What is an SSD?
SSDs have become a necessity for systems and laptops. Modern processors can handle a huge amount of data and calculations at once, but they are often limited not only by the amount of RAM you have installed, but the type of storage you have in your system.
Previously systems would use hard drives (HDDs) as their primary storage. But hard drives are slow - due to platters that have to spin up to speed and an arm that reads and writes to them.
This means that SSDs, with their flash-based storage system, are far superior.
However, there are multiple different types of SSD. So, which one do you choose?
There are different physical sizes such as M.2 and 2.5” as well as different connection types such as SATA or PCIe. You can also choose from different capacities ranging from 120GB all the way up to 8TB.
We’ll go through all of these things (and more) below. Hopefully you’ll finish this article with a better idea of what SSD you should choose for your system.
What is SATA and PCIe?
SSD drives use different interfaces to connect to your computer; SATA and PCIe. These interfaces can limit how fast an SSD drive can be.
PCIe 3.0 x4 or PCIe 4.0 x4
PCIe is the fastest type of interface you’ll usually see, with PCIe 3.0 drives exhibiting read and write speeds around the 3,500MB/s range, whilst PCIe 4.0 drives exhibit read and write speeds up to a whopping 7,000MB/s.
Whilst you’ll need certain motherboards and processors to get PCIe 4.0 support, almost any modern motherboard and processor will support PCIe 3.0.
SATA
The SATA interface is limited to around 550MB/s so it’s generally much slower than a PCIe-based SSD.
That isn’t to say SATA is slow in itself. It’ll still be much, much faster than a hard drive, and for general use you likely won’t notice the difference between a SATA drive and a PCIe drive.
What capacity SSDs can you get?
You can buy SSDs in capacities all the way up to 8TB, although they start getting very expensive once you get past 1TB. You’ll see the following capacities available:
120GB or 128GB SSD
Whilst it might be tempting to get a low-capacity drive such as this to just install Windows and apps, it’s a poor choice. Not only is it very easy to run out of space quickly, but these drives have the slowest performance of all as they’ll only have a couple of flash modules on them.
240GB, 250GB or 256GB SSD
These are usually a fair bit quicker than the 120/128GB models, and are also large enough to handle Windows and applications with a decent amount of space for more files.
We would recommend these if you are on a tight budget - they’re not much more expensive than the lower capacity models, but if your budget can stretch a bit further, the 500GB range is the sweet spot.
480GB, 500GB or 512GB SSD
These drives are often a good balance between space and price.
You’ll have plenty of room for your operating system, applications, files, and even some games. 1TB pricing is starting to come down, so you may want to stretch your budget for more capacity, but for now we would recommend buying an SSD in the 480-512GB range.
960GB or 1TB SSD
Now available for under £100, these capacity SSDs are great if you need more room for your games without breaking the bank.
Whilst some people may be tempted to go for a lower-capacity SSD and then add a hard drive, the performance from the hard drive would be nowhere near what you’d get from an SSD of this capacity.
2TB SSD
At this capacity you’re currently looking at at least £180 for a drive. An SSD of this capacity is only really useful if you’re doing something like video editing (and need a large scratch drive), or doing lots of gaming across multiple games and don’t want to keep having to delete and install to make room on your system.
4TB or higher SSD
These are truly expensive, starting at over £330. In all honesty, these are only worth purchasing if your workflow requires such a large amount of fast storage, otherwise you should certainly buy an SSD with a smaller capacity.
What’s the best SSD for you?
Now you know what the different form factors, capacities and connections are, which SSD should you choose?
Capacity
Firstly, think about how much space you need. As we mentioned above, we’d recommend somewhere around 500GB (or even 1TB if your budget allows), with a minimum of around 250GB.
Interface
Finally, you need to choose the interface. If you’re running an M.2 drive we’d recommend at least PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe.
It’s not necessary to go for PCIe 4.0, even if you have the hardware to support it - it’s generally aimed at enthusiasts or workers who need a high amount of throughput. For most use cases, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between PCIe 3.0 and PCIe 4.0.
If you’re going for the 2.5” form factor, you’re stuck with SATA, but don’t worry - compared to a hard drive it’ll still be very fast!
Conclusion
Hopefully you now know the main points you need to think about when choosing an SSD for your computer.
There’s lots more to SSDs than what’s detailed above - such as Random IOPS, Endurance, NAND types and more - but we will discuss these things in a separate article.
But, for now, this article should help you choose a great SSD for your system that will improve its performance massively over any hard drive.
