Buying a Solid State Drive (SSD): Everything You Need to Know

PCMag's Executive Editor for hardware explains how to buy an SSD and the key concerns to keep in mind: understanding SSD interfaces, bus types, core memory technologies, and capacities. This SSD buying guide supplements our guides to the Best M.2 SSDs and the Best SSDs for Upgrading Your Laptop.

The Best M.2 Solid-State Drives

The Best SSDs for Upgrading Your Laptop

[LIG]

so I literally JUST bought an SSD on Amazon, click on youtube, and this is the first video that pops up in recommended...🤔

[MarcinMoka]

Thank you! 10 minutes of clearly explained information is going to save me hours of browsing Amazon trying to figure out the difference in what all seemed to be (at the time) near identical drives.

[swapnil]

Not Everyone will Understand how informative this video is, You won't get to learn these kind of things in a Classroom

[fwcolb]

First class guidance! Many thanks. One point is that you can save a lot of time by cloning your existing drive onto the SSD. This transfers the operating system, programs and data. I partitioned my existing HD and shifted the data to drive E. Then I cloned only drive C to the new SSD and later transferred the data.

[Albert-fejx]

Great content. It would have been so much simpler to brand it 'Optane Drive Cache' rather than 'Optane Memory' but no one asked me.

[Layarion]

great vid, love the MLC and TLC was covered because that's what i wanted to know about, and the bonus about Optane was nice.

[samim.]

Really likeable video with likeable Executive Editor, thanks for all the information

[Chetok]

I wish I could have understood it. Not everyone has the technical knowledge you display.

[richardroyster]

Someone that actually explains abbreviations. Brilliant.

[sunwukong]

Every Crucial infos that need to be explain have been explained incl the most overlooked TBW. Great video!!! Thanks!

[TheNiffer]

This was extremely helpful! Even if it is 4 yrs old.

[shakenama]

Just upgraded my HP Elitebook from a 320GB HD to a 250GB the boot time down to 30seconds for a Windows 10 machine. It also increases battery life as the fan isn't working as hard.

[ZombiePete]

Ok, that was exactly what I was looking for, thank you.

[googlewolly]

If you just want to game primarily, get either a crucial or WD 2.5 inch. Pretty much all SSDs (including NVME) have very similar load times. You may save two seconds with an NVME, but it's not worth the premium that you pay. M.2 may be the same price as 2.5-inch SSDs now, so you can go that route, too. Remember that m.2 can be SATA or PCI. Get the SATA; don't waste your money on NVME if you're just gaming. NVME is better suited to video editing and large file transfers

[relaxingnature]

Incomplete video ..only mentioned MLC & TLC ....but there is more types SLC MLC TLC QLC

[Kevinb]

The m.2s are by far the best. Even though my 2015 MacBook Air is old with a slow CPU. It still runs fast thanks to the super fast hard drive.

[mchang]

Why didn't he mention the difference between M.2 SATA and M.2 NVME. you need an NVME supported motherboard if you get an NVME drive. Also the NVME drive has 1 notch in it. The SATA M.2 has 2 notches and is much much much much slower.

[vladimirnirputin]

Main thing is PCI Bus is much faster in compare to SSD Bus. so keep it in mind for m.2

[sunnymango]

As you can see.... it’s not that simple 🤣. I love your humor haha

[FlipLed]

Even now in 2022 very informative and up to date guide.