Last year Crucial impressed with their first PCIe Gen 5 SSD the Crucial T700. Its performance was extremely impressive even when compared to fast PCIe Gen 4 devices. Well here we are at it once again and Crucial is stepping things up again with their latest drive the T705. Like with the T700, the T705 comes in a version with a heatsink and one without but like with PCIe 4.0 drives and especially with a PCIe 5.0 drive, you are going to want to pair this up with either your motherboard M.2 heatsink or get the model with a heatsink. They do have a new white heatsinked model as well. Let’s dive into the new SSD and see what is different then put it to the test to see how it performs.

Lexar recently expanded on their gaming lineup and one of the new products that they have added into the mix is their new NM790 SSD. It is a PCIe 4 SSD with the standard 2280 M.2 form factor using four lanes. This isn’t Lexar’s first PCIe 4x4 SSD, in fact, they have 7 other models that fall into that category. But even though PCIe 5.0 drives are now also on the market the PCIE 4 drives are still the sweet spot. The NM790 is a DRAMless design that they are looking to put behind the NM800 Pro which has DRAM in their lineup. Today I’m going to see what it is all about then put it to the test, then when I’m done we can see how the NM790 is positioned in the market to find out if it’s a good option for your next build.

Spinning hard drives are surprisingly easy to damage when they are running and they get moved or banged around. The move to SSDs was not only huge for performance, but when they hit external storage they finally helped with durability significantly and also helped with the sizing of portable drives as well. Crucial has been in the market for a while now with the Crucial X8 being the first Crucial-branded portable SSD, but Micron their parent company did have them under the Lexar brand before the brand was sold in 2017. The X8 however was still a little large. Crucial just announced two new portable drives, their X9 Pro and the X10 Pro which are similar but with the X9 Pro being a USB 3.2 Gen-2 drive and the X10 Pro doubling the transfer speed with USB 3.2 Gen-2x2. Today I’m going to check out both and see what they are all about as well as put them to the test.

It used to be that M.2 SSDs didn’t need much if any cooling but as speeds have improved that has changed and we have seen some situations where without cooling performance drops off or they fail completely. That along with the PS5 requiring a heatsink for M.2 drives has helped us see a lot of different SSD models that have heatsink and heatsinkless models. The Crucial P5 Plus which I took a look at back in 2021 is now included in those with the introduction of its own heatsink models. With drive prices dropping the P5 Plus was $179.99 when I originally took a look at it. The drive is now $54.99 or $67.99 for the heatsink model. I thought this would be a great time to see if the P5 Plus is still keeping up and to test out how the heatsink performs, so today I’m going to check it out. 

Lexar has been doing a great job of getting a nice variety in their SSD product stack while they haven’t brought out a PCIe 5.0 drive just yet and with that, they have also been competitive in pricing as well. Having already established their name in the storage market with their SD cards for years now they are also on the short list of brands that you can pick from when looking at SSDs and at least know what you are getting. They did just recently announce a new PCIe 4.0 drive that they are positioning to run against the WD SN770 and the Crucial P3 Plus. The NM710 is their latest entry-level drive that goes with their NM620 which is their PCIe 3.0 drive. Today I’m going to check out the NM710 and see what makes it tick as well as put it to the test so we can see how it fits in the market as well as check out its pricing to make sure it fits there as well. So let’s dive in and see what the Lexar NM710 is all about.

We are just getting used to PCIe Gen 4 SSDs and now PCIe Gen 5 have been trickling out onto the market. For that Crucial has changed up their usual naming which was all focused around their P lineup with the P5 Plus being their highest-end drive. For the new drive, however, they have changed things up to T700 to indicate the new Gen 5 drive. With the specs highlighting rear speeds of up to 12,400 MB/s and write speeds of 11,800 MB/s we are in for another huge performance increase over what we saw with PCIe Gen 4 and especially Gen 3. So today I’m going to dive in and check out the Crucial T700 Pro with and without its heatsink to see what is behind the curtain and then check out their performance including comparing what the cooling can do for you. So let’s dive in!

Compact M. 2-based external SSDs have been growing in popularity and it’s no wonder why. They max out the performance of USB 3.2 Gen 2 connections with crazy read and write performance, are extremely durable, and their size is a lot better than any hard drive based external option. I’ve had the chance to check out a variety of the options in the past. Alongside of them, some companies make M.2 external enclosures that do all of the same things, but you just add your own drive inside. They are a nice option to use an old SSD or offer you the chance to be able to upgrade later. Viper, the gaming brand of Patriot has had a few including their latest Viper VXD which I’m going to check out today.

When it comes to external or portable storage there is just about any option you may be able to think of available. But because they are external, the enclosure takes up a lot of extra space and you are limited to the connection option that it comes with originally. SanDisk recently introduced a new lineup to their professional lineup that they call Pro-Blade and with that, they have M. 2-based SSDs in compact mags and then multiple dock options depending on how you are planning to use it. I’ve been looking for external backup options for our main server and these stood out as a good option paired up with the Pro-Blade Transport and today I’m going to put them to the test to see how they perform.

Lexar has continued to expand their SSD lineup including the addition of their Lexar NM800 Pro which is available with and without a compact heatsink. The NM800 Pro sports an NNOGRIT 1G5236CAA controller which gives it PCIe Gen 4 capabilities and Lexar has it listed with read speeds up to 7450 MB/s and 6500 MB/s for its write speeds, at least on the 2TB model. This lines up well with other Gen 4 SSDs. Lexar is a long-respected brand and they gave their Pro-branded SSD a five-year warranty so I’m excited to put their new drive to the test and see how it performs. Today I will take a closer look to see what secrets it has to offer then we can run it through our test suite to see how it performs to find out if this is the drive to consider next time you are shopping for a new SSD.

It feels like most of the time there are the same names over and over again but every once in a while someone new does jump into the mix. The brand Fantom Drives isn’t new to the industry, they and their parent company Micronet Technology have been around since 1988 but even after all of that time today is the first time that we have had a Fantom Drives product come into the office. Today I’m going to check out the Fantom Drives Venom8, a PCIe Gen 4 NVMe M.2 SSD. I’m going to take a closer look at the drive to see what it is all about then put it through our test suite, so let’s dive in and see how it performs!

Crucial recently launched their two new latest drives the P3 and the P3 plus and I recently took a look at the P3 Plus. The P3 Plus is their budget-focused PCIe 4.0 drive and the standard P3 sticks with the PCIe 3.0 interface of their past drives for those who don’t need 4.0 performance or don’t have the hardware to take advantage of the performance. I was impressed with the P3 Plus, especially with its price point considering its performance. So today I’m going to check out the P3 in the same 2TB capacity as I did with the P3 Plus and we will find out how it performs and if it is also a good value so let’s get to it!

Back in May Crucial announced two of their latest NVMe-based M.2 SSDs with their P3 and P3 Plus. These drives continue their P lineup which has had the P1 and the P5 as their budget and flagship drives and later the P2 replaced the P1 and they introduced the P5 Plus to push things farther being their first PCIe 4.0 drive. Well the P3 and P3 Plus drop in the middle of the lineup as a cheaper PCIe 4.0 option behind the P5 Plus and today I have the P3 Plus in the office to test to see how it performs. Crucial is normally great at offering a good value in this part of their lineup so I’m excited to see if the P3 Plus continues that so let’s dig in.

As SSD manufacturers have been slowly filling out their PCIe Gen 4 SSD options one of the trends that some of them did with past M.2 drives was sprinkle in a little RGB lighting into the mix and so far except for the WD SN850 which had a small light no one has done that with their new 4^th Gen drives. Viper Gaming which is the gaming brand of Patriot just introduced their new Viper Gaming VPR400 which does exactly that by mixing their Viper Gaming VPR100 design that I previously reviewed with a new Innogrit Gen 4x4 controller. Today I’m going to take a closer look at the VPR400 and then put it through our test suite to see how it performs, lets's go!

When it comes to protecting your data it is very easy to ignore things until you have a problem and frankly that is what most people do. But it doesn’t have to be that hard, at least to get basic protections in place. But for me protecting my data isn’t just backing things up. Protecting your data can also be about not opening your files up to the possibility of someone accessing them online, especially these days with everything having its own cloud. In addition to a NAS in your home giving you a central place to store important files, I’ve found that some brands have options that can give you similar features to many cloud-based services without monthly fees and without you uploading your files onto someone else’s servers. Qnap is one of those companies and one of their newest NAS the Qnap TS-233 is a compact 2-drive NAS for personal use that has the potential to allow you to do that at a lower cost and I’m curious to see how it compares to other options to today I’m going to check out the TS-233 and then put it through a few tests.

I’ve talked about it a few times now, but a few of the bigger PC component companies have been expanding out as far as what they make for the past 10+ years. They started off with each company having a small focus, but we have now gotten to the point where you can build almost an entire system sticking to the same brand. MSI is one of those companies and MSI and Gigabyte, unlike Asus, have both gotten into the SSD market but up until now, I haven’t had the chance to check out what they had going on. MSI recently introduced their Spatium M480 which is a PC or PS5 design which means it does have the heatsink needed to fit in the PS5 and today I’m going to see what the M480 is all about. We know it is a PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive with some crazy performance numbers promised so I’m excited to see what makes it tick and how it performs, let’s go check it out. 

Portable storage needs cover a wide range of situations. For some content creators, and I’ve seen this a LOT with YouTubers, it might be normal to regularly pick up large external hard drives to fill up and to store away like they are old video tapes. Or maybe you travel or take your data with you to places like work. Well, there is a point in drive size where even just getting the data on or off of your drive is going to take far too long to get it done with a spinning disk. There are standard flash solutions and SATA-based SSD options. But if you are moving a lot of data around the only real solution is an NVMe based external. The Extreme Pro Portable SSD V2 that SanDisk sent over fits in that category. With an impressive 4TB capacity, it is up in the same range as a portable hard drive but you aren’t going to spend all day getting your data off of it. Today I’m going to check out how the drive compares to the last few SanDisk drives we have had in the office and then check out its performance as well.

In part of our catching up with WD’s product lineup, I took a look at the WD Blue SN570. Well, last month they also introduced their newest WD Black SSD, the WD Black SN770. The SN770 slots in above the SN750 SE which came out last year and the older PCIe 3.0 SN750 and behind last year's SN850 Flagship SSD which is also from the WD Black line. It’s still weird thinking of a SN700 series drive not being the top drive but what is more interesting is the WD Black lineup expanding out with multiple gaming options in the M.2 SSD market now. Today I’m going to check out what makes the SN770 tick and check out the performance of the 1TB model that WD sent over. Let’s dive in.

It’s easy to get excited about some of the faster high-end SSDs, like Western Digitals Black line of drives. But for a lot of people those are overkill or out of budget and the Blue line better fits things. The WD Blue lineup started off with the SN500 as their creative and budget-focused drive and they eventually replaced that with the WD Blue SN550. Well, late last year they introduced the SN570 and I’m excited to finally see how the new drive performs and to see pricing wise how it fits in the market. So today I’m going to check out the new drive and see how it compares to the previous model. Let’s check it out!

While we have had the chance to check out a few different Patriot SSDs that have performed well over the years. Their recently introduced P400 is Patriot's first PCIe 4.0 SSD which opens up new performance possibilities. When PCIe 4.0 was introduced only a few companies had compatible drives at that time and it makes sense. At that time only one chipset from AMD supported the new platform, but now Intel and AMD have had options available on both sides for over a year and even longer on the AMD side of things. The odds of people having PCs that support them are much higher now. So today I’m going to dig into the P400 and see what it has going behind the curtain then we can run it through our test suite to see how it performs compared to a few older PCIe 3.0 drives and a whole stack of 4.0 drives on the new Intel Z690 chipset.

So for someone like me with a lot of PCs in the house, storage on the network is the way to go. But it’s easy to forget that a lot of people may only have one PC and when that is the case you don’t need to overcomplicate things with networked storage. You can rely on internal or external storage options depending on how much space you need. When it comes to editing video you will see a lot of people with stacks of external hard drives but those don’t offer any redundancy or protection. Something with RAID as a possibility is always going to be the safer bet and TerraMaster has the network and external options covered. I’ve taken a look at a few of their options in the past and they sent over their D5-300 which is a 5 bay USB 3.1 option that just about any PC is going to support. Today I’m going to check out what the D5-300 is all about and see how it performs in a best-case scenario when packed with SSDs. Let’s check it out!