SSD Buying Guide – List March 3, 2021 CONTENTS SATA ...................................................................................................................................................................... 1 Storage SATA ...................................................................................................................................................... 1 List of Storage SATA drives .............................................................................................................................. 1 Typical Controllers in Storage SATA Drives ...................................................................................................... 2 Light SATA .......................................................................................................................................................... 2 List of Light SATA Drives .................................................................................................................................. 2 Typical Controllers in Light SATA Drives ........................................................................................................... 3 Budget SATA ....................................................................................................................................................... 3 List of Budget SATA Drives .............................................................................................................................. 3 Typical Controllers in Budget SATA Drives ....................................................................................................... 4 MODERATE SATA ................................................................................................................................................ 4 List of Moderate sata drives ............................................................................................................................ 4 Performance SATA .............................................................................................................................................. 4 List of Performance SATA Drives ..................................................................................................................... 4 Typical Controllers in Performance SATA Drives .............................................................................................. 5 NVMe..................................................................................................................................................................... 6 Budget NVMe ..................................................................................................................................................... 6 List of Budget NVMe Drives ............................................................................................................................. 6 Typical Controllers in Budget NVMe Drives...................................................................................................... 7 Moderate NVMe ................................................................................................................................................ 7 List of Moderate NVMe Drives ........................................................................................................................ 7 Typical Controllers in Moderate NVMe Drives ................................................................................................. 8 Consumer NVMe ................................................................................................................................................ 8 List of Consumer NVMe Drives ........................................................................................................................ 8 Prosumer NVMe ................................................................................................................................................. 9 List of Prosumer NVMe Drives ......................................................................................................................... 9 Typical Controllers in Prosumer NVMe Drives................................................................................................ 10 Glossary ............................................................................................................................................................... 11 Donators .............................................................................................................................................................. 18 1 SATA SATA solid state drives (SSD) are commonplace. They utilize the SATA interface, whether in the 2.5” (physical) or M.2 (logical) form factor. They use the older AHCI protocol, a protocol not designed for solid state drives. In practice, any SSD will be an upgrade over a mechanical HDD and even old computers will have one or more SATA connectors. One specific characteristic divides the “good” drives from the “bad”: the presence or lack of DRAM. DRAM on a SSD does not act as a write or data cache as you would find on a HDD. Instead, it helps with the flash translation layer (FTL) – the method by which the drive communicates between the OS and the flash. The FTL handles myriad functions and the presence of DRAM assists it in these tasks, improving both performance and endurance. Drives utilized with mixed workloads – reads and writes – and especially many small operations benefit most from DRAM. This includes OS and mixed-use. SATA SSDs in enclosures can act as fast portable devices. These enclosures rely on a protocol known as the USB Attached SCSI Protocol, or UASP, which improves performance over old methods and can pass the SCSI UNMAP command, an analogue for the SATA TRIM command. The TRIM command helps maintain performance and endurance by marking unused blocks. Going over USB has innate performance penalties and overhead – which will reduce performance, especially 4K and writes more than reads – but is somewhat mitigated by DRAM. For this reason, DRAM-equipped SATAs are ideal for current consoles when used externally, particularly since they do not properly support TRIM. STORAGE SATA Storage SATA drives are suitable for general data storage or may act as a dedicated games drive. Generally, it is desirable for these to be larger in capacity and they are not ideal as a primary (system) drive. Most QLC drives fall into this category because they require more flash to hit peak performance due to denser flash and the parallel nature of SSD design. QLC drives are also slower and less consistent outside of the temporary SLC cache (which is a write cache, but not actual SLC). These drives also usually lack DRAM as storage is heavy on reads rather than writes while also being heavy on sequential rather than 4K traffic. LIST OF STORAGE SATA DRIVES ADATA SU630/SU635 ADATA SU650/SU655 ADATA SU750/SU760 Crucial BX500 TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 Inland SATA Kingston A400/Q500 Mushkin Raw Mushkin Source Patriot Burst Patriot P200 PNY CS900 PNY CS2311 Samsung 860/870 QVO SanDisk SSD Plus SP A55/S55 Team AX1/AX2 Team CX1/CX2 Team EX2 Team GX1/GX2 Team Vulcan G TYPICAL CONTROLLERS IN STORAGE SATA DRIVES Marvell 88NV1120 Maxio MAS0902A Phison S11/T Phison S13/T Realtek RTS5733 SMI SM2258XT SMI SM2259XT LIGHT SATA Light SATA SSDs are ideal for OS usage in machines with light requirements, such as an old or secondary machine. Generally, these drives are TLC-based, smaller in capacity, and lack DRAM. As such, they are a good choice to upgrade from a HDD in order to spruce up an old machine, or to put in a cheap machine that only sees light use. LIST OF LIGHT SATA DRIVES ADATA SU650/SU655 TABLE OF CONTENTS 3 ADATA SU750/SU760 Crucial BX500 HP S700 HP M700 (MLC) Hyundai Sapphire Inland SATA Kingston A400/Q500 Lexar NS100 Mushkin Raw Mushkin Source Patriot Burst Patriot P200 SanDisk SSD Plus SP A55/S55 Team AX1 Team CX1/CX2 Team GX1/GX2 TYPICAL CONTROLLERS IN LIGHT SATA DRIVES Marvell 88NV1120 Maxio MAS0902A Phison S11/T Phison S13/T Realtek RTS5733 SMI SM2258XT SMI SM2259XT BUDGET SATA These SATA SSDs are suitable for any use but are a cheaper alternative to the very best drives on the market. They usually have DRAM but may be deficient in some other area: older or lower-quality flash, an older controller, etc. These are an option if budget is important but you do not want to drop to a DRAM-less drive. LIST OF BUDGET SATA DRIVES TABLE OF CONTENTS 4 ADATA SU800/SX850 ADATA SX950U Addlink S20 Gigabyte UD Pro HP M700 (MLC) HP S700 Pro Hynix Gold S31 Kingston UV500 Mushkin Reactor (MLC) PNY CS1311 Seagate BarraCuda Team Delta RGB Team L5 Lite 3D TYPICAL CONTROLLERS IN BUDGET SATA DRIVES Marvell 88SS1074 Phison S10 SMI SM2258 MODERATE SATA These are drives superior to Budget SATA in some way while being more affordable than Performance SATA. LIST OF MODERATE SATA DRIVES Hynix Gold S31 Team Vulcan PERFORMANCE SATA These are the very best SATA drives on the market. They have newer, powerful controllers and the newest flash. They are suitable for any type of usage. LIST OF PERFORMANCE SATA DRIVES TABLE OF CONTENTS 5 Crucial MX500 Intel 545s Kingston KC600 Lexar NS200 PNY CS2311 Samsung 860/870 EVO SanDisk Ultra 3D Seagate BarraCuda 120 WD Blue 3D TYPICAL CONTROLLERS IN PERFORMANCE SATA DRIVES Marvell 88SS1074 Phison S12 SMI SM2258 SMI SM2259 TABLE OF CONTENTS 6 NVME The non-volatile memory express (NVMe) protocol exists for solid state devices. It has many advantages over AHCI including new commands, deeper queue depth,