PCIe SSDs may be technologically superior, but that doesn’t mean you should always buy it over SATA drives.
In this article, we’ll look at the differences between SATA and PCIe SSDs and what you need to know to make an informed decision when buying an SSD.
What Is a PCIe SSD?
What is it about PCIe SSDs that make them so much more desirable and more expensive than SATA SSDs? Does it basically come down to performance? Yes, pretty much.
You can think of PCIe (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express) as a more direct data connection to the motherboard.
It’s typically used with devices like graphics cards5 Things You Have to Know Before Buying a Graphics Card5 Things You Have to Know Before Buying a Graphics CardHere are five key points to keep in mind before you buy your next graphics card, otherwise you may regret your purchase.Read More, which also need extremely fast data connections, but PCIe has proven useful for data storage drives too.
PCIe 3.0 has an effective transfer speed of 985MB/s per lane, and since PCIe devices can support 1x, 4x, 8x, or 16x lanes, you’re looking at potential transfer speeds up to 15.76GB/s. That’s way outside the league of SATA SSDs!
But does that mean a PCIe SSD with 16x lanes is 25-times faster than a SATA SSD? Theoretically, sure, but you won’t find a consumer-grade SSD with that many data lanes.
Usually you’ll be deciding between 2x and 4x, which means a maximum transfer speed closer to 3.94GB/s.
And even so, you’re only going to notice the difference between PCIe and SATA when transferring HUGE files that take a while.
If you’re playing a video game, for example, and only want faster load speeds when starting up the game or changing maps, both PCIe SSDs and SATA SSDs will feel lightning fast.
PCIe SSDs tend to have worse battery life. If you’re just browsing the web, working in Google Docs, shooting emails, or doing something that’s purely CPU- or RAM-intensive, then you won’t notice much of a difference between SATA and PCIe SSDs (because such activities don’t involve lots of data transfer).
But if you’re constantly reading and transferring data, then PCIe SSDs will use more energy and drain battery life faster.
One last note regarding AHCI vs. NVMe. If you ever have to choose between these two standards, go with NVMe. AHCI is older and was designed for HDDs and SATA, which means that a PCIe SSD using AHCI may not perform to its max potential. NVMe was designed specifically for use with PCIe, so it performs better.
What Is a SATA SSD?
SATA (Serial ATA) is a type of connection interface used by SSDs to communicate data with your system. It was created back in 2003, which means it has had a lot of time to cement itself as one of the most widely-used connection types today.
SATA SSDs have better hardware compatibility. If you get a SATA SSD, it’s pretty much guaranteed to work with whatever desktop or laptop computer you have right now—even if that computer is a decade old.
SATA SSDs have worse relative performance. As of this writing, SATA 3.0 is the most prevalent form of SSD, which has a theoretical transfer speed of 6Gb/s (750MB/s). But due to some physical overhead that occurs when encoding the data for transfer, it actually has a practical transfer speed of 4.8Gb/s (600MB/s).
While 600MB/s is pretty fast, it’s nowhere close to the transfer speeds offered by PCIe SSDs.
That said, SATA SSDs are more than fast enough for casual home users—to help illustrate how fast it is, a SATA SSD can transfer an entire CD’s worth of data every second—so don’t let this be a deal-breaker.
SATA SSDs tend to be cheaper. This is probably the most important point for most home users. The truth is, the difference in price between SATA and PCIe SSDs is significant—almost as stark as the difference in price between SSDs and HDDs.
Consider the Samsung 860 EVO 500GB SATA SSD:
Samsung SSD 860 EVO 500GB 2.5 inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-76E500B/AM)Samsung SSD 860 EVO 500GB 2.5 inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-76E500B/AM) Buy Now On Amazon $77.95
And compare it to the Samsung 970 EVO 500GB PCIe SSD:
Samsung 970 EVO 500GB - NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSD (MZ-V7E500BW)Samsung 970 EVO 500GB - NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSD (MZ-V7E500BW) Buy Now On Amazon $84.99
While both drives are SSDs and have the same exact capacity, the SATA SSD is almost half the price of the PCIe SSD. This is true across the board: SATA SSDs are more budget friendly than PCIe SSDs.
What Are M.2 and U.2?
M.2 (“M dot two”) and U.2 (“U dot two”) are form factor standards that specify the shape, dimensions, and layouts of a physical device. Both the M.2 and U.2 standards are used in conjunction with both SATA and PCIe drives.
M.2 is more common by a longshot, so if you have to pick between the two and you aren’t sure which way to go, M.2 is the safer option. U.2 is mainly used for Intel 750 series SSDs and you won’t find many others that support it.
When using M.2 for a SATA SSD, performance is the exact same as using a regular SATA form factor. When using M.2 for a PCIe SSD, you’re capped at x4 lanes—which is still more than enough for a casual home user.
Plus, x4 SSDs are more common than x2 SSDs and not that much more expensive, so you might as well go with that.
Note: You can buy an adapter that turns an M.2 connector into a U.2 connector or vice versa, but such adapters may not fit the physical confinements of what you’re trying to do.
PCIe SSD or SATA SSD? Which SSD Type Is Right for You?
Any way you slice it, now is a good time to buy SSD drives. If you’re on a tight budget, go with SATA. If you need maximum performance for frequent file transfers, go with PCIe.
Leica geo office 8.4 full crack. Both are most convenient to use in the M.2 form factor, and both SATA and PCIe SSDs are demonstrably better than HDDs in terms of speed, so you really can’t go wrong either way.
Note that there are several other SSD-related terms you should know7 Terms You Need to Know When Buying a New SSD7 Terms You Need to Know When Buying a New SSDWhile SSD specifications may seem overly daunting at first, the truth is that these terms are quite simple to understand.Read More, like TRIM and SLC/MLC/TLC. You should also keep up with good SSD maintenance and be wary of these signs that your SSD is about to fail5 Warning Signs Your SSD Is About to Break Down and Fail5 Warning Signs Your SSD Is About to Break Down and FailWorried your SSD will malfunction and break down and take all of your data with it? Look for these warning signs.Read More.
Explore more about: Buying Tips, Computer Parts, Hard Drive, Hardware Tips, Solid State Drive.
- excellent discussion many of us (even us who have retired from the pc business) need to sort our out SSD vs PCIe. Thank You
- M.2 drives also have concerns that relate to the card length and physical slot compatibility. Not every system board supports every drive and vice versa. They're unquestionably the best choice for performance, but some research is required prior to purchase.
- Amen to that, fell down that hole that cost me in wrong housings for the PCIe SSD I thought was the right choice.
- You should include that SATA also is in use in HDD (hard disks)!
- Thanks for this article! I am planning on upgrading my current M.2 SSD with a higher gig SSD (either M.2 or 2.5). However, I am still a bit confused on how an M.2 SSD connects using the SATA protocol/interface?? I am sure I am not understanding some concept accurately. But as I understand it, SATA is the standard connector, as shown in the image at the top of the article, used for HDD/SSDs in general. I see how the SATA connector connects to a 2.5 SSD. But since an M.2 is just this little gum-stick shaped device and it just 'clicks' right in (NOT using the SATA connection), I am confused on how M.2's can also use this SATA connector. Any guidance from anyone is especially appreciated! Thanks.
- M.2 doesnt use the SATA connection. Im struggling with this as well. In this case, SATA isnt referring to the connection interface, but the type of data transfer ability, which with an M.2 can be SATA or PCIe depending on what your board supports.
- I found the article confusing-
You write: 'which has a theoretical transfer speed of 6 Gb/s (750 MB/s). But due to .. it actually has a practical transfer speed of 4.8 Gb/s (600 MB/s).'What's 6 Gb/s and what's 750 MB/s. What's the transfer speed? I'd guess 750/600, but then don't understand the Gb number. Which one is what?You write: ' PCIe devices can support 1x, 4x, 8x, or 16x lanes'
But then you write about: 'deciding between 2x and 4x'. Where did 2x come from, from what you wrote above, it seems PCIe can't support it?'You write: '(To help illustrate how fast this is, SATA SSDs can transfer an entire CD’s worth of data in one second.)'Do you mean PCIe? Because I've never seen a Sata SSD transfer that much that fast.I get the overall gist, but big chunks of this article were confusing.- It's probably meant to stand for bits in 6Gb/s (= 6Gbits/s or 6Gbips) and it approximately equals to 750MB (= 750 megabyte) etc, as 1MB = 8Mbits and therefore 750(MB)x8=6000(MB) = about 6GB (which otherwise exactly stands for 6144 ;).
- Ahh.. ok, cool. Thanks for that clarification! Never seen it broken out like that before..
- All speeds mentioned in this article are in bytes and none in bits?
- awesome article. cleared my doubts
- On an HP 580-23w, Can you use a pcie to sata adapter with a nvme pcie Samsung 960 evo m.2 instead of the already installed HDD and would it boot from new pcie sata drive.
Can you use both, but boot from the M.2.
Any procedures, protocols to follow. - Awesome breakdown of this, really made the differences simple and easy to understand.
- Which type of ssd is less likely to wear out and have memory loss over time and heavy use ?
- They're both utilizing the same storage technology, just different transfer technologies. I would expect the same decay, of minimal significance for non-server machines.
- Thanks. It was very helpful.
Open Box: Images shown are from the NEW version of this item and are for reference only. The actual Open Box product may differ in packaging and included accessories, but has been tested to ensure basic functionality.
Skip Image Gallery
Ships from United States.
Sold by UitTek and Shipped by Newegg
Purchases from these Sellers are generally covered under our Newegg Marketplace Guarantee.
First from ASIA brings the most desired and unique products from Asia to you. All First from ASIA products meet US product regulations. You can expect the same Newegg service but difference in shipping lead-time may apply.
First From ASIA
- Convert NGFF M Key M.2 PCIe Based SSD (NVMe or AHCI) to PCIE 3.0 x4 Adapter Card.
- Compatible with PCI-e 3.0 motherboards, and is backwards compatible with PCIe 2.0 and PCIe 1.0.
- Adapter supports PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe (M Key) and PCIe AHCI M.2 SSDs including 2230, 2242, 2260, and 2280 SSD drives.
- Support Any ‘M’ key M.2 PCIe NVMe or PCIe AHCI SSD such as Kingston HyperX Predator M.2 SSD, Plextor M6e Series, Samsung XP941, SM951 / 950 Pro Series, 960 EVO / Pro Series, Intel 600P 512G NVME or 600P 512G SSDs, and more.
- both full-profile and low-profile slot brackets for flexible system chassis installation
- DO NOT support any B Key M.2 SATA Based SSD.
- With Copper Heatsink.
- Overview
- Specifications
- Warranty & Returns
- Reviews
Note:
1. Only support M Key PCIe channel M.2 SSD, please make sure your ssd model before bid.
2. DO NOT support any B Key Based M.2 SATA Channel SSD.
RIITOP M-Key M.2 NGFF PCIe SSD to PCI-e x4 Slot Converter Adapter Card Allow you to install an M.2 NGFF PCIe (AHCI or NVMe) SSD through a Low Profile PCIe 3.0 x4 card to your PC System.
Features:
Connector: 1x M-key (type 2280-D5-M) M.2 socket for M.2 NGFF PCIe based SSD.
Convert M.2 NGFF PCIe based SSD to work in main board PCIe x4 bus slot.
PCI Express 3.0 x4 Lane Host adapter Low Profile Form Factor board with both Regular size and Low Profile bracket included.
Supports PCIe 2.0 and PCIe 3.0 motherboard.
Movable M.2 NGFF stand-off and multiple plated-holes supports type 2280, 2260 and 2242 M.2. Supports M.2 NGFF PCIe 80mm, 60mm, 42mm 30mm SSDs.
Supports dual-sided M.2 SSD module with 1.5mm component height on the top and bottom side.
Supports industrial operating temperature range: -40 - 85 ºC.
M.2 PCIe SSD gets power from motherboard PCIe bus slot 3.3V.
Software:
No driver installation required.
Windows 10/8, Windows Server 2012 R2, Linux series, Fedora, SUSE, Ubuntu, Red Hat native drivers support both PCIe-NVMe and PCIe-AHCI.
Note: NVMe native driver for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 is available from Microsoft Knowledge Base.
Note: Mac Pro 2009, 2010 and 2012 models support PCIe-AHCI SSD only.
Hardware Requirement:
An empty PCIe 3.0 or PCIe 2.0 x4, x8, or x16 slot.
Compatibility (Incomplete List):
Samsung XP941, SM951 (AHCI or NVMe), 950 Pro Series SSDs.
Kingston HyperX Predator M.2.
Plextor M6e Series M.2 SSD.
Instruction:
1. Install 'Heat Conduction Pad' and the 'Cooper Heatsink' on M.2 SSD. (Please be sure the 'heat conduction pad' in the middle of the SSD and 'Cooper Heatsink').
2. Use the 'Adhesive Tapes' steady the Pad and heatsink on SSD.
3. To installing the SSD on Adapter Card with screwdrvie.
4. Plug the pcie adapter card(with SSD on) to mainboard pcie x4 (or above) slot.
Package Contents:
1x M.2 PCIe SSD to PCIe 3.0 x4 Host Adapter Card.
1x Copper Heatsink.
Mounting Screw.
1. Only support M Key PCIe channel M.2 SSD, please make sure your ssd model before bid.
2. DO NOT support any B Key Based M.2 SATA Channel SSD.
RIITOP M-Key M.2 NGFF PCIe SSD to PCI-e x4 Slot Converter Adapter Card Allow you to install an M.2 NGFF PCIe (AHCI or NVMe) SSD through a Low Profile PCIe 3.0 x4 card to your PC System.
Features:
Connector: 1x M-key (type 2280-D5-M) M.2 socket for M.2 NGFF PCIe based SSD.
Convert M.2 NGFF PCIe based SSD to work in main board PCIe x4 bus slot.
PCI Express 3.0 x4 Lane Host adapter Low Profile Form Factor board with both Regular size and Low Profile bracket included.
Supports PCIe 2.0 and PCIe 3.0 motherboard.
Movable M.2 NGFF stand-off and multiple plated-holes supports type 2280, 2260 and 2242 M.2. Supports M.2 NGFF PCIe 80mm, 60mm, 42mm 30mm SSDs.
Supports dual-sided M.2 SSD module with 1.5mm component height on the top and bottom side.
Supports industrial operating temperature range: -40 - 85 ºC.
M.2 PCIe SSD gets power from motherboard PCIe bus slot 3.3V.
Software:
No driver installation required.
Windows 10/8, Windows Server 2012 R2, Linux series, Fedora, SUSE, Ubuntu, Red Hat native drivers support both PCIe-NVMe and PCIe-AHCI.
Note: NVMe native driver for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 is available from Microsoft Knowledge Base.
Note: Mac Pro 2009, 2010 and 2012 models support PCIe-AHCI SSD only.
Hardware Requirement:
An empty PCIe 3.0 or PCIe 2.0 x4, x8, or x16 slot.
Compatibility (Incomplete List):
Samsung XP941, SM951 (AHCI or NVMe), 950 Pro Series SSDs.
Kingston HyperX Predator M.2.
Plextor M6e Series M.2 SSD.
Instruction:
1. Install 'Heat Conduction Pad' and the 'Cooper Heatsink' on M.2 SSD. (Please be sure the 'heat conduction pad' in the middle of the SSD and 'Cooper Heatsink').
2. Use the 'Adhesive Tapes' steady the Pad and heatsink on SSD.
3. To installing the SSD on Adapter Card with screwdrvie.
4. Plug the pcie adapter card(with SSD on) to mainboard pcie x4 (or above) slot.
Package Contents:
1x M.2 PCIe SSD to PCIe 3.0 x4 Host Adapter Card.
1x Copper Heatsink.
Mounting Screw.
Learn more about the RIITOP M2TPCE4X&SR-JMT (M Key M.2 PCIe NGFF SSD to PCI-e Express 3.0 x4 Adapter Card Controller with Heatsink for 2230 2242 2260 2280 mm M Key M.2 PCIe Based AHCI NVMe SSD)
- Manufacturer Contact Info
- Website: http://www.riitop.com|
- Support Email: [email protected]|
- Support Website|
- Return Policies
- This item is covered by UitTek Return Policy.
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
Good product, a couple minor flaws6/11/2019 8:13:22 AM
Pros: -Well packaged, included all needed parts including small screwdriver
-Fit in MSI 970 gaming board well
-The Intel drive (separate purchase) and the card were recognized immediately by Windows 10
-Performance seems appropriate as measured by Crystal Diskmark
-Fit in MSI 970 gaming board well
-The Intel drive (separate purchase) and the card were recognized immediately by Windows 10
-Performance seems appropriate as measured by Crystal Diskmark
Cons: -No documentation included--had to look at Newegg product description to see how to mount heatsink
-Method of attaching heatsink is by weak adhesive tape. Rather crude.
-Took 6 working days to arrive..had to go all of about 350 miles.
-Method of attaching heatsink is by weak adhesive tape. Rather crude.
-Took 6 working days to arrive..had to go all of about 350 miles.
Overall Review: I would recommend for those wanting to use on NVMe SSD in an existing PCI-e slot.
Noire is a violent crime thriller that blends breathtaking action with true detective work to deliver an unprecedented interactive experience. Search for clues. Nov 2, 2017 - The download version of LA Noire on Switch doesn' t="" fit="" on="" a="" switch,="" which.="" some="" fans="" have="" pointed="" to="" the="" game's="" overall="" digital="" size="" -="" 29gb.="" nov="" 2,="" 2017="" -="" if="" you're="" hoping="" to="" download="" rockstar's="" l.a.="" noire="" to="" your="" switch="" later="" this="" month,="" you'd="" better="" be="" ready="" to="" invest="" in="" a="" microsd="" card="" for="" extra.="">La noire download size. Nov 2, 2017 - The physical edition of the game at least gives you the option of playing using only the internal memory, but 14 GB is still a big chunk of data. Nintendo Switch carts come in 1 GB, 2 GB, 4 GB, 8 GB, 16 GB, and 32 GB varieties, and the larger the cart is, the more expensive it is for the publisher to purchase. Nov 1, 2017 - Due to the high size, you'll need a microSD card. Even if you're purchasing the physical version of L.A. Noire, you'll still need to download extra.M 2 Ssd Vs Pcie Ssd
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
Pros: It works/price,
Cons: none
M 2 Ssd Vs Pcie SsdOverall Review: Wanted another for strictly games and apps that have huge load times , this fit the bill Ownership: 1 week to 1 monthPros: Solid construction for price. Everything was bagged separately to prevent scratches. It simply worked when 970 Evo was installed. Cons: Very tight fit into the PCIE slot. Had to use a decent amount of force and wiggling to get pins to slide in. Overall Review: Didn't use heatsink yet, wanted to make sure drive and assembly worked fine first. Might put it on next time I crack open my PC. Performance shouldn't be affected due to case airflow. Ownership: 1 week to 1 monthPros: Works out of the box. Recognized by FreeBSD. Cons: They had placed the mounting bracket in the same bag as the card itself. Not a wise move for potential damage to fragile SMC's during shipping. Ownership: 1 week to 1 monthPros: Stuck this card on an older computer without a native M.2 slot allowing the use of an NVMe 2280 SSD without issue, and got a nice heat sink to boot. Cons: None Overall Review: Please note proper drivers will be required to operate an M.2 NVMe SSD when mounted. Windows 10 provides native drivers but if you are running Windows 7 you will need to obtain the Microsoft Hotfix #2990941 and add driver support for an NVMe device. This will allow an NVMe device to be easily recognized in the Windows 7 environment as a standard storage device. Making an NVMe device a bootable system device is another story. Through the Newegg EggXpert Review Program, Newegg invites its best reviewers, known as EggXperts, to post opinions about new and pre-release products to help their fellow customers make informed buying decisions.Click here for more details. Loading.. How to Buy the Best NVMe SSD
Shopping for an SSD means facing a sea of acronyms. The trickiest of them are jagged reefs sticking out of the water, shaped like circuit boards and ready to run your upgrade aground if you're not careful.'SSD,' standing for 'solid-state drive,' is the one you probably know. An SSD is a storage drive made up purely of flash memory in modules called 'NANDs,' and governed by a controller chip. Simple enough—but there is much complexity beneath the surface of those three letters.SSD navigation has gotten even more treacherous in the last few years, with the emergence of three key new things you need to know about when shopping for an SSD: M.2, PCI Express (or 'PCIe'), and NVMe. All three are centered around making SSDs smaller or faster. They also make buying an SSD more complicated than ever.SSDs: Changing Shapes
Until recently, the typical SSD was a little slab, designed to fit into the same space in a laptop or PC that a hard drive would. (The lingo was '2.5-inch drive' for that size of SSD.) That's changing.Most new desktop-PC motherboards, and the logic boards on some new laptops, incorporate slots meant for much smaller SSDs. That's especially important in thin laptops, where interior space is so scarce. These slots are known as M.2 slots, and they accept M.2 SSDs that look like sticks of silicon chewing gum. Just about every new desktop motherboard these days has at least one such slot; some have two or three. And depending on the drive, that slim little stick of an SSD may be much faster than those bigger drives you are used to.Why did SSDs take so long to get so small? That's a good question, with a simple answer. SSDs never needed to be that big in the first place, from a strict manufacturing point of view. 'Classic' 2.5-inch SSDs have a lot of dead space inside, but they were designed that way to fit into existing bays in laptops and desktop PCs. In slimming down laptops and tablets to extremes, one thing came clear: That much-fatter kind of drive would have to go. An M.2 SSD reduces the SSD to its essentials: just a strip of a circuit board, studded with chips. Versus SSDs of the past, M.2 is much leaner and much easier to fit into tight spaces.First, a Bit About M.2
M.2 drives usually aren't pretty; most look like bare circuit boards with various silicon chips grafted on them, including the NAND modules that store your data. (Check out our guide to SSD lingo at Buying a Solid-State Drive: 20 Terms You Need to Know.) Some may be topped by a heat spreader or heat sink that is usually equal parts practical and decorative. The most important thing to know about M.2, though, is what it is and what it isn't.Although M.2 is commonly referred to as an interface, that's not the whole story. M.2 is also a shape or form factor of drive, though M.2 also governs the keying that lets a drive fit onto a motherboard.The data bus, or pathway, over which your data travels to and from an M.2 drive is a whole other matter, and it takes one of several forms. And that is where NVMe comes in. We'll get to the significance of NVMe in a moment; first, let's discuss the key physical traits of an M.2 drive that you need to understand. (The video below is also a good primer.)As we discuss in our parallel roundup, The Best M.2 Solid-State Drives, M.2 drives are differentiated by a four- or five-digit number listed in their specifications or names. The number is a measurement. It's given in millimeters, with the first two digits being the drive's width, and the second two or three digits telling you how long it is.In practice, all of the upgrader- or PC-builder-minded M.2 SSDs and slots we have seen to date have been 22mm wide, so you can expect this number to start with '22.' The most common lengths are 80mm ('M.2 Type-2280') and 60mm ('M.2 Type-2260'). Drives as short as 42mm ('M.2 Type-2242') or as long as 110mm ('M.2 Type-22110') do exist, though. Why the differences in length? The longer the drive's PCB, the more surface area it will have onto which chips can fit.Length mostly matters if fitting an M.2 drive into a laptop. Most desktop motherboards with M.2 slots have mounting points for multiple lengths of drive (usually, 80mm, 60mm, and 42mm, and sometimes 110mm), whereas most laptops fit just one size. Check the space available before you shop.M.2 drives in Type-2242, Type-2260, and Type-2280 designsThe length of an M.2 drive doesn't always correlate 1:1 with drive capacity, but the bigger the stick, the more memory modules engineers can stuff onto a PCB of a given size, all else being equal. Because of space and density limits, most M.2 drives to date have topped out at 1TB, though 2TB M.2 SSDs are now seeing the light of day from Intel, Samsung, and WD, among others. You'll see four broad classes of capacity on most M.2 SSDs, with the capacities varying within the class according to how much data the drive maker has put aside for 'overprovisioning' (essentially, a safety margin put aside for when the drive ages and some cells fail). These capacity classes are are 120GB/128GB; 240GB/250GB/256GB; 480GB/500GB/512GB; and 960GB/1TB.Now, let's reiterate an important point: A drive may be an M.2 stick of whatever length and capacity, but that doesn't tell you about the bus that it makes use of. That detail is vital to know—just as important as making sure the drive's length works in the space you have.What's the Bus? PCI Express and NVMe
The first M.2 drives were Serial ATA (SATA) drives, in essence a bare version of their chassis-enclosed 2.5-inch kin. You can still readily find SATA-bus SSDs in the M.2 shape. They are common, and most M.2 slots will accept them. In some cases, both 2.5-inch and M.2 versions of the same drive are available, with little difference in performance between them. (Take a look at our reviews of the SSD 850 EVO 2.5-inch and the SSD 850 EVO M.2 for an illustration of that.) That's because, with any SATA-at-heart SSD, your data travels the same paths whether it is a big 2.5-inch SSD connecting to your PC over a classic SATA connector via a cable, or an M.2 stick in an M.2 slot.SATA-based M.2 SSDs are all well and good, but PCI Express is where the cutting-edge speed is. Your system specifically needs to support PCI Express on its M.2 slot to use these drives; some desktop boards support both kinds. A given laptop might support only M.2 SSDs that use the SATA bus, and that limits what you can do in terms of upgrades. The only reason you'd upgrade the drive, in that situation, would be to boost the available storage capacity.Some premium laptops can make use of PCI Express M.2 drives. (Note that some, like the latest Apple MacBook Pros, have PCI Express drives soldered, in not-upgradable fashion, to the laptop's mainboard. 'PCI Express SSD' doesn't necessarily mean 'removable M.2 SSD module.') And as mentioned, almost all new desktop mainboards now have M.2 slots, and most now support PCI Express M.2 SSDs.The first generation of M.2 PCI Express SSDs made use of the PCI Express Gen 2.0 x2 interface, which defines a throughput ceiling that's higher than SATA 3.0's, but not enormously so. That's changed. Today's new high-end M.2 drives support PCI Express x4 (four lanes of bandwidth), working alongside a technology called Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe). The idea behind NVMe is to accelerate performance further, especially with hardy workloads.An M.2 slot on an MSI AMD-based motherboard, showing multiple mounting pointsNVMe is a new control protocol for SSDs. You may have heard of the term 'AHCI' in passing over the years; it is the control scheme used by hard drives and SATA SSDs for data flow over the SATA bus. AHCI was designed back in the days when hard drives were king, though it does work with SSDs. But the concepts underlying it were conceived back when storage overwhelmingly meant spinning platter mechanisms. NVMe, in contrast, is designed from the ground up to govern solid-state memory, and it is optimized for the flash-based realm. It's designed to replace AHCI in the latest SSDs.NVMe is the buzzword to look for in new M.2 SSDs, but know that your system and its motherboard specifically need to support PCI Express NVMe drives in the BIOS for the drive to act as a bootable device. Motherboards based around AMD's and Intel's last few chipsets support PCI Express x4 NVMe M.2 drives, but you'll want to check on a board-by-board basis. Some desktop boards now have two M.2 connectors, a trend we're seeing more and more with higher-end, late-model mainboards. But outside of desktop motherboards from the last year or two, these high-bandwidth, NVMe-capable M.2 slots are not all that widespread. So consult your manuals closely before buying one of these drives.Also, make sure that if you are looking for an NVMe drive, and your system supports it, that any PCI Express drive you are looking at is specifically an NVMe model. That a drive uses the PCI Express bus is not a guarantee of that; PCI Express M.2 SSDs existed before NVMe, and some of them are still on the market. PCI Express x4 NVMe M.2 drives are now the most common kind, though, and are impressively fast drives, leaving the fastest SATA-based drives far behind. Samsung, among the current top dogs in SSDs, was an NVMe pioneer, but many more vendors have gotten into the NVMe market, including ADATA, Corsair, Crucial, Kingston, and WD.Just know—we'll reiterate this for emphasis—that you need the right motherboard-level support to install one of these drives. For desktop PCs, your motherboard specifications are the place to check. Many recent M.2-equipped mobos support both bus types of M.2 SSD (M.2 SATA and M.2 PCI Express/NVMe). For a laptop, it may require pinging the support team of the laptop maker to find out what is inside (assuming you can even get inside the laptop).Also, as we mentioned earlier, realize that a select few laptops have begun soldering their storage directly to the mainboard to save further space, so a drive upgrade may not be possible at all. And recognize that upgrading a laptop to a new SSD may violate the terms of any existing warranty. Check.NVMe in Other Shapes: PCIe Cards and U.2
If you're looking to add a PCI Express/NVMe drive to a desktop whose older motherboard lacks an M.2 slot, one option is an M.2 drive on a 'carrier card.' In essence, the M.2 drive gets fitted onto a PCI Express expansion card that has an M.2 slot aboard and drops into an ordinary PCI Express slot of at least four lanes. We've seen solutions like this from Plextor, Toshiba, and Kingston, and in a few odd instances, some motherboard makers (such as Asus) bundle an empty M.2 carrier card in the box with their high-end mainboards. With one of these, an M.2 drive on a PCI Express expansion card lets you tap the speed of PCI Express/NVMe without having a supporting M.2 slot. The card may also add bootability, so check for that.Toshiba's OCZ RD400, an M.2 drive on a PCI Express carrier cardSamsung M 2 Pcie Ssd
Some PCI Express M.2 SSDs can run hot under sustained use, so having the M.2 module mounted on a vertical card can also mean better ventilation, and, in theory, less or no throttling due to heat. That said, these drives are so fast that under most normal use they get their transfers done before heat can become a major issue.As Vic, an ex-law enforcement officer, you travel to South America to get into Freedom Town and check on your nephew, Alex. But relatives left behind in the US become worried: what exactly is going on at this compound in the jungle?The Church in the Darkness combines unique narrative with tight top-down action-infiltration gameplay in an open-ended environment. There they build Freedom Town. The darkness 1 pc download torrent.One other form that NVMe drives take is confined at the moment to a couple of Intel SSDs. The Intel 750 Series SSD that we tested in 2015, as well as the late-2017 Intel Optane SSD 900P Series, are NVMe drives that come in two forms. One is a straight-up PCI Express card; the other form factor is a large 2.5-inch drive that resembles a chunky hard drive with a weighty heat sink aboard. It uses a server-minded physical interface known as U.2, which is seldom seen in consumer drives. A few high-end motherboards, such as the Designare series from Gigabyte, have an onboard U.2 port, but most desktop motherboards will need a specialized adapter for U.2 that plugs into an M.2 slot.Intel's 750 Series SSD, showing the drive-side U.2 connectorNVMe Drives: Shopping Tips
Size is key. We explained earlier the secret code to decipher the length and width of an M.2 drive. Make sure the length matches the available space for the drive. (This matters most with laptop upgrades.) Most will be 60mm or 80mm long. Also look at any heat sink or spreader atop the drive, and make sure it will not interfere with the upgrade. Often, you can remove the spreader, but it's there for a good reason if it is present. Just know that in, say, a laptop upgrade, an M.2 PCI Express drive adorning a big heatsink like the one on the TeamGroup T-Force Cardea will not fit unless you remove that hardware.Bus details can be tricky. With laptops, an SSD upgrade is often a binary choice that hinges on the kind of SSD supported. (Does the laptop support SATA, or PCI Express? End of story.) The usual scenario there is that you are swapping out one M.2 drive for a more capacious one. Most laptops don't have spare M.2 slots left empty, so the decision path there is pretty straightforward.Desktop motherboards are more complicated, in that some support both SATA-bus and PCI Express-bus M.2 on a given slot. In boards that have two M.2 slots, the support may vary between the two. Others support only SATA; still others support only PCI Express. (And, in the case of PCI Express M.2, an older motherboard may not support PCI Express x4, only x2!) In short: It's a swamp to be navigated with care. You need to know exactly what your board is optimized to use and buy accordingly.Watch your boot. If your desktop is getting a PCI Express/NVMe drive for the first time, verify with the motherboard or PC maker that this kind of drive will be bootable. It's unlikely, but a BIOS upgrade may be needed to get you there.Price it out properly. Comparing SSDs in terms of value for money is tricky, but the best metric is the cost per gigabyte. PCI Express-bus models do command a premium. Divide the price (in dollars) by the capacity (in gigabytes) to get the cost per gig. For example, a 250GB drive that's selling for $199 works out to about 80 cents per gigabyte. That's a ruler you can use to measure drives of different capacities against each other.Ready for Our Recommendations?
Okay, let's get shopping with our favorites below. Also note: For a guide to all of the best M.2 drives we've tested (SATA and PCI Express/NVMe together), see our roundup The Best M.2 Solid-State Drives.You can also check out our roundups of the best budget SSDs, as well as our best external hard drives for Mac and our overall best external hard drives.Best PCI Express NVMe Solid-State Drives Featured in This Roundup:
ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro Review
MSRP: $259.99
Pros: Solid results across almost all speed benchmark tests. Competitive price per gigabyte. Bundled, optional-use heat spreader.Cons: Crystal DiskMark 4K write results solid but not quite tip-top.Bottom Line: ADATA's XPG SX8200 Pro offers on-point-which is to say, fast-speeds for a PCI Express M.2 SSD at its price. It's a strong value pick in the NVMe drive space.Read ReviewSamsung SSD 970 EVO Review
MSRP: $179.99
Pros: Lightning-fast random reads and writes. Reasonable cost per gigabyte. Multiple capacity options. Easy-to-use Windows software. Long warranty. Cons: Pricey upgrade for a mainstream PC that sees casual use. Bottom Line: The Samsung SSD 970 EVO offers an excellent blend of throughput and performance, making it the best high-end internal M.2 PCI Express SSD for most users. Read ReviewSeagate FireCuda 510 Review
MSRP: $201.50
Pros: Blazingly quick sequential speeds. Very high durability rating. Competitive pricing.Cons: 4K write speeds could be faster. Only two capacity options.Bottom Line: The Seagate FireCuda 510 NVMe SSD is a searingly fast and durable storage drive made for gamers and creative professionals alike.Read ReviewWD Black NVMe SSD Review
MSRP: $399.00
Pros: Available in capacities up to 1TB. Very fast, thanks to NVMe support and 3D NAND memory. Reasonable cost per gigabyte. Five-year warranty.Cons: Lower capacities offer lesser performance. Bottom Line: Available in a capacious 1TB version and boasting screaming read/write speeds, the WD Black NVMe is an excellent M.2 SSD to install in a gaming rig or media-editing workstation. Read ReviewIntel Optane SSD 905P Review
MSRP: $1200.00
Pros: Screaming-fast for specialized consumer PC tasks. Extremely high endurance rating. Available in U.2 and PCI Express form factors. Cons: Very expensive on a cost-per-gigabyte basis. Relatively low capacity. High power consumption for an SSD.Bottom Line: Intel's eyeblink-fast Optane SSD 905P, an internal SSD tested as a PCI Express card, is for extreme power users who can stomach its wildly high pricing and truly leverage its field-leading endurance and speed. Read ReviewKingston KC2000 Review
MSRP: $201.50
Pros: Snappy in almost all of our benchmark tests. Has 256-bit AES self-encryption features. Strong durability rating.Cons: Not as cost-effective as some competing drives in the space. Ho-hum 4K writes. Bottom Line: The Kingston KC2000 is a no-doubt-fast PCI Express NVMe SSD with robust security features. The speed-to-value calculus favors a few other 3D TLC and QLC drives, but it remains a strong competitor.Read ReviewSamsung SSD 970 Pro Review
MSRP: $449.99
Pros: Extremely fast read and write speeds, constant across capacity. Excellent reliability ratings. Five-year warranty. Low power consumption. Hardware encryption.Cons: Expensive. Only two capacity options. Bottom Line: By several measures, the Samsung SSD 970 Pro is the fastest consumer-grade internal M.2 solid state drive you can buy, making it an excellent choice if you want the absolute best storage for your screaming PC build or upgrade.Read ReviewADATA XPG SX6000 Pro Review
MSRP: $149.99
Pros: In sequential reads and writes, faster than some costlier drives. Five-year warranty.Cons: So-so value proposition versus other ADATA/XPG SSDs, notably the SX8200 Pro.Bottom Line: While ADATA's XPG SX6000 Pro is a fine enough PCI Express M.2 SSD taken in isolation, its XPG older brother casts a speed and value shadow.Read ReviewCrucial P1 Review
MSRP: $69.99
Pros: Good cost-per-gigabyte ratio for a PCI Express M.2 drive. Polished software management suite.Cons: Ho-hum sequential-write benchmark speeds at tested size. Low endurance rating, though competitive warranty length. No heat spreader.Bottom Line: Crucial's P1 is a cost-oriented QLC-memory-based M.2 SSD, the company's first PCI Express NVMe effort. The result is a pinch on performance-faster than SATA, slower than most PCIe drives-but one that may be a fair trade-off for budget-minded upgraders and PC builders.Read ReviewWD Blue SN500 Review
MSRP: $77.99
Pros: Competitive 4K write results. Management software gets top marks. Decent TBW rating. Performs at manufacturer spec. Five-year warranty.Cons: Beat in sequential tests by much faster, cost-competitive drives. No 1TB or larger capacity.Bottom Line: Western Digital's latest update to its budget line of SSDs, the NVMe-equipped WD Blue SN500, is an able PCI Express M.2 competitor but outpaced for the price. Read Review
How to Buy the Best NVMe SSD
Shopping for an SSD means facing a sea of acronyms. The trickiest of them are jagged reefs sticking out of the water, shaped like circuit boards and ready to run your upgrade aground if you're not careful.'SSD,' standing for 'solid-state drive,' is the one you probably know. An SSD is a storage drive made up purely of flash memory in modules called 'NANDs,' and governed by a controller chip. Simple enough—but there is much complexity beneath the surface of those three letters.SSD navigation has gotten even more treacherous in the last couple of years, with the emergence of three key new things you need to know about when shopping for an SSD: M.2, PCI Express (or 'PCIe'), and NVMe. All three are centered around making SSDs smaller or faster. They also make buying an SSD more complicated than ever.SSDs: Changing Shapes
Until recently, the typical SSD was a little slab, designed to fit into the same space in a laptop or PC that a hard drive would. That's changing.More and more makers of desktop PCs and laptops are designing slots, meant for much smaller SSDs, directly into the motherboards of their PCs. That's especially important in thin laptops, where interior space is so scarce. These slots are known as M.2 slots, and they accept M.2 SSDs that look like sticks of silicon chewing gum. Just about every new desktop motherboard these days has at least one such slot. And depending on the drive, that slim little stick of an SSD may be much faster than those bigger drives you are used to.Why did SSDs take so long to get so small? That is a good question, with a simple answer. SSDs never needed to be that big in the first place, from a strict manufacturing point of view. 'Classic' 2.5-inch SSDs have a lot of dead space inside, but they were designed that way to fit into existing bays in laptops and desktop PCs. In slimming down laptops and tablets to extremes, one thing came clear: that much-fatter kind of drive would have to go. An M.2 SSD reduces the SSD to its essentials: just a strip of a circuit board, studded with chips. M.2 is much leaner and much easier to fit into tight spaces, than SSDs of the past.First, a Bit About M.2
M.2 drives usually aren't pretty; most look like bare circuit boards with various silicon chips grafted on them, including the NAND modules that store your data. (Check out our guide to SSD lingo at Buying a Solid-State Drive: 20 Terms You Need to Know.) Some may be topped by a heat spreader or heat sink that is usually equal parts practical and decorative. The most important thing to know about M.2, though, is what it is and what it isn't.Although M.2 is commonly referred to as an interface, that's not the whole story. M.2 is also a shape or form factor of drive, though M.2 also governs the keying that lets a drive fit onto a motherboard. The data bus, or pathway, over which your data travels to and from an M.2 drive is a whole other matter, and it can take one of several forms. And that is where NVMe comes in. We'll get to the significance of NVMe in a moment; first, let's discuss the key physical traits of an M.2 drive that you need to understand. (The video below is also a good primer.)As we discuss in our parallel roundup, The Best M.2 Solid-State Drives, M.2 drives are differentiated by a four- or five-digit number listed in their specifications or names. The number is a measurement. It's given in millimeters, with the first two digits being the drive's width, and the second two or three digits telling you how long it is.In practice, all of the upgrader- or PC-builder-minded M.2 SSDs and slots we have seen to date have been 22mm wide, so you can expect this number to start with '22.' The most common lengths are 80mm ('M.2 Type-2280') and 60mm ('M.2 Type-2260'). Drives as short as 42mm ('M.2 Type-2242') or as long as 110mm ('M.2 Type-22110') do exist, though. Why the differences in length? The longer the drive's PCB, the more surface area it will have onto which chips can fit.Length mostly matters if fitting an M.2 drive into a laptop. Most desktop motherboards with M.2 slots have mounting points for multiple lengths of drive (usually, 80mm, 60mm, and 42mm, and sometimes 110mm), whereas most laptops fit just one size. Check the space available before you shop.M.2 drives in Type-2242, Type-2260, and Type-2280 designsThe length of an M.2 drive doesn't always correlate 1:1 with drive capacity, but the bigger the stick, the more memory modules engineers can stuff onto a PCB of a given size, all else being equal. Because of space and density limits, most M.2 drives to date have topped out at 1TB, though 2TB M.2 SSDs are now seeing the light of day from Samsung, WD, and Toshiba. You'll see four broad classes of capacity on most M.2 SSDs, with the capacities varying within the class according to how much data the drive maker has put aside for 'overprovisioning' (essentially, a safety margin put aside for when the drive ages). These capacity classes are are 120GB/128GB; 240GB/250GB/256GB; 480GB/500GB/512GB; and 960GB/1TB.Now, let's reiterate an important point: A drive may be an M.2 stick of whatever length and capacity, but that doesn't tell you about the bus that it makes use of. That detail is as vital to know—it is important that the drive's length works in the space you have.What's the Bus? PCI Express and NVMe
The first M.2 drives were Serial ATA (SATA) drives, in essence, a bare version of their chassis-enclosed kin. You can still readily find SATA-bus SSDs in the M.2 shape. They are common, and most M.2 slots will accept them. In some cases, both 2.5-inch and M.2 versions of the same drive are available, with little difference in performance between them. (Take a look at our reviews of the SSD 850 EVO 2.5-inch and the SSD 850 EVO M.2 for an illustration of that.) Ultimately, with any SATA-at-heart SSD, your data travels the same paths whether it is a big 2.5-inch SSD connecting to your PC over a classic SATA connector via a cable, or an M.2 stick in an M.2 slot.SATA-based M.2 SSDs are all well and good, but PCI Express is where the cutting-edge speed is. Your system specifically needs to support PCI Express on its M.2 slot to use these drives; some desktop boards support both kinds. A given laptop might support only M.2 SSDs that use the SATA bus, and that limits what you can do in terms of upgrades. The only reason you'd upgrade the drive, in that situation, would be to boost the available storage capacity.Some premium laptops can make use of PCI Express M.2 drives (though some, like the latest Apple MacBook Pros, have them soldered, in not-upgradable fashion, to the laptop's mainboard). Most new desktop mainboards now have M.2 slots and support PCI Express M.2 SSDs.The first generation of M.2 PCI Express SSDs made use of the PCI Express Gen 2.0 x2 interface, which defines a throughput ceiling that's higher than SATA 3.0's, but not enormously so. That's changed. Today's new high-end M.2 drives support PCI Express x4 (four lanes of bandwidth), working alongside a technology called Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe). The idea behind NVMe is to accelerate performance further, especially with hardy workloads.An M.2 slot on an MSI AMD-based motherboard, showing multiple mounting pointsNVMe is a new control protocol for SSDs. You may have heard of the term 'AHCI' in passing over the years; it is the control scheme used by hard drives and SATA SSDs for data flow over the SATA bus. AHCI was designed back in the days when hard drives were king, though it does work with SSDs. But the concepts underlying it were conceived back when storage overwhelmingly meant spinning platter mechanisms. NVMe, in contrast, is designed from the ground up to govern solid-state memory, and it is optimized for the flash-based realm. It's designed to replace AHCI in the latest SSDs.NVMe is the buzzword to look for in new M.2 SSDs, but know that your system and its motherboard specifically need to support PCI Express NVMe drives in the BIOS for the drive to act as a bootable device. Motherboards based around AMD's and Intel's last few chipsets support PCI Express x4 NVMe M.2 drives, but you'll want to check on a board-by-board basis. Some desktop boards now have two M.2 connectors, a trend we're seeing more and more with higher-end, late-model mainboards. But outside of desktop motherboards from the last year or two, these high-bandwidth, NVMe-capable M.2 slots are not all that widespread. So consult your manuals closely before buying one of these drives.Samsung's SSD 970 EVOAlso, make sure that if you are looking for an NVMe drive, and your system supports it, that any PCI Express drive you are looking at is specifically NVMe. That a drive uses the PCI Express bus is not a guarantee of that; PCI Express M.2 SSDs existed before NVMe, and some of them are still on the market. PCI Express x4 NVMe M.2 drives are growing in number, though. We've tested a bunch, with the pioneer of these drives being the Samsung SSD 950 Pro in 2015 and its follow-on Samsung SSD 960 Pro, as well as the lower-cost (and nearly as fast) Samsung SSD 960 EVO. These are indeed impressively fast drives, leaving the fastest SATA-based drives far behind. Their SSD 970 EVO and Pro follow-ons, in our lists of favorites above and below, are among the current top dogs on the market. And more vendors have gotten into the NVMe market, including ADATA, Corsair, Plextor, Kingston, and WD.ADATA's XPG SX8000 NVMe driveJust know—we'll reiterate this for emphasis—that you need the right motherboard-level support to install one of these drives. For desktop PCs, your motherboard specifications are the place to check. Many recent M.2-equipped mobos support both bus types of M.2 SSD (M.2 SATA and M.2 PCI Express/NVMe). For a laptop, it may require pinging the support team of the laptop maker to find out what is inside (assuming you can even get inside the laptop).Also, as we mentioned earlier, realize that a select few laptops have begun soldering their storage directly to the mainboard to save further space, so a drive upgrade may not be possible at all. Also, know that upgrading a laptop to a new SSD may violate the terms of any existing warranty. Check.NVMe in Other Shapes: PCIe Cards and U.2
If you're looking to add a PCI Express/NVMe drive to a desktop whose motherboard lacks an M.2 slot, one option is an M.2 drive on a 'carrier card.' In essence, the M.2 drive gets fitted onto a PCI Express expansion card that has an M.2 slot aboard and drops into an ordinary PCI Express slot of at least four lanes. We've seen solutions like this from Plextor, Toshiba, and Kingston, and in a few odd instances, some motherboard makers (such as Asus) bundle an empty M.2 carrier card in the box with their high-end mainboards. With one of these, an M.2 drive on a PCI Express expansion card lets you tap the speed of PCI Express/NVMe without having a supporting M.2 slot. The card may also add bootability, so check for that.Toshiba's OCZ RD400, an M.2 drive on a PCI Express carrier cardSome PCI Express M.2 SSDs can run hot under sustained use, so having the M.2 module mounted on a vertical card can also mean better ventilation, and, in theory, less or no throttling due to heat. That said, these drives are so fast that under most normal use they get their transfers done before heat can become a major issue.One other form that NVMe drives take is confined at the moment to a couple of Intel SSDs. The Intel 750 Series SSD that we tested in 2015, as well as the late-2017 Intel Optane SSD 900P Series, are NVMe drives that come in two forms. One is a straight-up PCI Express card; the other form factor is a large 2.5-inch drive that resembles a chunky hard drive with a weighty heat sink aboard. It uses a server-minded physical interface known as U.2, which is seldom seen in consumer drives. A few high-end motherboards, such as the Designare series from Gigabyte, have an onboard U.2 port, but most desktop motherboards that you might want to use with the U.2 Intel 750 Series or Optane 900P will need a specialized adapter for U.2 that plugs into an M.2 slot.Intel's 750 Series SSD, showing the drive-side U.2 connectorNVMe Drives: Shopping Tips
Size is key. We explained earlier the secret code to decipher the length and width of an M.2 drive. Make sure the length matches the available space for the drive. (This matters most with laptop upgrades.) Most will be 60mm or 80mm long. Also look at any heat sink or spreader atop the drive, and make sure it will not interfere with the upgrade. Often, you can remove the spreader, but it's there for a good reason if it is present. Just know that in, say, a laptop upgrade, an M.2 PCI Express drive adorning a big heatsink like the one on the TeamGroup T-Force Cardea will not fit unless you remove that hardware.Plextor's M8Pe NVMe SSD with metal heat spreaderBus details can be tricky. With laptops, an SSD upgrade is often a binary choice that hinges on the kind of SSD supported. (Does the laptop support SATA, or PCI Express? End of story.) The usual scenario there is that you are swapping out one M.2 drive for a more capacious one. Most laptops don't have spare M.2 slots left empty, so the decision path there is pretty straightforward.Desktop motherboards are more complicated, in that some support both SATA-bus and PCI Express-bus M.2 on a given slot. In boards that have two M.2 slots, the support may vary between the two. Others support only SATA; still others support only PCI Express. (And, in the case of PCI Express M.2, an older motherboard may not support PCI Express x4, only x2!) In short: It's a swamp to be navigated with care. You need to know exactly what your board is optimized to use and buy accordingly.Watch your boot. If your system is getting a PCI Express/NVMe drive for the first time, verify with the board or laptop maker that this kind of drive will be bootable. It's unlikely, but a BIOS upgrade may be needed to get you there.Price it out properly. Comparing SSDs in terms of value for money is tricky, but the best metric is the cost per gigabyte. PCI Express-bus models do command a premium. Divide the price (in dollars) by the capacity (in gigabytes) to get the cost per gig. For example, a 250GB drive that's selling for $199 works out to about 80 cents per gigabyte. That's a ruler you can use to measure drives of different capacities against each other.Ready for Our Recommendations?
Okay, let's get shopping with our favorites below. Also note: For a guide to all of the best M.2 drives we've tested (SATA and PCI Express/NVMe together), see our roundup The Best M.2 Solid-State Drives.You can also check out our roundups of the best external SSDs, as well as the best external hard drives for Mac and the overall best external hard drives.Best PCI Express NVMe Solid-State Drives Featured in This Roundup:
ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro Review
MSRP: $259.99
Pros: Solid results across almost all speed benchmark tests. Competitive price per gigabyte. Bundled, optional-use heat spreader.Cons: Crystal DiskMark 4K write results solid but not quite tip-top.Bottom Line: ADATA's XPG SX8200 Pro offers on-point-which is to say, fast-speeds for a PCI Express M.2 SSD at its price. It's a strong value pick in the NVMe drive space.Read ReviewSamsung SSD 970 EVO Review
MSRP: $179.99
Pros: Lightning-fast random reads and writes. Reasonable cost per gigabyte. Multiple capacity options. Easy-to-use Windows software. Long warranty. Cons: Pricey upgrade for a mainstream PC that sees casual use. Bottom Line: The Samsung SSD 970 EVO offers an excellent blend of throughput and performance, making it the best high-end internal M.2 PCI Express SSD for most users. Read ReviewSeagate FireCuda 510 Review
MSRP: $201.50
Pros: Blazingly quick sequential speeds. Very high durability rating. Competitive pricing.Cons: 4K write speeds could be faster. Only two capacity options.Bottom Line: The Seagate FireCuda 510 NVMe SSD is a searingly fast and durable storage drive made for gamers and creative professionals alike.Read ReviewWD Black NVMe SSD Review
MSRP: $399.00
Pros: Available in capacities up to 1TB. Very fast, thanks to NVMe support and 3D NAND memory. Reasonable cost per gigabyte. Five-year warranty.Cons: Lower capacities offer lesser performance. Bottom Line: Available in a capacious 1TB version and boasting screaming read/write speeds, the WD Black NVMe is an excellent M.2 SSD to install in a gaming rig or media-editing workstation. Read ReviewIntel Optane SSD 905P Review
MSRP: $1200.00
Pros: Screaming-fast for specialized consumer PC tasks. Extremely high endurance rating. Available in U.2 and PCI Express form factors. Cons: Very expensive on a cost-per-gigabyte basis. Relatively low capacity. High power consumption for an SSD.Bottom Line: Intel's eyeblink-fast Optane SSD 905P, an internal SSD tested as a PCI Express card, is for extreme power users who can stomach its wildly high pricing and truly leverage its field-leading endurance and speed. Read ReviewKingston KC2000 Review
MSRP: $201.50
Pros: Snappy in almost all of our benchmark tests. Has 256-bit AES self-encryption features. Strong durability rating.Cons: Not as cost-effective as some competing drives in the space. Ho-hum 4K writes. Bottom Line: The Kingston KC2000 is a no-doubt-fast PCI Express NVMe SSD with robust security features. The speed-to-value calculus favors a few other 3D TLC and QLC drives, but it remains a strong competitor.Read ReviewSamsung SSD 970 Pro Review
MSRP: $449.99
Pros: Extremely fast read and write speeds, constant across capacity. Excellent reliability ratings. Five-year warranty. Low power consumption. Hardware encryption.Cons: Expensive. Only two capacity options. Bottom Line: By several measures, the Samsung SSD 970 Pro is the fastest consumer-grade internal M.2 solid state drive you can buy, making it an excellent choice if you want the absolute best storage for your screaming PC build or upgrade.Read ReviewADATA XPG SX6000 Pro Review
MSRP: $149.99
Pros: In sequential reads and writes, faster than some costlier drives. Five-year warranty.Cons: So-so value proposition versus other ADATA/XPG SSDs, notably the SX8200 Pro.Bottom Line: While ADATA's XPG SX6000 Pro is a fine enough PCI Express M.2 SSD taken in isolation, its XPG older brother casts a speed and value shadow.Read ReviewCrucial P1 Review
MSRP: $69.99
Pros: Good cost-per-gigabyte ratio for a PCI Express M.2 drive. Polished software management suite.Cons: Ho-hum sequential-write benchmark speeds at tested size. Low endurance rating, though competitive warranty length. No heat spreader.Bottom Line: Crucial's P1 is a cost-oriented QLC-memory-based M.2 SSD, the company's first PCI Express NVMe effort. The result is a pinch on performance-faster than SATA, slower than most PCIe drives-but one that may be a fair trade-off for budget-minded upgraders and PC builders.Read ReviewWD Blue SN500 Review
MSRP: $77.99
Pros: Competitive 4K write results. Management software gets top marks. Decent TBW rating. Performs at manufacturer spec. Five-year warranty.Cons: Beat in sequential tests by much faster, cost-competitive drives. No 1TB or larger capacity.Bottom Line: Western Digital's latest update to its budget line of SSDs, the NVMe-equipped WD Blue SN500, is an able PCI Express M.2 competitor but outpaced for the price. Read Review
Get ultra-fast data access by adding a PCIe M.2 SSD to your existing computer. This adapter lets you add a high-speed, 4-lane M.2 SSD (PCIe-based), such as a Samsung 950 Pro or Samsung SM 951, to a PC with an available x4 PCI Express expansion slot. You can mount the PCIe M.2 drive directly onto the adapter, giving you an easy and convenient way to improve your system performance and expand overall internal storage.Boost your system speed and performance
The expansion card lets you take full advantage of the fast performance and compact size of PCIe M.2 internal solid-state drives. The adapter connects directly to your computer motherboard to support an M.2 PCIe-based SSD (NVMe or AHCI) through ultra-fast x4 PCIe. The adapter is compatible with PCIe 3.0 motherboards and is also backward compatible with PCIe 2.0 and PCIe 1.0. With the M.2 PCIe based drive in place, the adapter gives your computer a significant speed boost. Supports PCIe M.2 SSDs
The adapter supports PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe (M Key) and PCIe-AHCI M.2 SSDs including 2242, 2260, 2280, and 22110 drives. The expansion slot adapter supports the most common drive sizes including 110 mm, 80 mm, 60 mm and 42 mm.Easy to install
The expansion card is equipped with a full-profile bracket and includes a half-height/low-profile bracket, for installation in small form-factor computers.The PEX4M2E1 is backed by a StarTech.com 2-year warranty and free lifetime technical support.Get ultra-fast data access by adding a PCIe M.2 SSD to your existing computer. This adapter lets you add a high-speed, 4-lane M.2 SSD (PCIe-based), such as a Samsung 950 Pro or Samsung SM 951, to a PC with an available x4 PCI Express expansion slot. You can mount the PCIe M.2 drive directly onto the adapter, giving you an easy and convenient way to improve your system performance and expand overall internal storage.Boost your system speed and performance
The expansion card lets you take full advantage of the fast performance and compact size of PCIe M.2 internal solid-state drives. The adapter connects directly to your computer motherboard to support an M.2 PCIe-based SSD (NVMe or AHCI) through ultra-fast x4 PCIe. The adapter is compatible with PCIe 3.0 motherboards and is also backward compatible with PCIe 2.0 and PCIe 1.0. With the M.2 PCIe based drive in place, the adapter gives your computer a significant speed boost. Supports PCIe M.2 SSDs
The adapter supports PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe (M Key) and PCIe-AHCI M.2 SSDs including 2242, 2260, 2280, and 22110 drives. The expansion slot adapter supports the most common drive sizes including 110 mm, 80 mm, 60 mm and 42 mm.Easy to install
The expansion card is equipped with a full-profile bracket and includes a half-height/low-profile bracket, for installation in small form-factor computers.The PEX4M2E1 is backed by a StarTech.com 2-year warranty and free lifetime technical support.
ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro Review
MSRP: $259.99
Pros: Solid results across almost all speed benchmark tests. Competitive price per gigabyte. Bundled, optional-use heat spreader.
Cons: Crystal DiskMark 4K write results solid but not quite tip-top.
Bottom Line: ADATA's XPG SX8200 Pro offers on-point-which is to say, fast-speeds for a PCI Express M.2 SSD at its price. It's a strong value pick in the NVMe drive space.
Read ReviewSamsung SSD 970 EVO Review
MSRP: $179.99
Pros: Lightning-fast random reads and writes. Reasonable cost per gigabyte. Multiple capacity options. Easy-to-use Windows software. Long warranty.
Cons: Pricey upgrade for a mainstream PC that sees casual use.
Bottom Line: The Samsung SSD 970 EVO offers an excellent blend of throughput and performance, making it the best high-end internal M.2 PCI Express SSD for most users.
Read ReviewSeagate FireCuda 510 Review
MSRP: $201.50
Pros: Blazingly quick sequential speeds. Very high durability rating. Competitive pricing.
Cons: 4K write speeds could be faster. Only two capacity options.
Bottom Line: The Seagate FireCuda 510 NVMe SSD is a searingly fast and durable storage drive made for gamers and creative professionals alike.
Read ReviewWD Black NVMe SSD Review
MSRP: $399.00
Pros: Available in capacities up to 1TB. Very fast, thanks to NVMe support and 3D NAND memory. Reasonable cost per gigabyte. Five-year warranty.
Cons: Lower capacities offer lesser performance.
Bottom Line: Available in a capacious 1TB version and boasting screaming read/write speeds, the WD Black NVMe is an excellent M.2 SSD to install in a gaming rig or media-editing workstation.
Read ReviewIntel Optane SSD 905P Review
MSRP: $1200.00
Pros: Screaming-fast for specialized consumer PC tasks. Extremely high endurance rating. Available in U.2 and PCI Express form factors.
Cons: Very expensive on a cost-per-gigabyte basis. Relatively low capacity. High power consumption for an SSD.
Bottom Line: Intel's eyeblink-fast Optane SSD 905P, an internal SSD tested as a PCI Express card, is for extreme power users who can stomach its wildly high pricing and truly leverage its field-leading endurance and speed.
Read ReviewKingston KC2000 Review
MSRP: $201.50
Pros: Snappy in almost all of our benchmark tests. Has 256-bit AES self-encryption features. Strong durability rating.
Cons: Not as cost-effective as some competing drives in the space. Ho-hum 4K writes.
Bottom Line: The Kingston KC2000 is a no-doubt-fast PCI Express NVMe SSD with robust security features. The speed-to-value calculus favors a few other 3D TLC and QLC drives, but it remains a strong competitor.
Read ReviewSamsung SSD 970 Pro Review
MSRP: $449.99
Pros: Extremely fast read and write speeds, constant across capacity. Excellent reliability ratings. Five-year warranty. Low power consumption. Hardware encryption.
Cons: Expensive. Only two capacity options.
Bottom Line: By several measures, the Samsung SSD 970 Pro is the fastest consumer-grade internal M.2 solid state drive you can buy, making it an excellent choice if you want the absolute best storage for your screaming PC build or upgrade.
Read ReviewADATA XPG SX6000 Pro Review
MSRP: $149.99
Pros: In sequential reads and writes, faster than some costlier drives. Five-year warranty.
Cons: So-so value proposition versus other ADATA/XPG SSDs, notably the SX8200 Pro.
Bottom Line: While ADATA's XPG SX6000 Pro is a fine enough PCI Express M.2 SSD taken in isolation, its XPG older brother casts a speed and value shadow.
Read ReviewCrucial P1 Review
MSRP: $69.99
Pros: Good cost-per-gigabyte ratio for a PCI Express M.2 drive. Polished software management suite.
Cons: Ho-hum sequential-write benchmark speeds at tested size. Low endurance rating, though competitive warranty length. No heat spreader.
Bottom Line: Crucial's P1 is a cost-oriented QLC-memory-based M.2 SSD, the company's first PCI Express NVMe effort. The result is a pinch on performance-faster than SATA, slower than most PCIe drives-but one that may be a fair trade-off for budget-minded upgraders and PC builders.
Read ReviewWD Blue SN500 Review
MSRP: $77.99
Pros: Competitive 4K write results. Management software gets top marks. Decent TBW rating. Performs at manufacturer spec. Five-year warranty.
Cons: Beat in sequential tests by much faster, cost-competitive drives. No 1TB or larger capacity.
Bottom Line: Western Digital's latest update to its budget line of SSDs, the NVMe-equipped WD Blue SN500, is an able PCI Express M.2 competitor but outpaced for the price.
Read ReviewADATA XPG SX8200 Pro Review
MSRP: $259.99
Pros: Solid results across almost all speed benchmark tests. Competitive price per gigabyte. Bundled, optional-use heat spreader.
Cons: Crystal DiskMark 4K write results solid but not quite tip-top.
Bottom Line: ADATA's XPG SX8200 Pro offers on-point-which is to say, fast-speeds for a PCI Express M.2 SSD at its price. It's a strong value pick in the NVMe drive space.
Read ReviewSamsung SSD 970 EVO Review
MSRP: $179.99
Pros: Lightning-fast random reads and writes. Reasonable cost per gigabyte. Multiple capacity options. Easy-to-use Windows software. Long warranty.
Cons: Pricey upgrade for a mainstream PC that sees casual use.
Bottom Line: The Samsung SSD 970 EVO offers an excellent blend of throughput and performance, making it the best high-end internal M.2 PCI Express SSD for most users.
Read ReviewSeagate FireCuda 510 Review
MSRP: $201.50
Pros: Blazingly quick sequential speeds. Very high durability rating. Competitive pricing.
Cons: 4K write speeds could be faster. Only two capacity options.
Bottom Line: The Seagate FireCuda 510 NVMe SSD is a searingly fast and durable storage drive made for gamers and creative professionals alike.
Read ReviewWD Black NVMe SSD Review
MSRP: $399.00
Pros: Available in capacities up to 1TB. Very fast, thanks to NVMe support and 3D NAND memory. Reasonable cost per gigabyte. Five-year warranty.
Cons: Lower capacities offer lesser performance.
Bottom Line: Available in a capacious 1TB version and boasting screaming read/write speeds, the WD Black NVMe is an excellent M.2 SSD to install in a gaming rig or media-editing workstation.
Read ReviewIntel Optane SSD 905P Review
MSRP: $1200.00
Pros: Screaming-fast for specialized consumer PC tasks. Extremely high endurance rating. Available in U.2 and PCI Express form factors.
Cons: Very expensive on a cost-per-gigabyte basis. Relatively low capacity. High power consumption for an SSD.
Bottom Line: Intel's eyeblink-fast Optane SSD 905P, an internal SSD tested as a PCI Express card, is for extreme power users who can stomach its wildly high pricing and truly leverage its field-leading endurance and speed.
Read ReviewKingston KC2000 Review
MSRP: $201.50
Pros: Snappy in almost all of our benchmark tests. Has 256-bit AES self-encryption features. Strong durability rating.
Cons: Not as cost-effective as some competing drives in the space. Ho-hum 4K writes.
Bottom Line: The Kingston KC2000 is a no-doubt-fast PCI Express NVMe SSD with robust security features. The speed-to-value calculus favors a few other 3D TLC and QLC drives, but it remains a strong competitor.
Read ReviewSamsung SSD 970 Pro Review
MSRP: $449.99
Pros: Extremely fast read and write speeds, constant across capacity. Excellent reliability ratings. Five-year warranty. Low power consumption. Hardware encryption.
Cons: Expensive. Only two capacity options.
Bottom Line: By several measures, the Samsung SSD 970 Pro is the fastest consumer-grade internal M.2 solid state drive you can buy, making it an excellent choice if you want the absolute best storage for your screaming PC build or upgrade.
Read ReviewADATA XPG SX6000 Pro Review
MSRP: $149.99
Pros: In sequential reads and writes, faster than some costlier drives. Five-year warranty.
Cons: So-so value proposition versus other ADATA/XPG SSDs, notably the SX8200 Pro.
Bottom Line: While ADATA's XPG SX6000 Pro is a fine enough PCI Express M.2 SSD taken in isolation, its XPG older brother casts a speed and value shadow.
Read ReviewCrucial P1 Review
MSRP: $69.99
Pros: Good cost-per-gigabyte ratio for a PCI Express M.2 drive. Polished software management suite.
Cons: Ho-hum sequential-write benchmark speeds at tested size. Low endurance rating, though competitive warranty length. No heat spreader.
Bottom Line: Crucial's P1 is a cost-oriented QLC-memory-based M.2 SSD, the company's first PCI Express NVMe effort. The result is a pinch on performance-faster than SATA, slower than most PCIe drives-but one that may be a fair trade-off for budget-minded upgraders and PC builders.
Read ReviewWD Blue SN500 Review
MSRP: $77.99
Pros: Competitive 4K write results. Management software gets top marks. Decent TBW rating. Performs at manufacturer spec. Five-year warranty.
Cons: Beat in sequential tests by much faster, cost-competitive drives. No 1TB or larger capacity.
Bottom Line: Western Digital's latest update to its budget line of SSDs, the NVMe-equipped WD Blue SN500, is an able PCI Express M.2 competitor but outpaced for the price.
Read Review