Laptop M.2 SSD choices 2024

[Hardcore Games]

I have many laptops with M.2 slots but my Dell XPS with a 4K panel is my main rig at present. My Dell has discrete graphics so heat is an issue to some extent.

The SSD is away from the cooling solution and the WIFI card on my Dell with it beside the pair of SO-DIMM slots on my Dell. Right now I have a Kingston NV2S SSD in the slot which has below par endurance and I was considering a WD green SN350 but I was wondering about 4TB SSD which are mostly PCIe 4.0 even at the low end of the market. I have an SN350 in my Lenovo T14 and it runs cool which is favorable.

My machines are all PCIe 3.0 so there is some limit to the bandwidth but no SSD has reached that so far. Maybe my next laptop will have PCIe 4.0 but I am not holding my breath.

Post CrystalDiskReport screenies as well as Report so I can make this thread useful for laptop users like me. Today cheap SSD logic is QLC across the board. I do not believe any other variants are manufactured any more.

 

[bonehead123]

With the exception of being able to move it into a gen 4 machine later on, putting a gen 4 drive in a gen 3 slot/machine won't hurt anything but won't gain you anything either, except a little of extra heat, which seems to be your concern atm...

And yes, Kingston drives are not known for their stellar performance, in any gen, and although WD is normally better IMO, but it won't be like nite & day better.....this coming from someone who uses 2 & 4TB SN850X's exclusively, in (BTO) desktops, mini-me boxes, & lappies alike.

And posting screenies from our machines would only serve as a reference point, since every drive & every machine will produce different results... but I will post mine in the morning anyways, as it's already past my bedtime

 

[SalemTheKit]

If you could post your budget that would be great, but honestly these days it's hard for me to recommend anything other than the Corsair T500 just because it has, like, zero negatives. It runs cool, is single-sided, gen 4, great performance all around, PS5 compatible, and, anecdotally speaking, corsair SSDs tend to have the least reliability problems for me and for others that I recommend them to. The only real negative is that it tends to be on the higher side of SSD pricing and doesn't come in 4TB if that's really important to you.

 

[Hardcore Games]

Corsair branded SSD are a tad expensive which is why I have been using WD SN350 which top out at 2TB.

Not sure how some of these cheap make in China SSD units are. Some critics figure they will last 3 months but that seems more smear than fact.

 

[Hardcore Games]

Ended up selecting the SN580 2TB which is the largest model. The SN580 is a recent model and it seems to be reasonably designed for use in my Dell XPS 15. This is singled sided which makes installation trivial and WD at least does offer 5 years on it. The TLC NAND is eye opening as that has better endurance than QLC hardware that seems to be more common.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

I personally put a SN770 in my laptop. I used two Arctic TP-3 thermal pads stacked together on the controller to use the bottom of the laptop as a heatsink. Plastic is terrible at thermal transfer but it will still soak up some of the heat. I dont put any pads on the memory chips themselves as they work best when a little warm/hot.

The SN770 is worth some consideration as it can often be found on sale on amazon.

 

[chrcoluk]

Interesting, didnt know was WD green NVME, do they run cooler and lower power draw than the black models?

 

[AleXXX666]

I have many laptops with M.2 slots but my Dell XPS with a 4K panel is my main rig at present. My Dell has discrete graphics so heat is an issue to some extent.

The SSD is away from the cooling solution and the WIFI card on my Dell with it beside the pair of SO-DIMM slots on my Dell. Right now I have a Kingston NV2S SSD in the slot which has below par endurance and I was considering a WD green SN350 but I was wondering about 4TB SSD which are mostly PCIe 4.0 even at the low end of the market. I have an SN350 in my Lenovo T14 and it runs cool which is favorable.

My machines are all PCIe 3.0 so there is some limit to the bandwidth but no SSD has reached that so far. Maybe my next laptop will have PCIe 4.0 but I am not holding my breath.

Post CrystalDiskReport screenies as well as Report so I can make this thread useful for laptop users like me. Today cheap SSD logic is QLC across the board. I do not believe any other variants are manufactured any more.

I don't remember certainly but I put some HS on my WD Black SN770 in Asus TUF F15 (i5-10300H series), maybe it was some M2 HS but maybe it was some not fat motherboard M2 HS! Without HS or with preinstalled "condom"-style HS lmfao the SSDs were throttling as f...

 

[SPDIF]

I would also go for an SN770, they are fast and Rock solid for your laptop. They are faster then your laptop could use from it. And also affordable price at moment!

They also have an special game mode you can put on or off.

Here is a screen shot from it in action;

 

[Hardcore Games]