SSD tốt nhất năm 2021: Từ SATA ngân sách đến Blazing-Fast NVMe

When we first took a look at the Viper VPR100, we were a bit concerned about its performance. Not only was it rated lower than most Phison E12-based SSDs, but the company states it will perform slower under various RGB settings. But, when we ran it through its paces with various lighting settings, the drive displayed no such issue with our ASRock X570 Taichi testbed. In fact, it even outperformed the MyDigitalSSD BPX Pro at times with the default lighting enabled, beating its rated specs.

The integrated heatshield not only adds quite a bit to the aesthetics of the Viper VPR100, but it also keeps the SSD cool under any workload. The LED’s didn’t add any significant heat output, either. So, no matter what your style is, you won’t have to sweat over your choice. If you’re building an all-RGB rig or just a new gaming system that you want to also add a bit of color to, the Viper VPR100 will definitely light things up.

Read: Patriot Viper VPR100 Review

Sabrent’s 8TB Rocket Q slots in as the industry’s highest-capacity M.2 NVMe SSD. The pint-sized monster is obviously best suited for the data hoarder on the go, but at $1,500, it’ll set you back about as much as a decent gaming laptop. The drive doesn’t just push capacity to the highest we’ve seen with a slim M.2 SSD; it also impresses with great performance and efficiency, thanks to the new Phison E12S controller and 96-Layer QLC flash.

QLC flash does have its downfalls, like lower endurance and slower write performance after the SLC write cache gets filled up during large file transfers, but the Phison E12S controller helps push the Rocket Q to the fastest performance we’ve seen from a QLC drive.

Read: Sabrent Rocket Q Review

Samsung’s 980 is an inexpensive M.2 SSD that lacks DRAM, but it packs the company’s fastest flash yet. While shackled down by a PCIe 3.0 x4 interface, Samsung’s 980 may not be as fast as the Gen4 speed spewing monster that is the 980 Pro, but it is still a very responsive DRAM-less M.2 NVMe SSD thanks to its optimized design. Without DRAM, the SSD performs efficiently, keeps pace with many of the best PCIe Gen3 SSDs, and still boasts respectable endurance ratings. Sustained write performance may not be as strong as the WD Blue SN550’s, but with a cache that is over 13x larger, Samsung’s 980 shouldn’t slow down to slower than rated speeds often and should offer a more responsive user experience for the majority of its life.

Read: Samsung 980 Review 

With a single-sided form factor, the Blue drive is also compact and slim for any M.2 2280 application. And, with a low average and well-regulated maximum power consumption, the WD Blue SN550 will pair nicely with an external NVMe adaptor, too, if you’re looking for something on the go. The SN550 delivers a responsive experience and is a quality SSD backed by thousands of validation tests. With a five-year warranty and plenty of endurance, the Blue SN550 is well worth considering – even if low cost isn’t your main priority.

WD’s Blue SN550 is one of the most consistent-performing low-cost NVMe SSDs available. Even though it has a small SLC write cache, its slowest performance will still remain acceptable when you hammer it with heavy writes. In our testing of the 1TB model, it even responds faster to applications and most consumer workloads than the WD Black SN750, including loading up your favorite games.

Read: WD Blue SN550 Review 

SATA Drives

You can get a SATA drive in the M.2 form factor, but most SATA drives are 2.5-inch models, which allows them to drop into the same bays that hold laptop hard drives. SATA drives are the cheapest and still the most popular.

Samsung continues to show us that it has the best SATA SSDs on the market. Following in the footsteps of its predecessor with top-ranking performance, great power efficiency, and all the features you could want out of SATA SSD, the 870 EVO dominates. While not as endurant as the PRO models, the 870 EVO comes with enough endurance for most users. Whether you’re a gamer or a prosumer, with high capacities of up to 4TB available, there’s a capacity for almost any need. You don’t need to look farther for a better SATA SSD – this is your best pick.

Read: Samsung 870 EVO Review

If you don’t want to dish out big bucks on something in the NVMe flavor but still want strong SATA performance, the MX500 is a great choice. As an alternative to the Samsung 860 EVO, it offers similar performance and has a strong history of reliability. Usually priced to sell, the MX500 is a top value at any capacity you need.

Read: Crucial MX500 Review

Restrained by the SATA interface, but still need the absolute highest endurance and performance you can get? As the pinnacle of SATA performance inside and out, Samsung’s 860 PRO is the SSD to buy.

Like the Samsung 970 PRO, the 860 PRO uses Samsung’s 64L MLC V-NAND, which helps propel it to the top of the charts in our rounds of benchmarking and makes for some incredible endurance figures. You can get capacities up to 4TB, and endurance figures can be as high as 4,800 TBW. But with prices that are triple that of your typical mainstream SATA SSD, the 860 PRO is mainly for businesses with deep pockets.

Read: Samsung 860 Pro Review

Add-in Card SSDs

These drives are add-on cards, just like graphics cards or sound cards, so they only work with desktops with a spare PCIe 3.0 x4, x8, or x16 slot. However, because they are larger than other form factors, they have room for more chips and better cooling, making them the fastest drives around.

When looking for the best SSD, and we mean the absolute best and money is no object, look no further than Intel’s Optane SSD 905P. Because this SSD features Intel’s latest 3D XPoint memory, it breaks free from many of NAND’s drawbacks and offers the best responsiveness out of any storage device we have tested to date. And, those needing a plethora of endurance will find the 905P to be a device sent from the gods. With its endurance rating of over 17 petabytes at the 960GB capacity or over 27PBW at the 1.5TB capacity, you’ll be sure to upgrade it years before it ever wears out. Need the best? Don’t look at the rest; get the Intel Optane SSD 905P. Unfortunately, Intel has decided to end its Optane lineup for desktop PCs, so we won’t see new models in the future and stock will slowly dwindle on the existing models. That means you’ll need to buy one today if you plan on going the Optane route.

Read: Intel Optane SSD 905P Review

WD’s Black AN1500 is a unique NVMe SSD that combines two of the company’s SN730 NVMe SSDs and pairs them into a RAID 0 with an enterprise-grade RAID controller. The drive delivers the speed of the PCIe Gen4 interface to systems that only support PCIe Gen3.

The drive delivers up to 6.4/4.1 GBps in sequential read/write performance, providing PCIe Gen4-like performance over its PCIe 3.0 X8 interface-but for systems that don’t support PCIe Gen4. However, while the drive offers up incredible performance, it consumes a lot of power and is rather pricey. Fortunately, endurance ratings don’t restrict its warranty coverage, and there is, of course, that well-implemented RGB lighting.

Read: WD Black AN1500 Review 

There aren’t many options for AICs in the consumer market as the M.2 form factor has become so popular. At a capacity of 480GB and a nearly absurd price of about $1/GB, the Intel Optane SSD 900P is your top-performing option. Powered by a custom Intel NVMe controller and their 3D XPoint memory, the 900P is one of the fastest performing SSDs on the market. Unlike the 905P, it comes in an AIC form factor at the 480GB capacity, not just U.2. But while its random performance is better than anything else we’ve seen before, its sequential performance is rather underwhelming when compared to some of the fastest NAND-based SSDs. Its power consumption is also much higher than any competitor. Unfortunately, Intel has decided to end its Optane lineup for desktop PCs, so we won’t see new models in the future and stock will slowly dwindle on the existing models. That means you’ll need to buy one today if you plan on going the Optane route.

Read: Intel Optane SSD 900P Review

Best SSDs for Chia Farming

We’re working on in-depth SSD testing to create a longer dedicated list of the Best SSDs for plotting Chia coins, but these are the two top picks in both the premium and value categories. You can also reference our How to Farm Chia Coin guide for more details.

Chia plotting, which is the process of creating the actual farmable plot, takes a lot of resources before low-resource farming can happen. Each K32 plot needs roughly 239GiB of high-speed storage capacity for the process before you end up with a tidied-up 101GiB plot. With the workloads eating through up to 1.8TiB of SSD endurance per plot over six to twelve hours (speed varies widely), plotting requires high endurance, high capacity, and incredible speed to pull off multiple concurrent plots at once for optimal efficiency.

The software automatically moves the finished plot from the SSD to an HDD for bulk storage. You don’t have to worry much about HDD endurance for these tasks; they are normally rated for up to 150-300TB of writes per year. However, their slow access times aren’t suitable for plotting.

SSDs, with their much faster access times, make great candidates for speeding up your plotting process. However, don’t get fooled into thinking that just any old SSD will speed up your plotting. That’s far from reality; Chia plotting is a consumer SSD killer.

What is the best SSD for Chia? Figuring that out can be complicated. Because most consumer SSDs have rather limited endurance ratings than enterprise parts, it’s hard to recommend drives designed specifically for the consumer market. Ideally, you want high endurance enterprise-grade NVMe or SAS SSDs for the task. Many of these types of used SSDs are for sale on eBay for much cheaper than new, but we know that many of us don’t have the means to purchase or configure such a setup, or only plan to do a few plots that don’t require such high-performance accommodations. Not to mention, second-hand enterprise SSDs are becoming scarce now that more people are getting into Chia mining.

But if you are left looking at consumer SSDs, you’re going to want to get something with a good balance of specs and value. Look at these SSDs as disposable wear items for this specific task, like a pair of tires on a race car. Ideally, you want fast performance for plotting and plenty of write endurance since both are huge pieces of the puzzle due to the massive write burden per plot. You will also want a high-capacity model to enable concurrent plotting too.

You can only plot roughly three to possibly four plots per 1TB of storage capacity, and if you have a setup with, say, a Ryzen 9 5900X or better paired with a lot of RAM, even 1TB drives can become a big bottleneck. As such, plan to purchase a minimum of 239 GiB of capacity for every two CPU cores that you plan to mine with.

Chia plotting is taxing on storage, eating away at up to 1.8TiB of writes per plot and requiring roughly 239GiB of free space per plot you make. The higher the capacity and higher the write performance, the better and you’re not going to want a QLC SSD at all. For this task, we recommend the WD_Black SN750 as our best value pick. Capable of awesome sustained write performance and available in capacities of up to 4TB, this PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe SSD that is perfect for the task. While it isn’t the fastest to respond in some applications, it is still a solid pick for those looking for a high-capacity SSD to constantly write all your Chia plots to. Not only is it fast at writing, but it is also a solid value at a lower cost than Samsung’s 970 EVO Plus, which slots in as our premium recommendation.

Read: WD Black SN750 SSD Review

Depending on the capacity, the time of purchase, region, or if it’s just on sale, the Samsung 970 EVO Plus is a great alternative consideration for your Chia Plotting needs. Packing Samsung’s 92L TLC and a high-performance 8-channel penta-core NVMe controller, the 970 EVO Plus is a fast-running, PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD capable of high sustained write speeds, even higher than the WD Black_SN750. While the new Samsung 980 may be more tempting at its lower cost, we recommend you dish out a few more dollars for the older 970 EVO Plus for its much higher sustained write performance.

Read: Samsung 970 EVO Plus SSD Review

Finding Discounts on the Best SSDs

Whether you’re shopping for one of the best SSDs or one that didn’t quite make our list, you may find savings by checking out the latest Crucial promo codes, Newegg promo codes, Amazon promo codes, Corsair coupon codes, Samsung promo codes or Micro Center coupons.