At a time when SSDs are already wildly overpriced and getting worse by the minute, is now really the time to pay extra for brand tax?
I see it everywhere: big-brand SSDs priced well above their cheaper counterparts. On paper, they all look the same, so are they worth the additional expense? Let’s find out.
A big brand doesn’t always equal a better SSD
Or at least it doesn’t have to.
SSD prices, in general, are out of this world right now—but there’s often a wide discrepancy between the cheapest and the most expensive drive of a certain type. Funnily enough, the brands often dictate more of a price difference than the basic specs do.
For instance, 1TB SSDs are all $100 and up right now, and that includes SATA SSDs (which would be obsolete if not for the current market conditions), NVMe PCIe Gen 3, and PCIe Gen 4. Gen 5 drives are the fastest SSDs right now, so they still sit in a league of their own, but otherwise? They all cost about the same, but the entire pricing bracket is really, really huge.
We have this Crucial P310 1TB SSD at $107, but the Samsung 990 Pro 1TB is $200. That’s an unfair comparison, though, as those SSDs are very different on the inside—I’ll discuss that below.
However, you’ll find many SSDs between $100 and even $250, all sharing the same capacity and similar specs, but entirely different prices. There are big brands like Samsung and Kingston, but also lesser-known brands like KingSpec and Silicon Power. And honestly, if the brand is the only thing that sets two drives apart, you shouldn’t pay more just for the brand alone.
It’s all in the specs.
The specs that actually matter
Look at the spec sheet, not at the brand name.
Buying a worthwhile SSD has never been harder for a casual user who just wants a drive that works. This realization hit me as I was helping a friend choose an SSD, and they were hesitant to buy from a brand they didn’t know, but Samsung’s SSDs are typically the priciest.
Some of the most important SSD specs aren’t very straightforward. Capacity and sequential read speeds are two obvious specs, but what about the NAND type and the TBW? The thermals matter in expensive drives, but you can always just buy a heatsink.
NAND type usually boils down to quad-level cell (QLC) and triple-level cell (TLC) in consumer drives, and that’s where some of that price difference will come from. Cheaper, relatively unknown brands may sell SSDs that look like a steal, but the difference between QLC and TLC is huge. More bits per cell make QLC cheaper, but they usually have lower endurance and worse sustained writes once their cache runs out.
Read/write speeds are an obvious spec to look at, but they’re tied to the PCIe generation (in the case of NVMe SSDs). However, even within the same generation, you’ll find flagship drives that max out the spec, and more affordable drives that are just a little bit slower. The latter will often be made by more affordable brands.
Then there’s the question of DRAM vs. DRAM-less SSDs. Having a bit of DRAM on an SSD helps the drive keep track of where your data lives, making small tasks feel snappier. DRAM-less SSDs skip that dedicated cache to cut costs. However, most modern NVMe drives use Host Memory Buffer (HMB), which allows them to borrow from your PC’s actual RAM to support those mapping tasks. DRAM-less SSDs may be cheaper.
The problem with buying cheaper SSDs (and what to look out for)
It’s easy to get burned, but if you’re prepared, you could score a good deal.
On the surface, there’s not much that’s wrong with a lot of these cheaper brands. I’ve personally owned SSDs from Adata, XPG, Lexar, and Kioxia, and have had no issues with them. Those brands may not be as recognizable as Samsung, Crucial, WD, or Kingston, but they still have a long list of solid products.
It’s not the brand you should worry about; it’s the hidden specs that often don’t show up in retail listings. Shopping on Amazon often won’t tell you whether a drive is QLC or TLC, or whether it has DRAM or not. But even more expensive brands don’t always make that glaringly obvious for the simple reason that a single model may have both QLC and TLC variants, and often, there’s no easy way to tell.
That’s perhaps the biggest problem with buying a cheaper SSD: you may not fully know what you’re going to get.
Cheaper brands vs. Expensive brands
How do they really match up?
I did some digging on some of the cheapest 1TB SSDs I could find on Amazon. I disregarded listings that were obviously fake and landed with this 1TB Super Talent DX3 SATA III M.2 SSD as the cheapest option at $97. To my surprise, this one reveals the type of NAND flash (3D TLC), but being a SATA M.2 SSD, it’s pretty useless for most people.
Skimming past several more SATA and proprietary drives brings me to the aforementioned Crucial P310. The listing reveals that it’s not a TLC drive (and therefore, it’s a QLC), but I only find out that it’s DRAM-less from a review on another website.
I then stumble upon this 1TB Silicon Power drive, and I’m reminded why checking specs is important: It costs $143, but it’s a Gen 3 drive with maximum read speeds of up to 2,200MB/s. On the other hand, it is a TLC, but I again have to go digging for reviews to find out that it’s DRAM-less. Meanwhile, this Kootion drive is considerably faster at 3,500MB/s, but cheaper ($126), while still offering TLC NAND.
Silicon Power also has a Gen 4 SSD that bumps the speeds up to 5,000MB/s for $148, but there’s no mention of TLC or QLC; reviews reveal that it’s QLC.
Samsung SSDs are generally either sold out or expensive across the board. The cheapest NVMe I could find is a PCIe Gen 3 drive for $195, and an internet search tells me it’s a TLC.
It’s not about the brand, but finding a good deal
Dig into the specs and buy what makes sense.
All the research on SSD prices just tells me one thing: They’re a complete mess right now.
Big brands, smaller brands, it hardly matters. When the pricing is this volatile, it’s more important than ever to look at the specs, and to look at them closely.
Many cheaper brands can deliver a good product, but the spec sheet speaks for itself. If you can’t find an exact answer to every question, it’s best not to buy, whether it’s a big-name brand or a company you’re entirely unfamiliar with.
