HoTWiReZ's DoMaiN

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<p align="center"></p><p><p>For today's holiday buyer's guide we're taking a look at SSDs. SSD prices have dropped a lot since last year's recommendations, but our recommendations haven't shifted much. High-end SATA SSDs have hit their limit for performance. The value segment of the market has seen a flood of drives using TLC flash, but none of them have brought prices down far enough to justify the power and performance penalties they pay relative to MLC drives. Samsung still holds the clear lead for the transitions to 3D NAND and PCIe interfaces.</p>

<p>The most significant development in the past year has been the release of many good drives using Silicon Motion's SM2246EN controller paired with 1x nm MLC flash. These drives are preventing TLC from taking over the low-end segment: most SM2246EN drives offer performance that's within spitting distance of high-end SATA SSDs for typical consumer workloads, some of the best power efficiency we've measured, and prices to match or beat TLC drives.</p>

<p>The other big shift in the market is that the 120-128GB capacity class is fading away, with many new models starting at 240-256GB. When using 128Gb NAND chips, 128GB drives aren't large enough to provide the full performance modern SSD controllers are capable of. 128GB drives also carry an increasingly steep premium in terms of price per GB, whereas 256GB and 512GB drives are priced very similarly at the moment. Unless you're quite sure that you won't need more than 120GB, the sensible buy will almost always be to move up to a 240+GB size.</p>

<p>As always, the prices shown are merely a snapshot at the time of writing. We make no attempt to predict when or where the best discounts will be. Instead, this guide should be treated as a baseline against which holiday deals can be compared. For drives not mentioned in this guide, our SSD Bench database can provide performance information and comparisons.</p>

<h3>Performance & Enthusiast SATA drives: Samsung 850 Pro and SanDisk Extreme Pro</h3>

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<p>These two drives are the same that we recommended in last year's holiday guide and the summer 2014 guide. They don't have any direct successors and no major competitors have cropped up. The Samsung 850 Pro is overall a bit faster, has a higher endurance rating and has hardware encryption support. The SanDisk Extreme Pro is still cheaper, but the 850 Pro is much closer than it was last year. Samsung also has the advantage of offering a 2TB model, with a 4TB version due in early 2016 as Samsung moves to their third generation V-NAND.</p>

<div class="ntShoppingWidget" data-image="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/412M8LGGfrL.jpg" data-pid="B00LF10KTO" data-provider="amazon" data-title="Samsung 850 Pro (512GB)" data-url="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LF10KTO?tag=anandtech01-20&ascsubtag=[site|anand[cat|NA[art|9799[pid|B00LF10KTO|NA[bbc|manual">Buy Samsung 850 Pro (512GB) on Amazon.com</div>

<table border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" style="width: 670px;">
<tbody>
<tr class="tlblue">
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>240/256GB</td>
<td>480/512GB</td>
<td>960/1024GB</td>
<td>2TB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tlgrey">Samsung 850 Pro</td>
<td>$129.99 (51&cent;/GB)</td>
<td>$219.00 (43&cent;/GB)</td>
<td>$429.00 (42&cent;/GB)</td>
<td>$894.00 (45&cent;/GB)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tlgrey">SanDisk Extreme Pro</td>
<td>$119.99 (50&cent;/GB)</td>
<td>$199.95 (42&cent;/GB)</td>
<td>$389.00 (41&cent;/GB)</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

<h3>&nbsp;</h3>

<h3>Value & Mainstream: OCZ Arc 100 and Mushkin Reactor</h3>

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<p>Value drives are now below $0.30/GB and the good deals are hitting $0.25/GB. For most of this year, the Crucial BX100 was our top recommendation for budget drives and one of the best values in any market segment. It's now being replaced by the TLC-based BX200 with severely disappointing performance, so we have to recommend a different SM2246EN-based drive. If you can catch the BX100 on sale, it's the drive to get, as it seems to have the best performance among drives using that controller. Otherwise, the Mushkin Reactor seems to be the cheapest of its siblings, though the 256GB and 512GB models are only available from Newegg.</p>

<p>The OCZ Arc 100 sticks around on the merit of its low price and better performance under very heavy workloads, including much better steady-state random write performance. Its power management is lacking (especially when compared to the record-setting efficiency of SM2246EN drives), so it shouldn't be chosen fo laptops.</p>

<div class="ntShoppingWidget" data-image="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/619gCdeUB5L._SL1000_.jpg" data-pid="B00LULV4K8" data-provider="amazon" data-title="OCZ Arc 100 (480GB)" data-url="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LULV4K8?tag=anandtech01-20&ascsubtag=[site|anand[cat|NA[art|9799[pid|B00LULV4K8|NA[bbc|manual">Buy OCZ Arc 100 (480GB) on Amazon.com</div>

<table border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" style="width: 550px;">
<tbody>
<tr class="tlblue">
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>240/250/256GB</td>
<td>480/500/512GB</td>
<td>960/1024GB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tlgrey">Crucial BX100</td>
<td>$85.00 (34&cent;/GB)</td>
<td>$159.99 (32&cent;/GB)</td>
<td>$418.99 (41&cent;/GB)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tlgrey">Mushkin Reactor</td>
<td>$74.99 (29&cent;/GB)</td>
<td>$149.99 (29&cent;/GB)</td>
<td>$249.99 (24&cent;/GB)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tlgrey">OCZ Arc 100</td>
<td>$79.98 (33&cent;/GB)</td>
<td>$139.99 (29&cent;/GB)</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

<h3>&nbsp;</h3>

<h3>Standard & M.2 PCIe: Samsung 950 Pro and Samsung SM951 (AHCI)</h3>

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<p>There still aren't many options for consumer-oriented PCIe storage. The 950 Pro is the first PCIe M.2 drive Samsung has officially released to the retail channel, but the XP941 and SM951 have both been easy enough to obtain. The M.2 form factor remains the most widely supported connector for PCIe SSDs in the consumer space, as most consumer motherboards don't offer a PCIe x4 slot that doesn't take lanes away from the GPU, and the U.2 connector (formerly SFF-8639) is rare. We are including the AHCI variant of the SM951 due to its much better idle power consumption than Samsung's NVMe drives, and for the broader compatibility of AHCI over NVMe. If neither of those is a concern, then it's worth paying a little more for a warranty from Samsung on the 950 Pro.</p>

<p>Otherwise for a standard PCIe form factor card, The Intel SSD 750 performs very well in several benchmarks, but is still an enterprise product at heart. It's significantly more expensive than Samsung's NVMe drives and its performance on client workloads doesn't justify the premium.</p>

<div class="ntShoppingWidget" data-image="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71JdLAMaT2L._SL1500_.jpg" data-pid="B01639694M" data-provider="amazon" data-title="Samsung 950 Pro (512GB)" data-url="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01639694M?tag=anandtech01-20&ascsubtag=[site|anand[cat|NA[art|9799[pid|B01639694M|NA[bbc|manual">Buy Samsung 950 Pro (512GB) on Amazon.com</div>

<table border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" style="width: 500px;">
<tbody>
<tr class="tlblue">
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>256GB</td>
<td>512GB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tlgrey">Samsung 950 Pro</td>
<td>$197.00 (77&cent;/GB)</td>
<td>$349.99 (68&cent;/GB)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tlgrey">Samsung SM951 (AHCI)</td>
<td>$188.30 (74&cent;/GB)</td>
<td>$337.45 (66&cent;/GB)</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

<h3>&nbsp;</h3>

<h3>mSATA and M.2 SATA: Samsung 850 EVO and Crucial MX200</h3>

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<p>Selection is limited for these smaller form factors, and the drives carry a premium. The Samsung 850 EVO and Crucial MX200 trade places depending on the benchmark and capacity, with the only constants being that the 850 EVO has lower idle power consumption and the MX200 has better steady-state random write performance. On average, the 850 EVO performs a bit better, but it's a tough generalization to make. We haven't benchmarked the mSATA or M.2 versions of the MX200, but performance should be mostly the same as the 2.5" versions, except that the small form factors have SLC caching enabled on all capacities. The 850 EVO and its predecessor 840 EVO are the only 1TB mSATA drives, and a 1TB M.2 version of the 850 EVO is due in early 2016.</p>

<div class="ntShoppingWidget" data-image="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/710QknB4hsL._SL1000_.jpg" data-pid="B00RQA6GF0" data-provider="amazon" data-title="Crucial MX200 mSATA (500GB)" data-url="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00RQA6GF0?tag=anandtech01-20&ascsubtag=[site|anand[cat|NA[art|9799[pid|B00RQA6GF0|NA[bbc|manual">Buy Crucial MX200 mSATA (500GB) on Amazon.com</div>

<table border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" style="width: 600px;">
<tbody>
<tr class="tlblue">
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>250GB</td>
<td>500GB</td>
<td>1TB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tlgrey">Crucial MX200 mSATA</td>
<td>$94.99 (38&cent;/GB)</td>
<td>$170.99 (34&cent;/GB)</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tlgrey">Samsung 850 EVO mSATA</td>
<td>$107.99 (43&cent;/GB)</td>
<td>$187.80 (38&cent;/GB)</td>
<td>$343.65 (34&cent;/GB)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tlgrey">Crucial MX200 M.2</td>
<td>$97.24 (39&cent;/GB)</td>
<td>$182.82 (37&cent;/GB)</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tlgrey">Samsung 850 EVO M.2</td>
<td>$104.57 (42&cent;/GB)</td>
<td>$194.99 (39&cent;/GB)</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</p>

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Source: AnandTech
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