The AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) command protocol was designed for much slower media (i.e., spinning magnetic disks). AHCI is inefficient with modern SSDs, so a new standard was developed: NVMHCI (Non-Volatile Memory Host Controller Interface). Combine NVMHCI with a fast PCIe interface, and you have NVMe, Non-Volatile Memory Express. It's a much-improved interface developed around the needs of flash memory rather than spinning disks. What's NVMe performance like in the real world? SATA is slowest: SATA isn't as fast as an M.2 PCIe or a PCIe add-in card, but the majority of desktops and many laptops support 2.5-inch SATA drives, and many doing typical mainstream tasks users won't notice the difference between a good recent SATA drive and a faster PCIe model. The newest budget NVMe SSDs have undercut the pricing of mainstream drives on the slower SATA interface (which was originally designed for hard drives), but we shouldn't expect to see the end of SATA SSDs any time soon.

Samsung 970 EVO Plus SSD 2TB NVMe M.2 Internal Solid State Samsung 970 EVO Plus SSD 2TB NVMe M.2 Internal Solid State

Many of today's premium laptops can make use of PCI Express M.2 drives. (Important: Some, like the latest Apple MacBooks, have PCI Express drives soldered, in not-upgradable fashion, to the laptop's mainboard, so "PCI Express SSD" doesn't necessarily imply "removable M.2 SSD module.") As mentioned, almost all new desktop motherboards have M.2 slots, most of which support PCI Express drives.Right now, PCIe 4.0 is the go-to PCIe generation. That's because it offers a high speed at a reasonable cost. The newest SSDs on the market offer PCIe 5.0 capability, which doubles the theoretical bandwidth an SSD can run at. However, these are few and far between and awfully expensive. Also the first drives of any PCIe generation tend to end up much slower than what that generation is truly capable of. The T700 is for gamers, creatives, and professionals seeking the ultimate in solid-state drive performance that today only a Gen 5 SSD offers. But unless your desktop is a recent, high-performance model that supports this standard, being able to run a PCI Express 5.0 SSD at peak speeds requires a considerable additional investment. You must buy a recent desktop that supports SSDs built on the PCIe 5.0 standard, upgrade an existing recent rig, or build one from scratch. By making such an investment and having the T700 serve as its brains, though, you're future-proofing your entire setup. We've already mentioned one you know—SSD. It stands for "solid-state drive," a storage drive made up of flash memory in modules called NANDs and governed by a controller chip. (The name NAND comes from a type of logic gate in Boolean algebra; we'll try to explain terms as we go along, but if you need a refresher in SSD lingo see our rundown of 20 terms you need to know.) Unfortunately, SSD shopping has been complicated in recent years by the emergence of three new technologies: M.2, PCI Express (abbreviated PCIe), and NVMe. All three are centered around making SSDs smaller or faster. They also make buying a solid-state drive more challenging than ever.

M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs - M.2 PCIe 4.0 Gen 4 x4 NVMe SSD Solid M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs - M.2 PCIe 4.0 Gen 4 x4 NVMe SSD Solid

The XS70 is priced well for a high-performance 2TB SSD, but there's fierce competition from other third-party SSD makers in this price range.The Silicon Power XS70 2TB SSD is a 2280 (80mm length) M.2 PCIe NVMe drive. It combines Micron 176-Layer TLC NAND with a Phison PS5018-E18 controller and 2GB of DDR4 RAM. That combination is common to many of the best SSDs, including the highly regarded Seagate FireCuda 530 and Kingston KC3000. The Samsung SSD 990 Pro, the company's flagship PCI Express 4.0 NVMe internal solid-state drive, has a hard act to follow in the Editors' Choice-winning SSD 980 Pro, but for the most part it makes a great product even better. This power-efficient drive gets high marks for raw speed, everyday application performance, a strong software suite, and hardware-based encryption. The heatsink-equipped version of this drive performed slightly better than the non-heatsink version (which we tested using our testbed's motherboard's heatsink) in most of our benchmarks. It doesn't quite merit the 980 Pro's Editors' Choice award, because other recent internal SSDs have outpaced it in our gaming benchmarks, but its overall capability makes this Samsung a versatile drive well-suited for creative tasks. Who It's ForThe point is, there's not much this Lexar drive can't do, and for a good price. If you have a spare Gen4 slot in your machine, and you are desperate for more game storage space, I highly recommend you look to the Lexar NM790 to fill that slot. The ADATA XPG Spectrix S40 is an unapologetically bright RGB-lit PCIe 3.0 NVMe M.2 SSD that blings up your PC. Its 4K read and write speeds should keep most gamers happy, too. The ADATA XPG Spectrix S40G carries some respectable wins out of its duel with other competing drives we've tested, and it looked great doing it.