TOP 5 2.5” SSD drives for laptops

Patriot Memory Burst Elite is one of the cheapest 2.5” SSDs on the market and supports SATA 3 connections. The manufacturer positions it as an affordable and reliable system drive in a PC or laptop that does not need to be overwritten daily 300 - 500 GB of data. Naturally, the cost of the device leaves its mark on the characteristics, so the buyer will have to put up with some nuances in the work.

For example, drives use a single memory chip, although in most devices of this size, manufacturers prefer to use two flash memory chips. It is also not entirely clear what type of memory we are talking about. On the official website, the manufacturer does not provide direct information about this, in the reviews you can find information about both TLC and simpler QLC memory, which can be confusing.

The controller is a popular 4-channel Silicon Motion SM2259XT chip in the low-cost sector, which supports SLC caching technology, can work with both types of memory (TLC and QLC), but does not support DRAM buffering. Instead, the manufacturer allocated almost a quarter (!) of the total drive capacity for dynamic SLC cache. This is a very decent meal. This is due to the fact that after the cache is filled, the operational speed of the device drops by almost 10 times, equaling with conventional HDDs.

Ever since the Kingston A400 hit the market in 2017, it hasn't dropped out of the sales charts for a single day. Even when the prices of fast M.2 SSDs dropped noticeably. The reason for the success was the record low cost per gigabyte and the constant improvement of the device. When the A400 first went on sale, it was a bufferless solid-state based on TLC 3D NAND memory.

In 2023, it uses four-bit memory, a small DRAM buffer appeared, and the Phison PS3111-S11 controller controls all this goodness, which, unlike the old Marvell controllers, connects to MacOS-based PCs and laptops without any problems. The sequential read and write speeds for large files are standard for SATA 3 SSDs - 500 and 450 MB / s, respectively. The manufacturer does not indicate the processing speed of small 4K files. Based on benchmark measurements, we got a figure in the region of 90 thousand IOPS, like the Kingston A400 model with a volume of 480 GB.

Despite the presence of a buffer, its volume is only 32 MB, and about 6% of the total volume is allocated for the SLC mode, therefore, when writing a very large amount of data at a time, the virtual array overflows over time and the write speed drops several times to level 80 – 100 Mb/s. All things considered, this model will be an excellent choice for undemanding users who want to get the basic benefits of moving from an HDD to an SSD.

GOODRAM CX400 GEN.2 is an affordable but powerful 1000 GB SSD, which according to the manufacturer is an excellent option for the role of a system drive in older laptops, ultrabooks, office PCs and inexpensive gaming systems that lack a more modern M.2 slot and the NVMe protocol is not supported. In its production, the Polish manufacturer used 64-layer TLC 3D NAND memory and a Phison PS3111-S11 dual-channel controller. It is equipped with 32MB of buffer memory, supports ECC error correction using LDPC, which improves the endurance of TLC memory.

Since this is the second generation of the drive, you need to start with what has changed in it. The manufacturer claims read and write speeds of 550 and 500 MB/s. The first version had 550 and 490 MB/s respectively. The IOPS indicators have changed a little, but this difference does not affect the overall picture. The design of the front panel has changed slightly. However, much more important is the work on the optimization of the controller and memory, which allowed the drive to more confidently maintain the passport speed and not fall as low when the cache is full, as the CX400 did.

In addition, the manufacturer has added support for Optimum proprietary software, with which the user can clone data, test performance, assess the degree of disk wear and update the firmware. In fact, this is a full-fledged hub for optimizing and tuning the SSD, allowing you to extend its service life. In general, GOODRAM did a good job of fixing the bugs and released a rather interesting option for upgrading an old laptop or HDD in a gaming PC.

The Crucial MX500 is an affordable yet powerful 1000GB SSD built around Micron's second generation of 64-layer TLC 3D NAND memory. It is the older brother of another popular Crucial BX500 drive with a more advanced version of the Silicon Motion SM2258 control controller. Compared to the younger SM2258XT, it works more efficiently with multi-layer flash memory and SLC caching algorithms.

Passport data MX500 is almost the same as that of his brother Crucial BX500. Both have linear write and read speeds that slightly exceed 500 MB / s, and the speed when copying small-caliber files is 90 and 95 thousand IOPS for writing and reading, which is an excellent indicator. In synthetic tests, the MX500 stays peppy and performs as advertised in most cases. At the same time, it expectedly sags in speed when the cache is filled. Like most low-cost SSD drives, writing large amounts of data is not their forte.

In general, due to the need for constant savings and the limitations of the SATA 3 bus, most 2.5 ”SSDs have similar problems. Against their background, the Crucial MX500 stands out in that it works stably and predictably, does not mow and does not suffer from strong speed drops. At the same time, it has an official proprietary five-year warranty and a 360 TB write resource, which allows you to write about 80 GB of data to the device daily for more than 10 years. Actually, that is why even after 5 years since the release of the MX500 remains one of the most popular drives in its class.

The Samsung 870 EVO drive is the latest SATA 3 drive in the EVO series that Korean engineers have really messed around with. Despite belonging to the entry level, it uses not the usual 64-layer, but an advanced 128-layer TLC 3D V-NAND memory of its own production, which has an increased wear life. And to control the device, a modified controller of its own production MKX Metis was used, which distinguishes this drive from other inexpensive SSDs.

Thanks to these factors, the Samsung 870 EVO drive easily passes any stress tests, and the speedometer in the CrystalDiskMark conditional benchmark practically does not fall below the declared 530/560 MB/s. In addition, the drive uses Turbo Write combined caching technology, which, when the buffer is full, can add several gigabytes of dynamically allocated TLC memory to 1 GB of a fixed buffer. Thanks to this, the disk is much more difficult to fill with large files, which will reduce the speed from the conditional 500 MB / s to 100 MB / s. Separately, it should be noted the high speed of unbuffered random reading, which in many cases smooths out the difference between drives with SATA 3 and M.2 connections.

The contrast is especially striking with the not entirely successful predecessor 860 EVO, which worked more slowly, was more capricious and could not boast of the same reliability. Compared to it, the 870 EVO's guaranteed write capacity has doubled and now stands at 600 TB. The total time between failures is declared at 1.5 million hours, and the official warranty from the manufacturer is not 3, but 5 years. All this makes the Samsung 870 EVO perhaps the most interesting option in cases where it is not possible to use faster and more modern NVMe SSDs. True, the cost of the device in some cases is twice the cost of low-cost SATA 3 SSDs from Crucial, Kingston, Patriot and other manufacturers.