The 256GB Samsung 850 Pro is the fastest consumer SSD we have seen to date. Thanks to Samsung's new 3D V-NAND the 850 Pro has lower power consumption and better performance, albeit marginally, than both the 840 Evo and 840 Pro. Looking at the benchmark figures for the 840 and 850 Pros shows that the effective performance improvement is 10% whereas the 850 Pro beats the 840 Evo by 16%. These drives effectively saturate SATA 3.0 making it difficult to distinguish between them in day-to-day use. At current prices the 850 Pro is prohibitively expensive, prices need to drop by 15% before it approaches the 840 Pro from a value perspective. Samsung may release a value orientated 850 Evo soon, but for now "most" users are better off with the 840 Pro. [Oct '14SSDrivePro]
The 480 GB Intel Optane 900P is one of the first NVMe PCIe SSDs available, based on Intel’s new Optane memory and 3D XPoint technology. 280GB versions are also available with almost identical performance at a lower price, in line with the reduced capacity. The 480 GB 900P is comes in a half height half length add-in card form and has a PCIe 3.0 x 4 interface. The sequential read and write speeds of 2500 MB/s and 2000 MB/s are the fastest of any consumer SSD on the market today, however this is only 10% ahead of the next best NVMe PCIe SSD based on flash technology, the Samsung 960 Pro. The random 4K read and write speed disparities are far greater, with the 480 GB 900P achieving a whopping four times faster random 4K read speeds than for the 960 Pro. If memory usage is heavily skewed towards random 4K reading, then shifting to the 900P would yield a huge performance boost worthy of the 900P’s high price tag. Access to this latest technology comes at double the cost per gigabyte compared to the 960 Pro. Currently the PCIe interface will be a bottleneck for even greater performance. However, it’s early days for Optane memory and it’s likely that Intel will release higher performing devices in the future as faster bus technologies emerge. [Nov '17SSDrivePro]
Welcome to our 2.5" and M.2 SSD comparison. We calculate effective speed for both SATA and NVMe drives based on real world performance then adjust by current prices per GB to yield a value for money rating. Our calculated values are checked against thousands of individual user ratings. The customizable table below combines these factors to bring you the definitive list of top SSDs. [SSDrivePro]
Welcome to our PC speed test tool. UserBenchmark will test your PC and compare the results to other users with the same components. You can quickly size up your PC, identify hardware problems and explore the best value for money upgrades.