Best M.2 SSD for gaming in 2023 reviews and top picks

Things To Consdier

What Is M.2?

Before we do that though, let’s get some of the basic information surrounding M.2 out of the way.

M.2 is basically a form factor. A size and shape that all M.2 branded hardware components must adhere to. This being said, not all M.2 are the same. The market seems to have agreed on a width of 22mm for the most part; however, the length varies considerably in comparison. The most common lengths used in M.2 are 60mm or 80mm, they can stretch right up to 120mm though.

It’s handy to know which size you’re buying because some motherboards (and laptops) can only accommodate certain sizes. So, how do I tell?

The easiest way to explain it is through an example, let’s take the Samsung 970 Evo:

Samsung SSD 970 EVO 2TB – NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSD

A lot of people will probably stop reading at 2TB. I know I have down the years. However, this is where you find out the size, bus-interface & everything else related to compatibility. We’re going to stick with the size; for now, however, everything else will be explained as you keep reading.

So, after ‘M.2’ in the product name, you will see a series of numbers, ‘2280’ in this scenario. Well, that is the sizing of the module. The 22 refers to the width, 22mm, and the 80 refers to the length, 80mm. If the length was 60mm, the number would read ‘2260’ and so on.

Before we get stuck on M.2 specifications though, I feel we should touch upon the origins of the M.2 form factor…

M.2 Beginnings

The first movement towards what we now know as M.2 was the release of mini-SATA or mSATA for short. This was for all intents and purposes a stripped back, naked SSD with the casing removed. SATA SSD’s as we know them, a 2.5inch drives which connect to your motherboard via the SATA connection cable. However, mSATA strips away the shell to reveal the 1×2 inch rectangular circuit board which would inevitably slot directly into your motherboard.

This being said, as the name suggests, mSATA still utilizes the serial ATA bus regardless. The interface, however, has been changed to an edge connector on the PCB, unlike your usual SATA cabling. In addition, the mSATA drive draws all of its power directly via the slot it’s connected to.

The issue with mSATA was that it had all the limitations of the SATA connection still, meaning the only real advantage over other SSD’s was a space saving one. Even at mSATA’s peak, developers were working on a replacement to provide higher speeds and great capacity drives. It was known as NGFF (Next-Generation Form Factor) and would be renamed in the future to what we currently know as M.2

How Do M.2 SSD’s differ

So, you’re in the market for an M.2 SSD and you have a general understanding of how they work, however, when you look at different products to buy, you still have queries on which ones are best and why.

In this section, we’re going to explain how SSD’s differ and ultimately, how the differences affect you.

Size

As we mentioned above, not all M.2 SSDs are equal; they vary in many ways but the most noticeable is probably the size. When we talk about size, we reference two areas, storage capacity and physical size (mainly length).

Learning what storage capacity your SSD has is crucial because you need to know it serves the purpose of what you use it for. Knowing the length is equally, if not more, important because some motherboards simply AREN’T compatible with certain sizes M.2 SSD’s.

First, let’s go over physical Size:

As you can see from the chart above, M.2 SSD’s come in a variety of sizes. Now, knowing which sizes are compatible with your motherboard should be a relatively simple task that requires reading the user manual. You can also contact the motherboard manufacturer directly as well if that makes life a little easier.

Moving on to storage capacity, like all memory whether it be RAM, HDD or SSD, the capacity varies quite considerably. The most common sizes are:

• 120/128GB
• 240GB
• 250/256GB
• 480GB
• 500GB
• 960/1TB
• 2TB

As with any other hardware component, size usually has a direct correlation with price. You might have seen 2TB of HDD for under $100, however, due to nature and technology used within SSD’s, you’d be lucky to find good quality drives for under $250.

Bus-Interface

Things get a little more technical from here but I’ll try and keep it as simple as possible. The bus interface is, for lack of a better simile, the path that the data takes when traveling to and from the M.2 drive.

There are a number of different interfaces used with M.2 and they make all the difference when it comes to how fast your SSD will be in real-world situations.

Most of the earlier M.2 drives made use of the SATA connection, meaning they were handcuffed by the limitations of what that PCB could offer. They were the exact same drives as the SATA SSD’s only stripped back to the bare circuit board.

However, in the quest for greater read/write speeds, developers would have to make use of the PCIe lanes your motherboard has to offer. The PCI Express-bus M.2 SSD’s which were to follow had significant performance gains over the earlier SATA SSD’s and the original mSATA drives respectively.

The first PCIe SSD’s had to make use of the PCIe Gen 2.0 x2 interface that did have increased performance over SATA, but only marginally. That was all about to change with PCIe Gen 3.0 x4 though. Most of the M.2 drives which you will find in today’s market will be PCIe Gen 3.0 x4 compatible and when paired with what’s known as NVME (Non-volatile Memory Express), performance is bolstered even further.

All this being said, with the new Ryzen chips which are due to release July 7th, we will be seeing the latest PCIe Gen 4.0 SSD’s released as well.

How To Find The Best M.2

Now that you understand exactly what an M.2 SSD is, how do you find the best one for your needs? It’s really quite simple, you need to ask yourself what kind of performance and requirements you need, then find the SSD that is most suited to your requirements. The following is a short list of questions which I would recommend asking yourself before looking to buy an SSD:

• Is the SSD going to be used, solely, for my OS?
• Am I going to be using my SSD for games, music, and other entertainment purposes?
• Do I need the quickest SSD I can afford, or is am I looking for the sweet spot between price/performance/size?
• Does my motherboard support M.2 OS launch?
• How much do you want to spend?

Asking yourself these simple questions will save you a lot of time when it comes to selecting the SSD which is right for you. For example, If you have $150 to spend, and you want to use your M.2 for your O/S and some primary games, you probably want to find a 500GB SSD with NVME.

If you have $500 to spend and you want your SSD to house your OS, all your media files and games, and be as quick as possible. I’d recommend opting for a 2TB SSD with NVME & rapid read/write times.