Best Rated Solid State Drives Buying Guide
| |Just a few years ago, solid state drives were prohibitively expensive, especially in larger capacities. Now, they are much more affordable and are available in a wide variety of sizes and formats. To best understand which drives are the most reliable, we researched both customer reviews and professional testing results.
Below you will find the ratings broken down for each source, with a summary at the end to give an overall impression of the top solid state drives. All of the ratings are out of a possible five stars.
Best rated solid state drives on Amazon
Amazon customers favored solid state drives from Samsung and Crucial over the others. The Samsung 840 and 850 Pro series drives shared the top spots with the Crucial MX100 and M550 drives. The Samsung 840 EVO series filled out the middle of the top ten list. SanDisk and MyDigital were on the lower end of the top ten SSDs on Amazon.
Top ten solid state drives at Best Buy
Best Buy customers chose the Samsung 840 EVO series and the Kingston HyperX SSDs as their favorites. Three Intel models followed closely behind- the 530 series, the 520 series and the Intel Cherryville 520 drive. The bottom half of the top ten contained the Toshiba Q Series Pro, the Samsung 820 Series, and other solid state drives by Toshiba, SanDisk and a hybrid drive by Seagate.
Best rated solid state drives according to Computer Shopper magazine
The editors of Computer Shopper tested solid state drives and chose their top ten according to their internal criteria. Their top three favorite drives were the Crucial MX100, and two Samsung drives, the 840 EVO and the 840 Pro. The middle range of their top ten was made up of the Plextor M6e, the Samsung 850 Pro, the SanDisk Extreme II and the Samsung 840 series. The remainder of their list was comprised of the ioSafe Rugged portable SSD, another Plextor M6e model, and the Intel 730 series.
Conclusion
The overall standout from all sources was the Samsung 840 line of solid state drives. The Crucial MX100 was well regarded by testers and consumers alike. Drives by Intel and SanDisk appeared in the middle to low range of top ten lists. The other drives that appeared on each top ten list were inconsistent across sources.
Sources: Amazon.com, Bestbuy.com, Computershopper.com