Best Solid State Drives in the UK

While Samsung's 870 EVO might not be the most technologically advanced solid state drive out there, it still remains one of the best SATA drives as of now, offering you high-ranking performance, reliability, efficiency, and high writing/reading speeds. Let's look at it in detail.

Starting off with its looks, the model has a refined design with a 2.5” 7mm form factor encased in a black anodised aluminium body. This gives it a premium feel over its compatriots produced from cheap plastic. The printed circuit board inside the unit is tiny too, both in models with 250 capacity and with 4TB, contributing to the sleek form factor.

Turning to performance, the 870 EVO outranks its predecessor, 860 EVO, up to 38% in all aspects. It can handle about 600 drive writes, giving it better write endurance, and it also transfers files much faster than the 860, trimming more than 10 seconds, which's a great improvement.

At the core of the drive lies Samsung's own V-NAND 3-bit triple-layer-cell (TLC) flash and the MKX ‘Metis’ SATA 6Gbps controller. Unfortunately, we can't tell you what cores this controller has in particular or any other information like this, because the company didn't share it, but what we can tell you is that it allows it to step out ahead of not only its predecessor but also most of it close price competition.

What's no less important is that this drive is launched in five capacity sizes. Many users compare the 870 EVO to the Samsung 980 but the latter doesn't include 4TB. So, if you're in search of a really capacious drive to store all of your games, the 870 would suit you better.

Also of note is the security factor. Samsung lives up to the expectations of its consumers, providing them with the option to use the TCG Opal 2.0-compliant AES 256-bit full disk encryption. Thanks to this, you can store on it even some sensitive data without worrying that it might land in the wrong hands.

Ask any experienced computer tech or IT professional about which SSD brand is at the very top of the heap, and without deviation, you'll get the same answer from everyone. Samsung's EVO line of SSDs are renowned for their high performance and ultra-durability, and they stand at the top of the SSD mountain all alone. That is why no list of the best SSDs would be complete without having the Samsung 870 EVO 1TB VNAND Solid State Drive in the first place. This model is one of the flagship SSDs on the market today, with performance that simply can't be matched.

Going beyond all of the hype, a quick look at this model reveals that it is an easy-to-use and very fast SSD with plenty of storage, thanks to its capacity of 1 TB. Installing this drive is guaranteed to increase the performance of your computer, and the installation speed of Windows and applications on your system will increase by several times. This is accomplished thanks to the drive maximising the throughput of the SATA interface with read speeds of up to 560 MB/s and write speeds of up to 530 MB/s, which basically makes this drive the fastest that you'll be able to accomplish through SATA. You will also find these speeds to be well above many of its competitors, so if performance is your number one issue, this is the drive to get.

For the first time in a while, the Crucial brand is closing on the industry leaders, the Samsung SSD, not overcoming them yet but after the years of producing drives for lower tiers, their MX500 solid-state drive wins in the price department against EVO 850, for example, so much that the differences in performance can be overlooked as not too substantial.

This MX500 is equipped with a 64-layer TLC 3D NAND which has elevated the performance a healthy 30% compared to the 32-layer 3D NAND; the contrast with the planar NAND is even more stark. This drive is faster and more durable, with 360 TB endurance for a 1 TB drive and 700 TB for a 2 TB one. While EVO 860 has 600 TB for the 1 TB drive, winning hands down, the EVO 850 only offers 150 TB there. That's something to consider if you are looking for an SSD to use under some load but aren't willing to cough up more than £100 for 1 TB.

The Crucial SSD offers 560 MB/s sequential reading and 510 MB/s writing speed. Both numbers are more or less average for the class. At the same time, the model shows a top performance in random reading, which is a good thing.

Crucial sells their MX500 solid-state drive in four capacities: 250 GB, 500 GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB. The model is not the cheapest on the SATA market but is cheaper than models from more famous brands that offer near-similar performance.

The SanDisk Ultra 3D NAND is a SATA 2.5-inch internal SSD model and it is one of the few combination products that will work well with both desktop PCs and laptops that are used on a daily basis.

First of all, let’s talk speed. The read and write rates of this particular SSD are a bit higher than those of regular models, reaching 560 MB/s for reading and 530 MB/s for writing. That said, the actual values can slightly differ from the ones stated by the manufacturer but not too much, so it won’t be that huge of an issue in the long run. With the drive capable of operating at various reading and writing rates, you can speed up the loading of various applications like games and Ultra HD content as well as reducing the loading speed of your operating system quite a bit (in case you install the OS on the SSD).

Connection-wise, the drive can be placed into any SATA 2.5-inch holder (7-mm data port), which makes it compatible with Windows, Linux, and macOS-based systems. The model at hand is capped at 1 TB, however, 2 TB, 4 TB, 250 GB, as well as 500 GB options are available too, so you can definitely find the one that suits you and your system.

The WD Blue is one of the most reliable SSD devices, with its Mean Time To Failure (MTTF) bordering on 1.75 million hours. That's almost 200 years of operation, can you imagine that? Of course, the actual lifespan depends more on the drive use and, therefore, such parameters as TBW (Terabytes Written) and DWPD (Drive Writes Per Day) but the sheer number of 200 years is still impressive.

As of 2016, Western Digital (shortened to WD) is a parent company of SanDisk, which means they have similar, if not the same, technologies used in their products. Particularly in this solid state drive, WD has implemented the 3D NAND TLC flash created for them by SanDisk. The drive has 200 TBW and approximately 0.22 DWPD for 500 GB of capacity, which is not something we'd consider too over-the-top but is really good for the price and the 5-year warranty. The price is, by the way, exceptionally moderate, low even, all things considered.

Basically, at a price below £90 for a 500 GB SSD, you get the near-top reading and writing speed SATA interface can offer: 560 MB/s and 530 MB/s respectively. Some testers claim the drive even exceeds them, if only slightly to the point of being unnoticeable during the actual use.