drives are capable of tremendous throughput speeds (in excess of 10,000MBps) that should generate abundant heat, and the SSDs we have seen so far come with substantial built-in heatsinks. You want a competitively priced SSD for PS5: Now that the Samsung 980 Pro has been available for a few years, the prices have come well down. You want an SSD for PS5 with an excellent heatsink: The finned graphite design of Corsair's flagship NVMe SSD means it stays cool even under extreme loads.

Investing in an external SSD for gaming can hugely optimize your experience. Find the best PC, Xbox and PS4 external SSD that suits your needs, at Crucial You want a super-fast drive: The SN850 has incredible read/write speeds that make it easy to launch games and copy over data. In essence, the 990 Pro caters to a niche demanding peak performance. Until PCIe 5.0 SSDs really hit the scene, it remains a top-tier choice for enthusiasts and professionals alike.Whatever your specific need, this is the SSD that will get the job done better than any other, at least until PCIe 5.0 SSDs hit the scene. Of all the M.2 SSD's on this list, the Samsung EVO Plus is the most expensive, in some cases (against XPG SX8200, for example) by a good margin. If you have the money to spend and you want the fastest SSD your PCIe 3.0 board can handle, then you can't go wrong with the Samsung EVO Plus.

One last caveat to drop in before we get to our product recommendations surrounds Intel's SSD line. Intel for a while sold a family of M.2-based storage products under the brand name Optane, in two very distinct types of drive. Intel'sOptane SSDsare SSDs like any other, bootable drives that can serve as a stand-alone boot drive or as secondary storage. They were discontinued for consumers in 2021, but you may still see them around. (Incidentally, Intel ultimately sold its SSD business at the end of 2021 to SK Hynix, which has spun it off into a new Hynix subsidiary, Solidigm.) Any chance you can run some comparisons on PCIe3.0 with power consumption numbers? One would hope that it beats at least well proven PCIe3.0 designs on 28nm While PCIe 4.0 SSDs have a theoretical maximum speed of 8,000MB/s, the PNY XLR8 CS3140 pushes right up to that line with a rated sequential read speed of 7,500MB/s, along with a 6,850MB/s sequential write rating for its 2TB and 4TB capacities (5,650MB/s for 1TB). The Samsung 980 Pro is quoted at reaching sequential read speeds of up to 7,000 MB/s and we found in our testing that this model came within striking distance achieving 6,783 MB/s. That's more than fast enough for file transfers and pushes far beyond the recommended 5,500 MB/s that the console requires. One last caveat to drop in before we get to our product recommendations surrounds Intel's SSD line. Intel for a while sold a family of M.2-based storage products under the brand name Optane, in two very distinct types of drive. Intel's Optane SSDs are SSDs like any other, bootable drives that can serve as a stand-alone boot drive or as secondary storage. They were discontinued for consumers in 2021, but you may still see them around. (Incidentally, Intel ultimately sold its SSD business at the end of 2021 to SK Hynix, which has spun it off into a new Hynix subsidiary, Solidigm.)

Resources

John (He/Him) is the Components Editor here at TechRadar and he is also a programmer, gamer, activist, and Brooklyn College alum currently living in Brooklyn, NY. Finally, we use the drive as our primary SSD in our workstation PC (and video game console, if appropriate) to assess the real world use of the drive. Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test. You want a superfast SSD for PS5: The Kingston Fury Renegade SSD is incredibly fast and outperforms many other drives. If you want one of the fastest NVMe models on the market, this is hard to beat.