Native support for drive-encryption acceleration: This feature is primarily important for businesses with specific data-privacy requirements, and we didn’t disqualify SSDs that didn’t include it, but it’s a nice bonus for the privacy-minded.
They should also offer software that can handle firmware updates and show you detailed information about the drive’s status and monitor its health.
Although 1 TB drives usually offer better performance and cost a little less per gigabyte than 500 GB drives, they’re still overkill for most people unless you’re routinely installing lots of huge games at once or working with large photo and video files. Capacity at or above 500 GB: For most people, 500 GB offers the best mix of value, capacity, and speed.
We checked reviews to make sure that the drives hit their advertised performance figures and that they would continue to feel speedy over time. Performance: Speed is the main reason to buy an SSD, after all.A good price: More-expensive SSDs are often better SSDs, but you shouldn’t overpay to get extra performance or other features you likely wouldn’t notice or use.(These drives are relatively rare, and none of our picks come in an mSATA variety, but right now we’d recommend the Kingston KC600 to people who need one.) If you have a laptop made between approximately 20 and it doesn’t contain a 2.5-inch hard drive, you may need an mSATA drive. mSATA SSDs look a bit like shorter, wider M.2 drives.M.2 SATA SSDs used to be good budget options for any computer with an M.2 slot, but modern NVMe drives cost roughly the same and perform much better-use an M.2 SATA SSD only if you have to.
SATA (which refers to both the connector type and the interface protocol, in this case) is older and slower than NVMe, but SATA SSDs are still noticeably faster than SATA hard drives, and they’re a worthwhile upgrade for most computers built after 2011 or 2012.