Crucial P3 Plus 4TB PCIe 3.0, 3D NAND, NVMe, M.2 SSD, up to 5000MB/s - CT4000P3PSSD8

Product Information

Speed matters, of course, but as we said most modern SSDs saturate the SATA III interface. Not all of them, though. How we test SSDs The combination of the Phison E18 controller and 176-layer TLC flash from Micron is a match made in heaven: unrivaled peak performance and, with the right cache design as on the Gaming model, strong sustained performance. That is ideal for workstation tasks, and Inland’s drives are cheaper than competitor offerings while maintaining a decent warranty. This is a barebones drive but will get the job done.

If you’re looking for the ultimate 4TB NVMe SSD, look no further. The new 990 Pro does not disappoint, providing excellent performance with minimal compromise. It’s fast, it’s single-sided, it’s sufficiently power-efficient, and its heatsink option makes it a solid buy. Technically, there are faster PCIe 5.0 SSDs, but aside from sequential burst performance the 990 Pro is the more compelling option. We continue to recommend PCIe 4.0 SSDs unless you specifically need the extra bandwidth of PCIe 5.0.

For most PC applications, that probably doesn't matter. But for small form factor rigs and perhaps a gaming laptop, every little can undoubtedly help. On that note, for most applications, we'd probably go for the cheaper bare drive rather than this more expensive model with its heat spreader. The revised SN850X is inherently a cooler-running thing, after all. The PCIe 5.0 SSDs still have plenty to offer. The Crucial T700 is unquestionably the fastest consumer SSD in the world that you can actually buy, at least for now, delivering up to a blistering 12.4 GB/s of sequential throughput and 1.5 million random IOPS over the PCIe 5.0 interface. That's an amazing level of performance from an amazingly compact device. The drive did not drop down to a folding state like most other drives in our testing, instead holding steady in TLC mode at above 1.6 GB/s. This presents steady state performance on par with many of the other drives. YMTC’s six-plane flash on the A93 and NM790 has a faster middle state, and we have seen significantly better TLC write speeds on many 2TB+ SSDs. To simplify, the 990 Pro balances capacity and performance such that its non-pSLC speeds are not particularly impressive, but this is traded off for excellent consistency.

We put every SSD we get in the PC Gamer labs through their paces in various benchmarks made up of a mix of synthetic tests and real-world applications. To ascertain a drives sequential throughput, we use ATTO SSD Benchmark for compressible data (a best-case scenario) and AS SSD for incompressible data (more realistic). We also test random throughput with AS SSD and a combination of CrystalDiskMark 7.0 and Anvil Pro. If you're a custom PC builder with RGB-lighting fever, and have RGB-ified just about every inch and corner of your system, perk up: ADATA has brought pretty lights to the internal SSD final frontier. The XPG Spectrix S40G is the most flamboyant NVMe drive we've seen to date. With its exceptional 4K write speeds, top-notch sequential-read speeds, and respectable durability rating, ADATA makes having a top-of-the line, over-the-top SSD affordable and fun, in one fell swoop. Who It's For Right now, PCIe 4.0 is the go-to PCIe generation. That's because it offers a high speed at a reasonable cost. The newest SSDs on the market offer PCIe 5.0 capability, which doubles the theoretical bandwidth an SSD can run at. However, these are few and far between and awfully expensive. Also the first drives of any PCIe generation tend to end up much slower than what that generation is truly capable of. When it comes to the real-world tests, we time how long it takes to copy a 30GB game install across the drive and use PCMark10 and Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers, which includes a level load test.It's easy to get carried away at this time of year, but if you know how much you want to spend and what sort of SSD you're after, you'll be in good stead.

The WD Red SN700 doesn’t offer anything special for the general user, but is great for use in a NAS. The underlying technology is also starting to show its age, but that maturity is important for critical storage systems like a NAS where performance isn’t as much of a focus. The WD Red SN700 also doesn’t have power loss protection, although that isn’t surprising as this drive isn’t for an enterprise application. However, the warranty and rated endurance are strong, which makes this a good buy for the right usage, which in this case is in a NAS. I am using a Gigabyte Aorus X570 Pro Wifi mobo, which hides the second M.2 under the GPU, just a bit. That could be due to the GPU I am using, and a thinner card may have been easier. But, all in all, it was simple to install. I SUGGEST that you fill out the warranty before you install the M.2 drive. If you do the warranty before the install, you will have easy access to all the information you need. If you wait, it may not be so easy. Be sure to fill out the warranty. You could lose 4 years of warranty (potentially) if you don't. It's a highly competitive SSD with great performance and an attractive design and offers good value for money.We actually like these because often, you often get a robust heat sink on the M.2 drive. Some PCI Express-bus M.2 SSDs can run hot under sustained read/write tasks and throttle their speed. That said, unless you're running a server or something similar, where a drive is constantly getting hammered with reads and writes, that's usually not something you have to worry about. That's because many of these drives are so fast, they get their transfer duties done before they have a chance to get all that hot. Silicon Power is a brand that probably doesn’t get much attention compared to the likes of Samsung or WD, but when you look at its XS70 NVMe SSD with its high-end specifications, it's clear that the brand name isn't everything. Armed with the latest Phison controller and high-performance NAND flash memory, a drive like the Silicon Power XS70 should have no problem competing with thebest SSD on the market. The Solidigm P41 Plus is the best budget DRAM-less M.2 NVMe SSD on the market. It’s particularly good at 2TB, rivaling the 670p, which is older but comparable. This is no surprise as Intel’s NAND and SSD division migrated to Solidigm after a sale of the company to SK hynix, so the P41 Plus is reminiscent of that excellent budget drive. We would give the edge to the P41 Plus if you can make full use of the drive, which includes total Synergy 2.0 SSD driversupport. We’d also give the P41 Plus the edge over the P3 and P3 Plus if you’re shopping for your primary drive, as it has more consistent performance, even if maximum bandwidth is lower. There are a few things to look out for, but most importantly you’ll want to focus on capacity, price, and warranty length. Three-year warranties are standard, but some nicer models are guaranteed for up to five years. And unlike the olden days of SSDs, modern drives won’t wear out with normal consumer usage, as Tech Report tested and proved years ago with a grueling endurance test.