Best SSD for PC gaming 2025: shorter loading times, smoother streaming
Our battle-tested recommendations for all major categories.
SSD prices are finally getting back to normal as of late 2025, and it's now possible to get some extremely fast or capacious drives for a very reasonable amount of money - including a wider range of PCIe 5.0 examples. If you're building a new PC or upgrading an old one, it's a great time to check out the best options available to maximise your game and media storage space and cut load times significantly.
In this article, we've rounded up the best SSDs for gaming based on our extensive testing. Whether you're looking for a cheap, high-capacity budget drive for media storage or a blazing-fast option for minimising game load times, we've got a recommendation or two for you here. Most people will be looking for an NVMe SSD, where our top pick is the WD Black SN7100, but you can read all of our recommendations below.
- Best value NVMe SSD overall: WD Black SN7100
- Best PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD: WD Black SN850x
- Best cheap PCIe 4.0 SSD: Lexar NM790
- Best value PCIe 5.0 SSD: Samsung 9100 Pro
- Fastest PCIe 5.0 SSD: Crucial T710
- Best cheap PCIe 5.0 SSD: Kioxia Exceria Plus G4
- Best SATA SSD: Samsung 870 Qvo
- Best portable SSD: Crucial X9 Pro
- Best SSD enclosure: Dockcase
- Best USB flash drive: PNY Pro Elite V3
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Best value NVMe SSD overall: WD Black SN7100
The WD Black SN7100 is the company's most affordable high-end gaming SSD, with read and write speeds that effectively max out the PCIe 4.0 interface and random performance that gets close to flagship-grade drives - with the 1TB and 2TB models outperforming the 500GB and 4TB models slightly in this regard.
Real-world testing of the 218-layer TLC drive produced excellent results, while the energy efficiency of the WD Polaris 3 controller also impressed. That makes the SN7100 a good candidate for use in mobile devices, like laptops and PC gaming handhelds that can accept a full-sized (2280) SSD, and means that you don't need to worry about using a heatsink. You also get a five-year warranty and reasonable endurance figures, up to 2400TBW on the largest-capacity 4TB model.
As we've come to expect from other budget NVMe drives, expensive DRAM is eschewed for cheaper (but still effective) HMB technology. This is fine for gaming and general use, but we'd recommend one of the more expensive drives with DRAM caches for workloads like video capture where you'd need to write data at high speeds for extended periods. For everything else though, the WD SN7100 excels.
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Best PCIe 4.0 SSD: WD Black SN850x
The WD Black SN850x is the second-fastest drive we've ever tested, behind Samsung's 990 Pro, but given that it offers near-identical performance and beats the Samsung drive on price, it's by far the best option for high-end gaming systems and the toughest content creation workloads.
WD's TLC flash memory, controller and PCIe 4.0 interface work incredibly well together, unlocking impressive sequential speeds (up to 7300MB/s reads) and random speeds (up to 1.2M IOPS reads), while the presence of a DRAM cache allow for great sustained performance too. Models with pre-installed heatsinks are available for a small premium. Overall, an incredibly solid choice that perhaps ranks as the most popular PCIe 4.0 SSD too.
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Best cheap PCIe 4.0 SSD: Lexar NM790
The Lexar NM790 is one of the most affordable PCIe 4.0 drives on the market while still delivering excellent performance, thanks to the use of a DRAM-less design with TLC NAND and an aggressive pricing strategy. With up to 4TB sizes available and better longevity ratings than even the higher-tier Samsung 990 Pro, this is a very savvy pick for gaming-focused systems with PCIe 4.0 compatibility. It leaves surprisingly little performance on the table compared to the WD SN850x, so consider it if it's significantly cheaper in your region.
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In the UK, you can also consider the extremely similar TeamGroup T-Force Z44A7, featured in the header image of this article. It uses precisely the same controller and NAND combination as the NM790, and offers as good or better performance within a single-sided, power-efficient design ideal for laptop use.
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Best value PCIe 5.0 SSD: Samsung 9100 Pro
The Samsung 9100 Pro is the best overall PCIe 5.0 drive that we've tested, offering similar performance to the (faster) Crucial T710 while coming in at a lower price. That's especially true when you look at gaming results, which tend to see the 9100 Pro equal to the T710 or just a touch behind in tasks like loading games or copying files from one drive to another; it's only for hardcore professional use that the T710's better top end really makes itself known. I'd therefore recommend whichever is cheaper to most people, which seems to be the 9100 Pro at the time of writing.
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Fastest SSD: Crucial T710
If you've got the need for (storage) speed, the Crucial T710 is an excellent option and the fastest consumer drive we've ever tested, thanks to super-fast Micron 276-layer TLC NAND, a LPDDR4 DRAM cache and the new 6nm Silicon Motion SM2508 controller. As a workhorse, the T710 is exceptional, handling uncompressed 4K 120fps capture with ease, and of course gaming performance is also top-notch thanks to having by far the fastest random read and write speeds we've ever recorded.
The T710 is also more efficient than its hot PCIe 5.0 predecessors, meaning it doesn't come with an included heatsink and doesn't need one to hit impressive speeds - though sustained loads will still benefit from motherboard or other third-part heatsinks.
PCIe 5.0 drives are still a luxury, and this one is heaps more expensive than the earlier T705, but if you feel like having the fastest gaming SSD in the world in your next rig, this is what we'd recommend right now.
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Best cheap PCIe 5.0 SSD: Kioxia Exceria Plus G4
This is a bit of a contradiction in terms, but good value PCIe 5.0 drives are starting to arrive, with the best that we've tested so far being the Kioxia Exceria Plus G4. This is equipped with a Phison E31T controller and Kioxia 218-layer 3D TLC, without a DRAM cache but with HMB support.
Available in 1TB and 2TB sizes without heatsinks, these drives offer read speeds up to 10,000MB/s, putting them between high-end PCIe 4.0 drives (~7,000MB/s) and high-end PCIe 5.0 drives (15,000MB/s). With competitive sequential write speeds and random read/write speeds to match, you might not end up paying much more for a PCIe 5.0 drive like this one than the likes of a Samsung 990 Pro or WD SN850X, while getting more peak performance.
Real-world gaming use cases like loading levels and copying game files produce compelling results for the G4, with the SSD often just fractionally behind more expensive counterparts. The difference is felt more in work tasks and synthetic benchmarks, where the Kioxia drive isn't able to deliver as strong sustained or peak performance in extremely demanding scenarios such as recording high bit-rate, high frame-rate 4K video.
Still, for most people, the Kioxia Exceria Plus G4 represents an excellent cost savings versus flagship-grade PCIe 5.0 drives, while being cooler to run too. That could make them a canny choice for system builders that want to use their chosen motherboard's PCIe 5.0 support without the extreme expense of a bleeding-edge drive.
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Best SATA SSD: Crucial BX500
The Crucial BX500 is one of the few remaining SATA SSDs on the market, but with the speed advantage of NVMe SSDs against SATA drives like this one - and the fact that NVMe drives are now cheaper at the same capacity! - it's only worth considering on systems that don't have spare NVMe slots. Still, the BX500 is still the workhorse of many systems, where its cheap QLC NAND memory and DRAMless design allow it to be produced in high capacities for a reasonable price, though sustained performance doesn't approach even the cheapest NVMe alternatives. In general though, if you have the choice to use a SATA drive or an NVMe one, NVMe ought to be your choice.
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Best portable SSD: Crucial X10
The Crucial X10 is the best value portable SSD` we've tested, thanks to its compact, water-resistant frame and extremely high speeds. Essentially an NVMe drive tucked into a 65x50x10mm enclosure, the X10 delivered sequential reads of 2082MB/s and sequential writes of 2026MB/s in our testing of the 2TB model. That makes it convenient to ferry around the house or the office, while also ensuring that games load quickly and files copy over in a flash. Random I/O performance was also strong and more than sufficient for playing games directly from the drive.
The short cable in the box is USB-C only and no USB-A adapter is provided. That is a little disappointing, though USB-C to USB-A adapters aren't expensive. As well as working on PC and mobile, the drive can also be used for cold game storage on Xbox Series X/S and PS5, as these consoles require specific internal storage for current-gen games.
Overall, the Crucial X10 is an incredibly impressive high-speed drive in a usefully compact form factor - as long as you've got the requisite 20Gbps USB-C port to unlock its full potential.
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Best SSD enclosure: Dockcase smart M.2 NVMe enclosure
The Dockcase is an incredible enclosure for NVMe SSDs, offering speeds of up to 1050MB/s using a 10Gbps USB-C connection. That much is ordinary, but what is not is the inclusion of a supercapacitor - which slowly charges to provide up to 10s of power loss protection. The 1.3-inch HD screen is also a novelty, which provides information on the drive installed, its speed, temperature and the supercapacitor's charge status. Beyond this, the Dockcase is extraordinarily well-made, with an aluminium construction and plenty of design flourishes. There are certainly cheaper NVMe enclosures, but none meet the features and build quality of the Dockcase.
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Best flash drive: PNY Pro Elite V3
The PNY Pro Elite V3 is a bit of a marvel - and the fastest "flash drive" that we've ever tested. With speeds that eclipse a SATA SSD and a form factor that mirrors the very first flash drives that appeared in the early 2000s, this curiously powerful option is available in capacities up to 1TB.
Our unit is a smaller 256GB model, but it still provided some competitive speeds in testing on macOS, with 900MB/s reads and 925MB/s writes in sequential tests and 50K IOPS and 14K IOPS for random reads and writes respectively. (We'd expect to see the same performance in Windows testing, of course.)
The Elite V3 terminates in a full-size USB-A connection, so I would have liked to see a USB-C adapter in the box. Given how cheap these adapters are, this is a relatively inoffensive omission, but an omission none the less.
If you prefer the traditional form factor of a flash drive and need high-speed storage - for running apps or games directly from the drive, or for working on 4K video, for instance - then the Pro Elite V3 ticks all of the relevant boxes.
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Common terms
SATA: This legacy interface was initially designed to allow relatively low-bandwidth drives, such as CD-ROM drives and mechanical HDDs, to connect to your computer. As SSDs improved in speed over time, they started to run up against the limits of the SATA III interface - specifically, maximum sequential read and write speeds of around 550~600MB/s. This bottleneck prompted the creation of a new interface, NVMe.
2.5-inch: This form factor is probably what you'd picture if you imagined an SSD back in the day: a simple metal cuboid, 70 x 100 millimetres in size with separate data and power cables. The vast majority of 2.5-inch drives can only connect via the relatively slow SATA interface, so they're only useful if you've run out of NVMe slots or you're working with an older system.
NVMe: This modern interface is designed specifically for high-speed solid state drives, relying on the PCIe standard that is also used for graphics cards, network cards and other add-in cards. The greater bandwidth available removes the interface bottleneck, thereby allowing high-end SSDs to reach increasingly higher speeds and lower access times. These drives are generally available in the M.2 form factor.
M.2: This very flat form factor boasts a much smaller volume than a standard 2.5-inch SSD, allowing these drives to be mounted directly onto a desktop computer's motherboard or inside a slim laptop. There are different M.2 sizes, from the 2230 (22x30mm) size common in PC handhelds like the Steam Deck and ROG Ally, from the full-size 2280 (22x80mm) drives found in most desktop PCs.
M.2's single connector includes both data and power, and as you're plugging directly into the motherboard you won't need to run any cables. Finally, M.2 drives can technically be either (slow) SATA or (fast) NVMe types, but the vast majority sold today are the latter.
PCIe 3.0: The first mainstream NVMe SSDs used the PCI 3.0 standard, offering a good performance boost over the more dominant SATA drives of the time thanks to the higher bandwidth interface. Now, PCIe 3.0 drives are considered slow compared to newer PCIe 4.0 and 5.0 alternatives.
PCIe 4.0: The current sweet spot for NVMe SSDs as of the mid 2020s, PCIe 4.0 SSDs are noticeably faster than PCIe 3.0 SSDs in benchmarks and some content creation tasks, and marginally faster in terms of game loading times. This category of SSD is generally the best value option, but will be overshadowed by PCIe 5.0 drives and later over time.
PCIe 5.0: At the time of writing in early 2025, PCIe 5.0 drives are available but tend to offer only marginal gains over PCIe 4.0 alternatives outside of synthetic benchmarks while costing significantly more. They also come with a reputation for being quite power hungry and thermally demanding, requiring large coolers to operate at peak speeds. However, refinements will likely ease these pain points over time.
PCIe: If you have a spare PCIe x4 or x16 slot on your motherboard, then you can connect an NVMe SSD here. You can either use an M.2 NVMe drive together with a PCIe adaptor card, or you can directly connect a PCIe NVMe add-in card - though these are a rarity these days.
Reads vs writes: Reads refer to data is being taken from storage to the processor so it can be used; writes are the opposite, where data is being sent from the processor to storage to be accessed later. Reading data is more common than writing data, so often read speeds will be higher than write speeds.
Sequential vs random: This refers to whether the data you're reading or writing is grouped together in a row or spread out across the drive. For example, a sequential read might be loading a single video file into memory, while a random read might be accessing multiple files to load a game. This is only a simplification, and most games use both sequential and random reads to load. Generally, sequential data is easier to read and write quickly than random data.
Frequently asked questions
Which type of SSD is best for me - NVMe or SATA?
Previously, this was a more challenging question to answer - but nowadays, SATA is essentially a dead format that only makes sense for systems without a free NVMe slot. NVMe drives are now cheaper than their SATA equivalents, while offering a more convenient cable-free installation, better compatibility with small form factor builds, and a monumental improvement in terms of read speeds, write speeds and access times. In short: friends don't let friends buy SATA drives in 2025.
What size SSD do I need?
Thanks to recent drops in flash memory prices, solid state drives have become increasingly affordable - even though they're still far pricier per gigabyte than mechanical hard disk drives. As with most things, there is a tradeoff when deciding how big of a drive to choose. The smaller the drive, the more careful you'll have to be with the space that you've got - such as by uninstalling games you're not playing and moving media and downloads to a mechanical HDD. This kind of curation can be a pain, so saving up for a bigger drive makes sense. Larger drives are also slightly faster, particularly in terms of write speeds, than their smaller-capacity counterparts. Finally, choosing a larger drive will mean that it will last you a longer time. As games include higher-resolution textures and videos, they will continue to balloon in size, so having some breathing room will let you put off a drive upgrade for at least a few years.
So what about specific capacities? At the time of writing, a 1TB drive is probably a good starting point for most people, giving you enough room to install Windows and a few extra-large games with space to spare for Windows updates, HD downloads and so on. If you like to keep more than a dozen games installed at once or you have a media collection that you don't want to keep on a second drive, then choosing a 2TB drive makes more sense. Right now these 1TB and 2TB drives are in the price-per-gig sweet spot, so spring for them if you can. 4TB and 8TB SSDs are starting to become reasonable in price too.
Can I install an SSD into my PS4 or Xbox One to improve its loading speeds?
Yes! On the PS4 and PS4 Pro, you can replace the system's internal drive with an SSD, while the Xbox One and PS4 Pro can have an external SSD connected over USB 3.0. You can see our investigations into game load time improvements with the PS4, PS4 Pro and Xbox One here.
For an internal upgrade on the PS4 and PS4 Pro, we recommend a budget 2.5-inch SSD, such as the Crucial MX500 we highlighted above. If you go the external storage route, we recommend picking up the portable SSD highlighted above or one of the other SSDs we've recommended with a matching enclosure (e.g. a 2.5-inch USB enclosure for a 2.5-inch SATA SSD).
What about PS5 Pro, PS5 and Series X?
The Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 use internal NVMe drives that operate at significantly faster speeds than their last-gen spinning disk counterparts. The Series X uses its own special form factor for expandable storage, while the PS5 and PS5 Pro allow PCIe 4.0 and 5.0 drives that meet certain requirements to be installed internally for storage expansion. It's also possible to attach slower USB storage to play last-gen games or temporarily store (but not play) current-gen titles on both consoles.
Do you want to know more? Read our investigation into whether SSDs are essential for gaming.