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Top 10 Solid State Drives (SSDs) of 2015

 AllTopTens.com editors prepared Top 10 Solid State Drives (SSD) list to help you choosing the best SSD in your budget and performance needs.



 

To improve performance significantly one of the easiest changes you can do with your PC is upgrading to an SSD. Solid state drives are way faster than conventional disk based Hard Drives. Let’s have a look at the top 10 SSDs of 2015 at a glance. We have made this list by various types of research, and we took in account SSD’s Sequential read speed, Sequential write speed, Random 4K read speed, Random 4K write speed, mixed read & write speed Affordability, Life span, power consumption, Windows boot time etc.


System configuration

While testing these Top Ten Solid State Drives we used standard SATA 3 interface and all the speeds were measured in this interface. Here is the machine we used.


Intel Core i7 4790K at stock speed

Asus Z97 Pro mobo

Corsair Vengeance DDR3 16GB RAM (1866MHz)

Windows 8.1 64Bit OS

Corsair H100i Cooler

Note: We used SSD with 256GB /250GB/240GB capacity for testing. No kind of RAID configurations was used.


Top 10 Solid State Drives of 2015

Your system will perform blazing fast if you use any one of these drives in your system. These SSDs are available at various sizes (64GB, 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB) and can have different interface such as SATA 3, mSATA, M.2 etc. Depending on the interface performance may vary. Here are the Top 10 Solid-state drives available in market.


10. Plextor M5 Pro Xtreme

Plextor M5 Pro Extreme

Plextor M5 Pro Xtreme

It’s among one of the first drives to offer 5 years warranty, full drive 256-bit encryption and in-built 128-bit error correction code. Plextor’s exclusive firmware along with Marvell controller is designed to prevent slowdown after prolonged use. The drive provides a sequential read speed of 490MB/sec and writes speed 450MB/sec at an acceptable price. Random QD=32 read and write speed is 82K and 75K IOPS respectively. The drive includes required SATA cable, migration software and a 3.5inch form factor adapter.


Get Plextor M5P Xtreme from Amazon


9. Intel 730

intel 730 SSD

intel 730 SSD

Intel’s latest addition to its enthusiast series product lineup is 730 series SSD. Even though 730 series SSD’s are power-hungry (~5w while reading/writing) compared to other SSDs, performance and stability wise it’s one of the best SSD in the world. It uses the Sandforce S3500/S3700 controller clocked at 600MHz and home-grown 20nm memory die. 730 series SSD is available at two capacity (240 GB and 480 GB). It’s 100+ TB endurance and above 520 MB/sec sequential read and 470 MB/sec write speed provides some exceptional value. Along with that, it provides constant 89K random read IOPS and 75K random write IOPS. The only downside of this SSD is high power consumption, and lack of innovation and average random read/write speed.  Performance solidarity, 5 years warranty and competitive pricing put intel 730 series SSD at the 10th position of our list.


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Check the latest price of intel 730 series SSD at Amazon


8. Corsair Neutron GTX

Corsair Neutron GTX

Corsair Neutron GTX

Toshiba toggle mode NAND offers up to 92k IOPS random write and up to 95K IOPS Random read speed along with sequential write speed of 470 MB/sec and write speed of 550 MB/sec. It comes with native TRIM support which ensures performance during its lifetime. Integrated drive monitoring software and S.M.A.R.T support helps managing the drive. Integrated 5 years warranty ensures that you will not have to spend money on storage for at-least 5 years. Corsair Neutron is a good alternative of Samsung 840 pro and OCZ vector.


Get Corsair Neutron GTX from Amazon.com


7. Samsung 850 EVO

Samsung 850 EVO

Samsung 850 EVO

Latest addition of Samsung’s revolutionary 3D NAND technology is in the form of 850 EVO. It’s designed for the mass market by compromising some 850 pro features and use of more dense TLC memory. Even though endurance, lifespan and speed of TLC is less than MLC, but 3D NAND technology makes this up with it’s increased efficiency and speed. Samsung provides 5 years warranty on this product despite of MLC flash.


Samsung was able to squeeze maximum performance out of it’s SSD by the use of Turbowrite technology which improves the overall performance of the SSD.



 

850 Evo provides real-world sequential write speed 490MB/sec, and reading speed of 510MB/sec. In random read and write dept 850 Evo scores a good overall 95K IOPS.


Get Samsung 850 evo from Amazon


6. Kingston HyperX

Kingston HyperX SSD

Kingston HyperX SSD

Kingston HyperX solid state drive is built for cost-effective performance. With SATA III interface, it pushes the limit and provides sequential 510MB/sec write and 555MB/sec read speed.


Along with that HyperX SSD offers native trim support ensuring no loss in drive speed during its lifetime. Kingston HyperX comes with S.M.A.R.T technology which your system can provide early warning about drive failure, and monitor several internal operations. Only downside is it comes with 3 years warranty, which is not bad but no good though as some competitor provides 5 years and 10 years warranty. Buy Kingston HyperX SSD



 

5. OCZ Vector

OCZ Vector

OCZ Vector

OCZ Vector is fast, slim and provides good speed at competitive prices. It has a profile height of only 7mm, hence it’s the best fit for ultrabooks. Performance-wise OCZ vector competes with other high-end SSDs with 550MB/Sec read and 530MB/sec write speed. In random read/write operation it throws the water out of the pool with 100K and 95K IOPS respectively.OCZ integrated TRIM, S.M.A.R.T, Garbage collection within the hardware of the SSD to ensure long-term performance. Though OCZ Vector comes with 5 years warranty, but in real-world it has a high failure rate compared to other high-end SSDs. Due to its reliability issues, OCZ vector ranks 5th among Top 10 Solid State Drives. If OCZ fixes the failure issues, it will compete for head-on with Samsung 850, and 840 Pro.


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Get OCZ vector at best prices from Amazon


4. Crucial M550

Crucial M550 SSD

Crucial M550

The Crucial M550 consumes 2.5 watts while read/writes operation which improves the battery life of Laptops and Ultrabooks. It comes with hardware encryption support to improve speed and reliability. Along with that, it has inbuilt power failure capacitors to tackle sudden power failure. M550 provides a choice of a wide range of drive capacity starting from 128GB to 1 TB.


Max Sequential Write: Up to 500 MB/sec

Max Sequential Read: Up to 550 MB/sec

4KB Random Write: Up to 80,000 IOPS

4KB Random Read: Up to 90,000 IOPS

Only downside is Crucial does not supply any cloning software, which makes migration from HDD harder. Buy M550 From Amazon


3. Samsung 840 Pro

Samsung 840 Pro

Samsung 840 Pro

The predecessor of 850 Pro series SSD, the 840 Pro is still relevant. Despite being a generation older Samsung 840 Pro head on competes with other SSDs in the market in terms of performance and reliability. It comes in 3 sizes 128GB, 256GB and 512GB. 128GB offers 256MB of cache whereas 256 GB and 512 GB comes with 512MB of cache size. Samsung 840 Pro offers up to 540 MB/s read and 520 MB/s sequential write speed with top of the line 98K Random IOPS. Along with that it comes with same magician software and migration tools as 850 series SSDs. In terms of security 840Pro supports 256-bit full drive AES encryption.


Like 850 Pro 840 Pro does not use 3D NAND, but it still provides a good reliability and comes with 5 years integrated warranty. We would suggest 840 Pro to those who short in budget for 850 Pro.


Buy Samsung 840 Pro from Amazon.com


2. SanDisk Extreme Pro

Top 10 Solid State Drives (SSDs) of 2015 : SanDisk Extreme Pro

SanDisk Extreme Pro

SanDisk Extreme Pro provides top-notch performance among standard consumer grade SSDs in the market. SanDisk uses home-grown 19nm 64GB NAND Flash along with Marvel 88SS9187 controller.There are just two drives in this list with 10 years warranty, and SanDisk Extreme Pro is one of them. 850 Pro NAND has an edge over Extreme pro NAND due to it’s 128 nm lithography and stacking. SanDisk counters that with competitive pricing and warranty. Though Extreme Pro NAND is not as reliable as Samsung’s Proprietary V-NAND, but more than 80TB endurance and 10 years warranty along with competitive pricing counters that.


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Whatever it offers is far more than what a PC enthusiast would need at this time, and it certainly saturates the SATA 3 interface limit. Extreme Pro provides sequential read speed up to 550MB/s and sequential write speed up to 520MB/sec. Better performing SSDs using SATA 3 is no longer possible.


SanDisk Extreme Pro ranks 2nd in our list of Top 10 Solid State Drives due to it’s less reliable (still industry-leading) NAND compared to the V-NAND.


Buy SanDisk Extreme Pro from Amazon.com



1. Samsung 850 Pro

Samsung 850 Pro

Best SSD in 2015: Samsung 850 Pro

The Samsung 850 Pro series SSD is in the leading position in the market on the consumer-grade SSDs. It uses 3D-NAND architecture which delivers ultimate read and writes speed in both sequential and random aspects. The Samsung 850 Pro comes with 10 years manufacturer’s warranty which is a great benefit to consider. It is a reliable, fast-performing SSD with the lowest failure rate. in extreme case even if it fails in the upcoming 10 years, Samsung will replace. No other company has shown the courage to provide 10 years warranty, and this provides users idea of how reliable 850 pro is. This is only possible due to their revolutionary V-NAND technology which increased the flash endurance to 150TB which is insanely high. With normal use, there is virtually no chance of drive failure due to flash failure. 850 Provides continuous sequential read/write speed of around 550 MBps which hits the SATA3 interface limit. You can also get around 100K IO operations per second (Real-world test report). With 850 Pro users will get the speed of a PCI based drive without overshooting your budget. Samsung 850 Pro is the best SSD of 2015 due to its revolutionary VNAND, and 150TB of endurance.


Get Samsung 850 Pro from Amazon.com



 

Hope you enjoyed reading this list of Top 10 Solid State Drives (SSDs) of 2015. Which one of these satisfies your performance needs and fits in your budget, let us know in the comment section. If you have any suggestions about this particular list drop a message in the comments.

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