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Round Up of The Best NVMe M.2 storage Deals in March 2023 (Megathread)

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Posted 1 March 2023

Round Up of The Best NVMe M.2 storage Deals in March 2023 (Megathread)

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Update 9 30th Mar

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Update 8 27th Mar

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Update 6 24th Mar

Update 5 20th Mar

Update 4 14th Mar

Update 3 10th Mar

Update 2 7th Mar

Hi folks,

I see more and more deals about storage, and I thought a nicely organised megathread about NVMe's would be handy for most of us. I have the main categories by the speed they offer, but obviously there are other aspects to consider as well.

M.2 storage has two main categories:

PCI Express (PCIe) faster option
Serial ATA (SATA) more affordable but slower option (similar speed to the 2.5" SATA SSD. read/write speeds up to 600MB/s)

NAND type:

NVMe M.2 SSDs can use different types of NAND flash memory, such as
3D NAND - currently the most advanced and efficient flash memory technology
QLC (Quad-Level Cell) - Low endurance
TLC (Triple-Level Cell) - Low endurance
MLC (Multi-Level Cell) - Cheaper than SLC but Slower and less endurance
SLC (Single-Level Cell) - Highest endurance

The type of NAND flash memory can affect performance, endurance, and price, so keep that in mind before you pick one.

Finally, you might wonder what storage you need for a PS5 or Xbox:

PlayStation 5:

Interface: PCIe Gen4 x4 NVMe SSD
Capacity: At least 250GB and not more than 4TB
Sequential read speed: At least 5,500 MB/s
Form factor: M.2 2230, 2242, 2260, 2280, or 22110

USB extended storage requirements on PS5 console:

SuperSpeed USB 5 Gbps or later.
250 GB minimum, 8 TB maximum capacity.
Not all devices are guaranteed to work with the PS5 console.
You can't connect the drive through a USB hub.
Two or more USB extended storage drives can't be connected at the same time. You can connect multiple USB drives to your console, but you can use only one at a time.

Xbox Series X/S:

Interface: PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD
Capacity: At least 512GB
Sequential read speed: At least 2,400 MB/s
Form factor: M.2 2230

To use external storage with Xbox games and apps, your hard drive must:

Hold 128 GB or more
Connect via USB 3.0/3.1

Crucial P3 1TB M.2 PCIe Gen3 NVMe Internal SSD - Up to 3500MB/s - CT1000P3SSD8 £50.99 @ Amazon

Thanks @RockstarRobbo
Capacity: 1TB
Speed: 3,500 MB/s read and 3,000 MB/s write
NAND type: QLC NAND
Dram: No

Kioxia Exceria 500 GB NVMe M.2 SSD £28.99 @ Amazon
Thanks @RockstarRobbo
Capacity: 500GB
Speed: 3200 MB/s read and 3000 MB/s write
NAND type: BiCS FLASH™ TLC
Dram: N/A

1TB - Kioxia EXCERIA PCIe Gen 3 x4 NVMe SSD - 1700MB/s, 3D TLC, 1GB Dram Cache - £43.48 @ Amazon
Thanks @radical
Capacity: 1TB
Speed: 1700 MB/s read and 1600 MB/s write
NAND type: BiCS FLASH™ TLC
Dram: 1 GB Samsung DDR4-2666

1TB - Integral (1000GB) SSD NVME M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3x4 R-3450MB/s W-3200MB/s TLC M2 Solid State Drive - £49.95 @ Amazon

Thanks @Brutes
Capacity: 1TB
Speed: 3450 MB/s read and 3200 MB/s write
NAND type: 3D TLC
Dram: N/A

2TB - Samsung 970 EVO Plus PCIe Gen 3 x4 NVMe SSD - 3500MB/s, 3D TLC, 2GB Dram Cache, 1200 TBW - £125.15 @ Amazon

Thanks @radical
Capacity: 2TB
Speed: 3500 MB/s read and 3300 MB/s write
NAND type: 3D NAND (V-NAND)
Dram: 2GB Samsung LPDDR4

Lexar NM620 2TB SSD, M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3x4 NVMe 1.4 Internal SSD, Up to 3500MB/s Read, 3000MB/s Write - £97.50 @ Amazon

Thanks @RockstarRobbo
Capacity: 1TB
Speed: 3500 MB/s read and 3000 MB/s write
NAND type: NAND Flash 3D TLC
Dram: No

2TB - Intel 670P [PCIe/NVMe] M.2 2280 PCIe 3.0 3D4 QLC SSD, Dram Cache (up to 3500/2700MB/s R/W - £92.10 Delivered (Standard) @ LambdaTek

Thanks @Brutes
Capacity:2TB
Speed: 3,500 MB/s read and 2,700 MB/s write
NAND type: QLC
Dram: DDR3L

Sabrent Rocket Q 500GB NVMe PCIe Gen. 3 X 4 M.2 2280 R/W 2000/1000MB/s £25.99 delivered @ Amazon / Store4Memory
Capacity: 500GB
Speed: 2000 MB/s read and 1000 MB/s write
NAND type: QLC
Dram: DDR3L

WD Blue SN570 2TB High-Performance M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD, with up to 3500MB/s read speed - £103.98 @ Amazon
Thanks @drashid
Capacity: 2TB
Speed: 3500 MB/s read and 3500 MB/s write
NAND type: 3D TLC
Dram: No

WD Blue SN570 M.2 NVMe Gen 3 SSD 1TB - £44.75 with code, sold by ccl computers @ eBay
Thanks @rapidracer10
Capacity: 1TB
Speed: 3500 MB/s read and 3000 MB/s write
NAND type: 3D TLC
Dram: No
Review

Crucial P3 Plus 2TB PCIe 4.0 3D NAND NVMe M.2 SSD - 5000/4200MB/s - £119.99 + Free Next Day Delivery @ Ebuyer
Thanks @Ken
Capacity: 2TB
Speed: 5,000 MB/s read and 4,200 MB/s write
NAND type: 3D NAND
Dram: No (HMB)

2TB - ADATA LEGEND 800 M.2 PCIe 4.0 x4 (NVMe) 2280 Solid State Drive (Up to 3,500/2,800MB/s R/W) - £95.47 delivered @ Ebuyer

Thanks @Brutes
Capacity:2TB
Speed: 3,500 MB/s read and 2,800 MB/s write
NAND type: 3D NAND
Dram: No

2TB - Netac NV7000 NVMe 1.4 M.2 Internal SSD PCIe Gen4 With Heatsink up to 7000/6700MB/s - £124.49 Sold by Netac Official Store @ Amazon

Thanks @Brutes
Capacity:2TB
Speed: 7000 MB/s read and 6700 MB/s write
NAND type: 3D NAND
Dram: 2x 1 GB SKHynix DDR4-2666

Integral M3 Series Plus Gen4x4 1TB SSD NVME M.2 2280 - £59.95 @ Amazon
Thanks @HughMungus69
Capacity:2TB
Speed: 5000 MB/s read and 4500 MB/s write
NAND type: TLC
Dram: No - Host Memory Buffer (HMB)

Kingston NV2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD 1000G M.2 2280 -SNV2S/1000G £43.98 @ Amazon
Thanks @Frank30uk
Capacity:1TB
Speed: 3500 MB/s read and 2100 MB/s write
NAND type: Varies
Dram: No - Host Memory Buffer (HMB)

1TB - WD_BLACK SN770 PCIe Gen 4 x4 NVMe SSD - 5150MB/s, 3D TLC (PS5 Compatible) - £65.58 / 2TB - £119.99 @ Amazon

Thanks @radical
Capacity: 1TB/2TB
Speed: 5,150MB/s read and 4,850 MB/s write
NAND type: Kioxia BiCS5 112L TLC
Dram: No - Host Memory Buffer (HMB)

Integral 256GB USB3.2 Type-C Ultima Pro X Portable External SSD - £29.99 Delivered @ MyMemory
thanks @Ken
Capacity: 250GB
Speed: 1000 MB/s read and 900 MB/s write

Crucial X6 1TB Portable SSD - Up to 800MB/s - PC and Mac - USB 3.2 USB-C External Solid State Drive - CT1000X6SSD9 £62.99 @ Amazon

thanks @RockstarRobbo
Capacity: 1TB
Speed: 800MB/s read

More details at

Update 1 3rd Mar

Edited by sisqoboy, 30 March 2023

New Comment

153 Comments

sorted by

all2humanuk
1st Mar
What exactly does low endurance mean in this context?
fishmaster
1st Mar
It generally means a smaller amount of writes can be performed to the NAND flash memory before permanent errors/damage occurs. In other words endurance is how long the NAND flash memory is likely to last based on a number of Gigabytes or Terabytes written over a period of time, usually Gigabytes per day on average.

For any given DWPD, TBW, PBW, GB/day figure you can work out the estimated life using a calculator such as this one, the most common cited are TBW >

wintelguy.com/dwp….pl

So for example if you take a Samsung 980 Pro 2TB drive which has a 1200TB rating, and the warranty is 5 years, this means to achieve 1200TB writes to the drive over 5 years effectively or considerably wearing out the drive, you can write 657.534GB per day to the drive. (edited)
nige182
1st Mar
You have put that Xbox Series takes standard NVMe M.2 2280, that is incorrect, it uses a M.2 2230 internally, but that is not general user replaceable. The expansion option for Xbox Series is a custom external interface. You have also put at least 1TB, I believe the options available are 512GB-2TB.

You could also mention that PS5 and Xbox Series both support USB 3.0 drives for playing PS4/Xbox One games respectively and storing but not playback of PS5/Xbox Series games respectively. Storage limitation are same as last gen, up to 1x 8TB drive with no USB hub built in for PS4/PS5, and can use one drive swapping between both gen consoles, up to 3x 16TB drives with or without USB hubs for Xbox One/Series and can swap between both gen consoles.

Edit: Oh and PS5 supports m.2 drives of 2230, 2242, 2260, 2280, 22110 lengths for expansion. (edited)
dcx_badass
2nd Mar
Yeah the xbox info should really be removed, it uses one (or two) specific models that aren't available at retail as well as a custom controller, and the external ones use a CF Express interface (adaptors available but won't work without the specific ssd model)
SeanRTK
1st Mar
2 questions for those in the know

1. With NVMe getting a lot cheaper does anyone make (or has anyone built) a NAS drive that would house a shed load of these inside rather than your standard WD reds for example.
2. The little Netac portable SSD 250gb, would you be able to password protect the files on that, or can you buy a portable SSD with password encryption.

TIA (edited)
Abdo.Thabeth
1st Mar
NVMe drive are accessed via PCIe lanes; a typical consumer CPU only has about 16-24 PCIe lanes where as a server cpu might have 128 PCIe lanes. Given that a typical NVMe will take up 4 PCIe lanes this limits how many NVMe drives you can have until you spend lots of money on a server CPU and server motherboard etc.

I hope this helps.
EndlessWaves
1st Mar
"NVMe M.2 storage has two main categories:
PCI Express (PCIe) faster option
Serial ATA (SATA) more affordable but slower option (similar speed to the 2.5" SATA SSD. read/write speeds up to 600MB/s)"

As far as I'm aware NVMe never got implemented over SATA and SATA drives are still using AHCI.
sisqoboy Author
1st Mar
To be exact, there are 2 type of M.2 SSD SATA and NVMe
kingston.com/uni…ssd

The wording is not 100% correct. Thanks for pointing at that. I will edit. (edited)
Swift_Edge
1st Mar
No Samsung 980 Pro love?
H1t_0r_m155
16th Mar
Some have some problems
tomshardware.com/new…ate
Affray
3rd Mar
Can you get consumer-grade SLC drives? It's hard to find an MLC one, let alone an SLC.
The.Fat.Cat
4th Mar
I remember the first SSD I ever purchased, 120GB SLC (Corsair branded but I think Micron manufactured).
Was about £300! lol.

I doubt there are any plants making consumer SLC drives these days, far too expensive compared to TLC/QLC so no one would bother buying them.
TripleM
4th Mar
Hello, I’m very unsure on what sort SSD I would need to upgrade my laptop, I’ve already brought some RAM but I was told I need some SSD for better performance all round. Can someone suggest which of the above listed SSD is best for laptops. Thank you
The.Fat.Cat
4th Mar
It would depend on whether your laptop has an M.2 slot, and whether that M.2 is NVMe capable.
Best value drives in my opinion would be -

SATA 2.5" - Crucial MX500 - amazon.co.uk/Cru…=1-

M.2 NVMe - Kioxia - amazon.co.uk/dp/…401

There are faster drives, but we're talking less than a second more for loading apps/games in most instances and not worth the extra cost unless you really want the best performance possible.
.
There are also slightly cheaper drives, but many do not have DRAM cache, so performance is very slightly worse too, or they may be QLC NAND, which has less endurance and in my experience are less reliable.

If you do have an M.2 slot that is only SATA, then your options are much more limited.
There's the Kingston A400, which I have used and have been pretty happy with, or the WD Blue M.2 SATA drives, which are very reliable.
The Kingston A400 isn't around for a decent price at the moment, but the WD Blue is -
amazon.co.uk/Blu…8-3 (edited)
navinski
1st Mar
Hi
Any recommendation on the ones that have high endurance?
Nice post by the way, appreciate the effort.
fishmaster
1st Mar
Samsung 980 Pro if you don't care about money or if you do then the Kingston NV2 has decent endurance at the expense of performance, it's bottom of the barrel performance. Depends what you're using the drive for and if it's going in a PS5 or a PC. 980 Pro will work in a PS5 fine, NV2 isn't good enough.
ukez
14th Mar
This thread is all over the place
Gort1951
5th Mar
Expansion Cards can be used to increase storage space and Drive count.

Gigabyte Aorus X570 Master
3 x PCIe 4.0 M2, 6 x SATA (The 3rd M2 Slot if used disables 2 x SATA Ports)
PCIe 4.0 x16 (x8 if x8 in use), x8, x4, x1 Expansion Slots

Standard
3 x M2 and 4 x SATA or 2 x M2 and 6 x SATA

Option 1

MB supports x4x4x4x4, GFX Card would be moved to PCIe x4 for that to work
7 x M2, 16 x SATA (with 12 Port SATA Card), GFX Card -performance

Option 2

Add PCIe (x4) M2 Card ebay.co.uk/itm…762
4 x M2 and 4 x SATA or 3 x M2 and 6 x SATA

Add PCIe (x1) 12 Port SATA Card ebay.co.uk/itm…988
4 x M2 and 16 x SATA

SATA Card sizes 2 - 20

Option 3

Expensive M2 Card with built RAID Controller - may as well look into Workstation
MBs that use 4 of x4x4x4x4 - extra 16 x M2.

Most Motherboards are x4 or x6 SATA Ports, my old x58 Motherboard with an Intel i7-920 CPU has 12 x SATA Ports.
Scramz
3rd Mar
Purchased a 990 Pro 1TB from CCL on ebay for £138, then CS 15% cashback and Samsung £30 cash back claim. Come to £87.
davocc
5th Mar
Spotted a new video review of the Kingston NV2 -
The.Fat.Cat
5th Mar
No mention of the fact it's low endurance QLC NAND in that review.
It's not worth buying for any other reason than it's gen 4 for PS5 users as the cheapest option.

Anyone else is better of buying the Kioxia Exceria. Same price, TLC NAND and has DRAM cache.
Solee
3rd Mar
NAND is at an all time low right due due to a huge supply, anyone want to bet there will be a fab factory fire in the coming days ?
Midge
2nd Mar
Thanks @sisqoboy

Good thread and appreciate the effort.
sisqoboy Author
2nd Mar
Many thanks.
The.Fat.Cat
3rd Mar
QLC (Quad-Level Cell) - Low endurance
TLC (Triple-Level Cell) - Low endurance

Might want to edit that as there's a big difference in endurance between them.
Perhaps 'QLC (Quad-Level Cell) - Avoid with a barge pole endurance' would be better?
greentiger
4th Mar
Nah, for the vast majority of consumer use the specified TBW will never be reached.
daedos
1st Mar
Hoping £200 for 4tb soon...
JoeSpur
1st Mar
Might be a while for the good ones…
Kayote
3rd Mar
All of a sudden, with the new innovations, my interest in PC building is back.

Cant wait for PCIe 5 drives to come & down to realistic prices. Imagine DDR3 level speed from your hard drives!
Quartermass
3rd Mar
Sorry to ask but does Gen 3 / Gen 4 compatibility refer to the CPU, mobo, RAM or a combination of all three? (edited)
dfunked
3rd Mar
It's related to the PCI express version. You need gen 4 drives for the PS5.
For PCs they're backwards and forwards compatible, but you obviously don't want to spend more on a gen 4 drive if your device will limit it to gen 3 speeds.
timj13
3rd Mar
great thread, appreciate the effort
sisqoboy Author
7th Mar
Cheers!
Relievo
3rd Mar
Looking for a great 1TB 2230 SSD for my stream deck, i hear good things about the Sabrent brand. (edited)
mikeyhindey
4th Mar
I’m looking for storage for my Xbox series s. Can the nvme drives just slide straight on or do you need to buy these expansion housings that I’ve seen on eBay / Amazon?
L33TL33
8th Mar
Any way of getting a 4TB NVMe OR SSD for the original Xbox One without it costing the same price of a brand new next gen console? (edited)
jaju123
15th Mar
Why would an Xbox one need a nvme drive? Just use a SATA SSD. There's no benefit to nvme there.
adrian.ionete
2nd Mar
I am hoping for 4tb for £200-£270 with Dram. I guess I have to wait another year
JoeSpur
1st Mar
Would it be a good idea to mix different brands/capacities in a RAID setup?
fishmaster
1st Mar
You can mix storage size but here's an example using RAID for speed purposes rather than redundancy >

A RAID 0 setup can be created with disks of differing sizes, but the storage space added to the array by each disk is limited to the size of the smallest disk. For example, if a 120 GB disk is striped together with a 320 GB disk, the size of the array will be 120 GB × 2 = 240 GB.

You can mix brand/storage size but generally you wouldn't do that. At least keep the storage sizes the same if you are mixing brands.
tjitsu
1st Mar
I just want another 2tb for my entry level pc that has a 1tb SSD atm. It has a 6600xt so not exactly expecting to need anything super high performance... But what should I actually be looking to spend? I get so confused now with everyone focusing on what's PS5 compatible that I'm not sure I'm looking at the right things anymore... Help!
bananabandana
2nd Mar
I don't think you'd save much going below the 3000 MB/s cards and imo it's not important to go far above it either. You can just ignore the PS5 compatible stuff, it's the same card for PCs.
happyelf
2nd Mar
Can anyone suggest a good 1tb drive for gaming for gen 3? Would I not get the benefits from getting the WD sn770 with it being gen 4 or is that still a good choice?
sisqoboy Author
3rd Mar
IF you are limited to gen3 I wouldn't pay much more for a gen4. You won't have the faster speed, so there is no point paying more, I think.
haines1997
3rd Mar
Question, I'm running a dell latitude 7480 which I think has a Micron 1100 one of these. (512gb)

Is it worth upgrading to one of these, or is the difference negligible? Thanks in advance.
dfunked
3rd Mar
It depends on what kind of work you do. Just for day to day use it'll be pretty much unnoticeable, but if you do stuff like video editing then it'll start to become more pronounced.

I'd say just leave it unless you need the extra capacity personally.
hoodedvendetta
3rd Mar
I'm unsure, I have a ROG STRIX B550-F GAMING (WI-FI) and I'm sure the spare NVME slot has a built in heatsink, does that mean I have to buy an stick that doesn't have a heatsink?

EDIT: I'm after a fast 2TB stick, but theres so much choice. (edited)
Odo93
3rd Mar
Most heatsinks are just a thin sticker so it shouldn't be a problem having both. It might even help make the contact better.
Kazloav
4th Mar
I still think Nvme is a total unknown to the average PC user, the sheer performance of ''a SSD that uses NVMe and SSD with SATA protocol?. Myself, i've replaced most of my SATA SSD's with NVMe drives, and use the SATA SSD's for storage
The.Fat.Cat
4th Mar
Performance differences between SATA and NVMe drives are ninimal is most ways except sequential write speeds.
It could be argued that you'd be better off builing a PC with a SATA SSD with DRAM cache than an NVMe drive without DRAM, as long as you aren't interested in transferring large files at all.

Hence the reason drives like Crucials MX500's are still very popular.
craiger082
5th Mar
Can someone recommend me a 1TB storage for ps5 with heat sink, best price etc, cheers! ?
bananabandana
5th Mar
Best deal right now are probably the WD ones amazon.co.uk/dp/…h=1 or something similar (I haven't seen them below £100 I think)

Of course, you're paying a premium for a needless heatsink (tomshardware.com/fea…ing) and the fact that you're not going for 2 tb (which are much better value atm). For example, just a while ago you could get the 2 tb Samsung one minus heatsink for effectively £120

hotukdeals.com/dea…140

And if heating ever became a problem you could just add a heatsink separately. The cashback offer lasts another 2 weeks so who knows, maybe that becomes available again.

I'm sure more will pop up if you're patient, just watch ssds here.
Player-1
5th Mar
WD Black 1TB (with Heatsink £90 good deal?
sisqoboy Author
7th Mar
Which one?
omza
14th Mar
I had my eye on the "Integral 256GB USB3.2 Type-C Ultima Pro X Portable External SSD" last time it was posted on HUKD from MyMemory for the same price. Can anyone recommend it? Or is it realistic that portable SSDs will come down in price further in the very near future?
mikewadkins35
14th Mar
Ps5 deals 1tb and above pls
Paul_f1
14th Mar
Netac nv7000 gen 4 nvme gets my vote
Sarden84
14th Mar
i want to see: sisqoboy "best round-up" of prebuilt deals. - were all waiting.. lol

/ill help (edited)
Stephen_Barraclough
14th Mar
cheapest 2tb model that breaks 3k read right ? (edited)
BoroFanUK
15th Mar
Can I use a gen 4 at full speed on the MSI A520M-A PRO MATX AM4 DDR4 mobo? and will it increase general windows tasks? Thanks
PeacePipe
15th Mar
Maximum PCIe speed depends on the CPU installed as the controller is on the chip.
For that board, look at the specs on the manufacturer’s website.

For general Windows usage, PCIe 4.0 will not be noticeably faster, except maybe for the odd scenario.
I wouldn’t pay to upgrade.
EzDeal18
15th Mar
Anythig for steam deck 2230?
sdaniaal
15th Mar
Just get the aya neo 2 instead
toilettrol
16th Mar
Nice one
kiwi12
16th Mar
Do any of these work in a series x or do you have to use the official Microsoft one?