Intel SSDPE2ME016T401 Internal Solid State Drive 16TB Black

Product Information

We've introduced you to M.2 drives and 2.5-inch drives above, but let's get into them in a bit more detail. 2.5-Inch SSDs: The Basic Drive

That last one isn't a typo; I'm really not sure what "| OS" is. The USB 3.0 Micro B has to be a mistake too; the cord inclosed is USB-A to USB-C. But regardless, with a USB C 3.1 connection to an M.2 SSD, this thing should scream. CARRY WEIGHT. Most SSDs weigh a negligible couple of ounces. The carabiner retention loop of SanDisk's Extreme family of external SSDs is especially handy, because many SSDs are small and light enough that losing them is an easy and expensive mistake. SATA-based SSDs have shown that in 4K random read and write, specifically, SATA isn't quite out of the game yet, offering performance in loading games or applications that's on par with... PCI Express: The Modern Speed Standard SATA-based drives tend to be a little cheaper; they're also slower, but just fine for most users' everyday applications. SATA-based SSDs typically top out at around 500MBps for peak read and write speeds, just a bit below the ceiling of the USB 3.0 interface. (Much more about that in a moment.) However, if you're going to be transferring large files such as videos often, you may well want to spring for a PCIe/NVMe-based external SSD. That also ties in with the port you'll plug your SSD into. (Credit: Zlata Ivleva)Una nota al margen aquí es que no confío en la lectura de temperatura que da el disco, ya que está clavada en 33°C sin importar que le estés metiendo caña. Nunca la vi moverse de 33. Pero no se calienta porque lo tocaba con la mano y siempre estaba frío, al contrario del que devolví, de otra marca, que ardía al tocarlo (se ponía a 80°C según el sensor interno) Está por comprobarse la durabilidad y fiabilidad de este disco, pero dudo que un producto que lleve la marca de Gigabyte sea nada menos que muy bueno. If an M.2 drive you're looking at has one of these special, big heatsinks on it, make sure your desktop's motherboard has the clearance above and around it to accommodate its bulk. Some desktop motherboards situate an M.2 slot right alongside the ideal expansion slot you'd use for your graphics card, for example, and the hardware can collide. Laptop designs typically can't stomach a special, tall heat sink at all. And while it is still fairly slow as far as portable SSDs go, its 464MB/s sequential read and 357MB/s sequential write speeds are much faster than anything you'll get with an external hard disk. It even manages to beat out Samsung's T5 SSD, which lagged behind with a 433MB/s and 323MB/s in sequential read and write tests, respectively. But this drive is a different beast altogether; it doesn’t use the usual SATA connector, opting instead for the enterprise-grade SAS interface.

COST PER GIGABYTE. The way to calculate relative value on drives like these is to perform some simple math and figure the cost per gigabyte based on the price of a given drive on the day you're shopping. Because SSD pricing fluctuates all the time, relative value does, too. Arguably more important than the type of storage mechanism inside an external SSD is how it connects to your PC or Mac. Almost all external SSDs today plug into either some flavor of USB port, or a Thunderbolt 3 or 4 port. The Crucial X9 Pro is a competitively priced, highly portable external SSD that should appeal to most anyone. The X9 Pro is great for travelers, or indeed anyone who wants a fast, reasonably rugged and secure portable SSD. A further wrinkle around the PCIe bus: All recent drives and slots support a transfer protocol known as NVMe (for Non-Volatile Memory Express). NVMe is a standard designed with flash storage in mind (opposed to the older AHCI, which was created for platter-based hard drives). In short, if you want the fastest consumer-ready SSD, get one with NVMe in the name. You'll also need to be sure that both the drive and the slot support NVMe. (That's because some early M.2 PCIe implementations, and drives, supported PCIe but not NVMe.) (Credit: Molly Flores) Technology that was previously reserved for enterprise customers and the PC performance elite has gained the common touch, with mainstream desktops and laptops now featuring SSDs rather than hard drives as primary storage choices. And adding an internal SSD to an older PC as a new boot drive remains a great, cost-effective upgrade. If you're still relying on spinning metal, you'll find it one of the easiest ways to an instant, undeniable speed boost.In essence, the Samsung 990 Pro caters to a niche demanding peak performance. Until PCIe 5.0 SSDs really hit the scene, it remains a top-tier choice for enthusiasts and professionals alike.

I think one metric for comparing storage is to look at Sustained Write Performance as well, because it affects anyone who needs to do a large write: whether it's just once a week, or else many times a day.

Samsung SSD 990 Pro

Not to be outdone, there’s a 5TB “external portable hard drive” from an obscure company called WIOTA that looks suspiciously like Sajiulas’s product and is the number one new release in the external hard drive category.