The appearance of the solid-state drive on the scene was a big moment for our home PCs.
Compared with the spinning hard drives that preceded them, they were smaller, faster, less prone to mechanical failure and less likely to be damaged from being thrown around - a big improvement for laptops and even portable media players. An SSD can be thought of as a big, fast memory card with the data held in a series of microchips rather than on rotating platters.
They essentially fixed PCs, as the transfer rate of data from a hard drive was low, and the increased needs of our computers left the drive as a weak link that was slowing it down. The only problem with SSDs when they first launched was that they were expensive, but even that has been left behind thanks to modern economies of scale and new manufacturing methods.
The SSDs you’ll use at home come in two forms. There are external models, which connect to a port on your computer and provide expanded storage, and there are internal ones, which you’ll probably only come across if you’re building your own PC or performing an at-home upgrade. Many PCs, even laptops, have a spare slot in them that can be utilised to increase the storage space inside your computer, while external drives are convenient ways to provide even more and to move it between machines.
When choosing an SSD, you’ll first need to know a little bit about the computer you’ll be using it with. If you’re opening up the case and installing one internally, you’ll need to know if it uses an M.2 or SATA connection. Then you should find out how fast that connection is, so you don’t waste money on something that won’t perform to the best of its ability.
External drives are slightly easier as they almost all connect through some sort of USB connection, and there are adapters available if you don’t have the right cable to hand. If you’re lucky enough to have a computer, such as a MacBook, that supports the Thunderbolt protocol (which confusingly uses exactly the same socket as faster types of USB) then look out for a drive that can use it.
Apart from that, all you need to do is decide how much space you want. Here are some of the best choices for both internal and external drives.
Best SSDs at a glance:
Find out more below
SanDisk Desk Drive
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Best for: huge, fast storage
Ideal for photographers and videographers, this is the SSD equivalent of a huge external hard drive. It packs as much as 8TB of storage into a space just 10cm square, though as it requires a separate power supply alongside the data connection to your computer, it’s not as portable as some others on this list.
Still, what you’re paying for here is cavernous storage and the ability to transfer data fast, two things it excels at, with its 10Gbps USB 3.2 connection zipping large files to and fro.
Buy now £663.00, Amazon
Crucial X9
Best for: something cheap and portable
Barely larger than a USB thumb drive, the Crucial X9 is available in capacities of up to 4TB, is perfectly sized to slip into a laptop bag, and comes with a degree of drop protection. It connects via a single USB-C connector, using USB 3.2, and while it can’t keep up with something like the Desk Drive it will outpace a flash drive or spinning hard drive and is cheaper per terabyte than many other options.
Crucial’s X series contains cheaper and more feature-rich options, but this one occupies a nice sweet spot that will make it attractive to all kinds of users.
Buy now £75.00, Amazon
Samsung T7 Touch
Best for: added security
All our laptops these days come with fingerprint readers, face scanners, or at the very least a complex password including your inside leg measurement and your mother’s pet’s maiden name: so why not apply the same security to your data?
Should someone get hold of this drive from Samsung, they won’t be able to read what’s on it without supplying an authorised fingerprint, which will come as a relief to carriers of confidential accounts, identification data, or world domination plans that they don't want to fall into the wrong hands.
There’s a password option too, and it comes with a USB 3.2 Type-C connection for fast transfers.
Buy now £212.00, Amazon
LaCie Rugged SSD Pro
Best for: outdoor professionals
This pro-spec drive comes with an NVMe SSD inside (the kind you’d usually find inside a PC) and uses a speedy Thunderbolt 3 connection to really ramp up its transfer rates. Perfect for anyone shooting video in the wilds, it won’t mind too much if you drop it three metres or crush it under a two-ton car (or possibly an elephant, though the manufacturer isn’t totally clear on this).
The IP67 ingress protection keeps out the dust and water too and it comes with a five-year protection plan including Seagate’s Rescue Data Recovery Services to recover important data if the drive’s rugged characteristics are tested.
Buy now £246.00, Amazon
Samsung 990 PRO
Best for: inside your PC
Modern internal SSDs come in the tiny M.2 form factor that’s a little larger than a stick of chewing gum, much smaller than the spinning hard drives of old and much faster too. The 2TB Samsung 990 Pro might be the only drive your home-made PC needs and makes a great upgrade from something smaller and slower.
Check if your PC’s motherboard can handle it though - it needs to hit the PCIe 4.0 spec to unlock the drive’s immense 6,900 MB/s write speed. It’s perfect for gaming and video editing, but a large, fast drive like this will also make your PC feel more responsive to whatever you’re doing with it.
Buy now £183.00, Amazon
PNY XLR8 SSD Gaming Kit
Best for: PlayStation 5
Put an SSD in a confined space and ask it to transfer lots of data very quickly, and it will get hot. If it gets too hot, it will slow down, so this drive - designed to fit in the tight constraints of Sony’s PlayStation game console - comes with an extruded aluminium heatsink to vent excess heat and keep loading times down.
It uses a standard M.2 shape and NVMe connection, so you can use it in a PC as well, but there are cheaper options out there if that’s your plan.
Buy now £190.00, Amazon
Crucial T705
Best for: pure speed
This immensely fast M.2 drive uses the latest PCIe 5.0 interface to boost its read speed to a massive 13,600MB/s. You’ll pay for the privilege of having one of the fastest SSDs out there, though, and will require a cutting-edge motherboard that supports the technology.
It comes with a heatsink to help prevent thermal throttling, offers up to 4TB of storage capacity and is ideal for high-speed gaming and data-heavy AI applications. It’s extremely expensive though, and unless you’re going to make the most of its fearsome speed you may be just as happy with a slower (and cheaper) PCIe 4.0 model.
Buy now £126.22, Amazon
Samsung 870 EVO
Best for: upgrading an older PC
This drive uses the same SATA connection as the storage in older PCs and is about the same size as a laptop hard drive, which makes it the perfect upgrade for an older machine that’s starting to show its age.
Replace the groaning old drive with one of these, and you’ll slash startup times as well as improve reliability and responsiveness. Replacing a hard drive with an SSD is one of the best upgrades you can make to eke a few more years out of an older machine, and while its read speed of 600 MB/s is dwarfed by the more up-to-date M.2 models, you’ll instantly notice the difference.
Buy now £94.00, Amazon
Verdict
All SSDs seem fast if you're used to hard drives or USB flash sticks, and the best SSDs are fast and dependable data dumps that can suck up a lot of information very quickly and not take up too much space.
A drive such as the SanDisk Desk Drive marries huge capacity with an enormous data transfer rate, and while other drives may be more portable, having something that can reliably deliver the data you need at high speed can be well worth the purchase.
