Best NVMe SSDs 2021

HDDs were the undisputed king of storage for decades before SSDs were commercially available. The first few generations of SSDs were small and not really a good option. Over the last decade, however, SSDs have grown to offer large capacities and top speeds that outgrew the old SATA III bandwidth of 300MB/s.

To enable the higher performance that SSDs were capable of, they moved to the NVMe bus, taking up 4 PCIe 3.0 lanes for a maximum possible bandwidth of 3940MB/s, more than ten times faster than SATA. The latest generation of SSDs however have managed to outgrow even that and have moved on to use 4 PCIe 4.0 lanes to double the maximum bandwidth to 7876MB/s.

PCIe 4 is a very new technology however, only supported by the latest generation of CPUs, so most computers will still be limited to PCIe 3 speeds. Make sure to check your hardware compatibility before purchasing an expensive SSD you can’t make the most of. Although this could be worth doing if you’re planning to upgrade to the latest generation hardware in the near future.

When purchasing SSDs, it’s important to be aware of some things. Modern SSDs tend to use TLC or Triple-Level Cells. These can store 3 bits of data per cell of flash memory, this offers increased capacity and density at the trade-off of reduced performance when compared to SLC (Single-Layer Cell) or MLC (Multi-Layer Cell (2)) flash. QLC or Quad-Layer Cell drives are starting to show up that again offer increased capacity for a reduction in performance.-

The main way that TLC and QLC drives maintain high performance is by using a faster cache. Typically, this is SLC memory dedicated to caching. Some drives instead use a DRAM cache with dedicated DDR4 memory. Many drives utilise unused hard drive space in SLC mode to dynamically expand the cache size, although this decreases in effectiveness as the drive fills up. Cache space is expensive though and is often not included in budget drives to keep the cost down, to the serious detriment of performance. If you want a high-performance SSD, ensure it has a dedicated DRAM or SLC cache.

To help you pick a great SSD, we’ve drawn up a list of the best NVMe SSDs in 2021.

Samsung dominated the top of the PCIe 3.0 SSD market with their 970 series SSDs. The 980 Pro jumps right in at the top of the PCIe 4.0 market with reads speeds of up to 7000 MB/s, coming close to the maximum bandwidth of the connection. The write speed is a bit slower at 5100MB/s but that’s still significantly faster than any PCIe 3.0 drive.

They’re available in capacities between 250GB and 2TB. At this point though, a 250GB hard drive isn’t really worth buying and the asking price of it is quite high compared to the 500GB and 1TB models. The five-year or 600 full drive write warranty shows Samsung’s confidence in the longevity of this drive.

The WD Black manages to equal the Samsung 980 Pro in read speeds and slightly beat it in write speeds. It can also maintain these speeds for longer thanks to a better dynamic SLC cache and a significantly larger dedicated cache. Available in capacities of 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB.

A version with an RGB heatsink is available for motherboards that don’t include an integrated M.2 heatsink. One of the few downsides is for users currently on a PCIe Gen 3 computer, as this drive only supports x2 mode in Gen 3 rather than x4 meaning it will be slower than last-gen SSDs.

The Sabrant Rocket 4 Plus is the current SSD speed king, offering speeds of up to 7100MB/s read and 6600MB/s write thanks to a second-generation controller. Speaking of second-generation, if you buy this, ensure it has “Plus” in the title, as the previous generation has a similar name and appearance but slower performance.

This is the only drive-in this list to come in a 4TB capacity, although you will pay a lot for it at just under $1000. The drive uses a dynamic SLC cache and a dedicated DRAM cache to enhance write speeds. Especially on the 4TB model, the dynamic cache will provide a huge amount of space for optimum performance characteristics. All this performance produces a lot of heat, ensure that the drive is adequately cooled.

The Samsung 970 Evo Plus was the undisputed king of PCIe Gen 3 SSDs. If you’ve not got a computer with the latest generation of CPUs and you’re not planning on upgrading soon, then there’s not really much point in getting a PCIe 4 SSD and so this is a great choice. Unfortunately, you won’t really save any money, as this costs about the same per capacity anyway.

With read speeds of up to 3500MB/s and an unmatched write speed of 3300MB/s, this drive is the fastest PCIe Gen 3 SSD. It comes with a 5 year or 600 full drive write warranty and a rated mean time between failure of 171 years and so is incredibly reliable.

The SK Hynix Gold P31 is a fantastic PCIe Gen 3 SSD that’s only marginally slower than the 970 Evo Plus. To help accept the reduced performance, the price is also lower, thanks to savings from the world’s first 128-layer V-NAND. The only issue with this drive is the fact that the largest capacity is just 1TB.

SK Hynix is an incredibly well-respected brand that you’ve probably never heard of. This is because they generally don’t make customer-facing products. Instead, they are the second-largest flash memory manufacturer in the world, meaning it’s not unlikely that you already use their memory. The warranty that beats even Samsung’s should give you some expectation of how well SK Hynix regards its foray into customer-facing products.

Those were our recommendations for the best NVMe SSDs in 2021. Have you recently bought an SSD, would you recommend it.