Solid State Drives

Need help? Read our Internal Storage Buying Guide

Solid-state drives (SSDs) are currently the fastest form of storage available, and can give your system a massive boost in application and OS load times, data-transfer speeds and overall system responsiveness. Their lightning speed comes from using flash memory chips, which unlike traditional hard drives have no moving parts. This makes them more reliable, smaller, lighter and less power hungry, but they can cost significantly more and oftentimes have less capacity. Scan recommends that anyone in the market for a performance PC opts for an SSD.

120GB to 480GB 2.5" SATA3 SSDs

Available in 120, 128, 240, 250, 256, 275 and 480GB capacities these SATA III 6Gb/s SSDs may no longer be the fastest around thanks to emerging PCIe SSDs, but they're the most cost-effective and are still easily fast enough for most users. You'll need a spare SATA 6Gb/s port to get the most from them, and a 2.5" capable drive bay - an adaptor may need to be bought, but most cases have at least one. These drives are suitable for holding an operating system, as well as numerous programs and a healthy collection of media and games.

View:
Tekspek An in-depth guide into tech: SSD Form Factors
Related products

500GB to 1TB 2.5" SATA3 SSDs

Available in 500, 512, 525, 960GB and 1TB capacities these SATA III 6Gb/s SSDs may no longer be the fastest around thanks to emerging PCIe SSDs, but they're the most cost-effective and are still easily fast enough for most users. You'll need a spare SATA 6Gb/s port to get the most from them, and a 2.5" capable drive bay - an adaptor may need to be bought, but most cases have at least one. These drives are suitable for holding an operating system, as well as numerous programs and a healthy collection of media and games.

View:
Tekspek An in-depth guide into tech: SSD Form Factors
Related products

1.5TB to 5TB 2.5" SATA3 SSDs

Available in 1.9TB, 2TB, 4TB and 5TB capacities these SATA III 6Gb/s SSDs may no longer be the fastest around thanks to emerging PCIe SSDs, but they're the most cost-effective and are still easily fast enough for most users. You'll need a spare SATA 6Gb/s port to get the most from them, and a 2.5" capable drive bay - an adaptor may need to be bought, but most cases have at least one. These drives are the highest capacity ones available, suitable for holding an operating system, as well as numerous programs and a healthy collection of media and games.

View:
Tekspek An in-depth guide into tech: SSD Form Factors
Related products

M.2 PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSDs

View:

M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs

View:
Related products

M.2 PCIe 2230/2242 4.0 NVMe SSDs

The M.2 2230 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD Perfect gaming performance suitable for your Valve Steam Deck, ASUS ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion Go, Microsoft® Surface, and other portable devices. Experience high-octane speeds perfect for todays Gaming requirements

View:

120GB to 550GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSDs

M.2 replaced the older mSATA standard. Available in 120, 128, 240, 256, 480, 500 and 512GB sizes the M.2 SSD connects to your device via an M.2 socket using the newer PCI Express NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) controller variant designed to fully utilise the capability of high-speed PCI Express storage devices to perform many I/O (in/out) operations in parallel. These SSD's can achieve read speeds in excess of 3000MB/s and write speeds over 2000MB/s making them the fastest available.

View:
Tekspek An in-depth guide into tech: PCI Express SSDs SSD Form Factors
Related products

600GB to 4TB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSDs

M.2 replaced the older mSATA standard. Available in 960GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB & 8TB sizes the M.2 SSD Connects to your device via an M.2 Socket using the newer PCI Express NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) controller variant designed to fully utilize the capability of high-speed PCI Express storage devices to perform many I/O (in/out) operations in parallel. These SSD's can achieve Read speeds in Excess of 3000MB/s and Write speeds over 2000MB/s making them the fastest available.

View:
Tekspek An in-depth guide into tech: SSD Form Factors
Related products

120GB to 550GB M.2 SATA SSDs

While the M.2 connector can be used for PCIe SSDs, the ones here are SATA 6Gb/s only, so the benefits over standard 2.5" SATA drives are to do with space-saving, not speed. Available in 120, 240, 256, 480, 500 and 512GB sizes they're perfect for small form factor systems and laptops, but make sure your M.2 slot works with SATA devices, and that it supports the SSD's size, both in length (2280 means 80mm long) and thickness.

View:
Tekspek An in-depth guide into tech: SSD Form Factors
Related products

600GB to 2TB M.2 SATA SSDs

While the M.2 connector can be used for PCIe SSDs, the ones here are SATA 6Gb/s only, so the benefits over standard 2.5" SATA drives are to do with space-saving, not speed. Available in 1TB and 2TB sizes they're perfect for small form factor systems and laptops, but make sure your M.2 slot works with SATA devices, and that it supports the SSD's size, both in length (2280 means 80mm long) and thickness.

View:
Tekspek An in-depth guide into tech: SSD Form Factors
Related products

PCIe NVMe AIC (Add-in-Card) SSDs

The current pinnacle of SSD performance, PCIe SSDs are capable of reaching far greater speeds than the SATA SSDs limited to 6Gb/s. These particular SSDs are of the HHHL (Half Height Half Length)/ FHHL (Full Height Half Length) AIC (Add In Card) Form Factor, slotting into an available PCIe Slot on your motherboard in the same way as you would with a graphics card or other expansion card. Offering capacities of 240, 400, 480, 960, 800GB, 1.2TB, & now even a mind-blowing 1.6 Terabytes, with the higher bandwidth provided by the PCIe Interface, these models feature much higher speeds than other Solid State Drives. Although these SSDs come as a single-slot PCIe expansion card, they are aimed at larger high-end desktop PCs, so ensure your motherboard has an appropriately sized slot spare with the Correct PCIe Bridge and Port Version to get optimum performance.

View:
Tekspek An in-depth guide into tech: Intel PCI-E SSDs
Related products

120GB to 1TB mSATA SSDs

mSATA SSDs easily fit in the palm of your hand, yet are available in capacities of 120GB, 128GB, 240GB 250GB, 500GB, even 1TB, often without any performance hit over using a 2.5" model. While newer laptops are shifting to the M.2 connector, mSATA slots are still found on previous generation motherboards and laptops. These SSDs are great for providing such systems with a fast, silent storage upgrade.

View:
Related products

Thunderbolt & USB External SSDs

External SSDs are ideal for users looking for lightweight, portable and speedy storage. Their pocket-friendly enclosures are significantly smaller and lighter than external hard drives, and with no moving parts they're also silent, more robust and less prone to physical shock damage. They use the USB 3 interface, which is 10 times faster than and backwards compatible with USB 2.

View:
Tekspek An in-depth guide into tech: SSDs USB 3.0
Related products

Enclosure (M.2)

View:
Related products

Enclosure (1.8"-2.5") - SATA - USB 3.1

These external hard drive enclosures do not include a drive as standard, allowing you to pick the perfect drive for your requirements. Using the latest USB 3.1 bus, these enclosures can be as much as twice as fast as an older USB 3 enclosure, with up to 10Gbit/sec bandwidth available.

View:
Related products

Enclosure (1.8"-2.5") - SATA - USB 3.0

Combining Super Speed USB 3.0 with a SATA hard drive interface results in an external hard drive with high data transfer rates. A 1.8" to 2.5" internal SATA hard drive fits into these enclosures. Power to these enclosures are either via the USB 3.0 connection or a separate power lead, check specifications of the individual product to confirm.
Updated

View:
Related products

Enterprise E1.S NVMe SSDs

View: