Samsung’s NVMe SSD flagship, the 960 Pro, is one of the fastest consumer SSDs on the market, currently second only to Intel’s 900P Optane SSDs. This PCIe SSD offers high-end performance at a premium price and therefore, as the name suggests, is may be more suited towards professional users. Our real world benchmarks show that the 960 Pro has read/write speeds in excess of 4 times faster than the Samsung 850 Pro which is the next best SATA SSD. Compared to the now two year old NVMe 950 Pro the 960 Pro offers significantly higher write throughput and is less susceptible to thermal throttling. The 960 Pro is based on a denser version of Samsung’s V-NAND (3D) technology, featuring more layers of memory cells. The 960 Pro also features an upgraded and faster 5 ARM Polaris controller, compared to the 950 Pro’s 3 ARM UBX controller. The smallest capacity for the 960 Pro is 512 GB, which may make it prohibitively expensive for some. Fortunately, for those that still want the superb NVMe performance, the 250 GB Samsung 960 Evo offers a more affordable choice, albeit with lower sustained write speeds when compared to the 512 GB 960 Pro. The 960 Pro is based on MLC (2-bit) V-NAND whilst the 960 Evo is based on the slightly lower enduring TLC (3-bit) V-NAND, and this accounts for Samsung’s reduced warranty for the 960 Evo (3 years/200 TBW versus 5 years/400 TBW for the 512 GB versions of the 960 Evo and 960 Pro respectively). Unlike the 960 Evo, the 960 Pro doesn’t have an SLC cache which results in more consistent sustained write speeds. [Nov '17SSDrivePro]
The Plextor M5 delivers fantastic value for money and sits within easy reach of the top handful of SSD's currently available. The M5's performance favours server type workloads where it takes joint fourth position in the AS-SSD total score benchmark. With a Real World Speed Index of 524.5 it will also cope very well with consumer workloads. Aside from its blistering performance we also like the fact that this drive uses the latest Marvell controller which hasn't suffered any of the reliability issues that plagued some of the early Sandforce based drives. When this drive first hit the shelves in September '12 it was overpriced but since then prices have dropped by nearly 40% making it currently one of top five value for money drives available. [Jun '13SSDrivePro]
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.