I’m pretty sure the last sliver of reasoned decision-making I’m capable of just squirmed out of my skull forever. Even by my RTX 4090-splurging standards, paying close to 500 Big Boys for a Gen5 NVMe Solid State Drive is extreme. Yet here we are.
First up, let me clarify two things. I’m in no way saying you need an SSD in your life that costs more than the PS5 Slim. Secondly, I’ve become so obsessed with upgrading my powerful gaming PC, it’s basically a chronic condition… inflicted upon my wallet.
I’m not seriously suggesting you fork out for the $472 4TB model I just blew an unreasonable amount of my wages on. Yet I am comfortable recommending a more affordable version of what is a truly incredible drive.
Right now, the Crucial T700 1TB Gen5 M.2 SSD is on sale for $164 at Amazon — that’s $15 down from its usual listing price of $179. It may not exactly be an Earth-shattering saving, yet I'd still argue an NVMe drive that’s capable of hitting read speeds of up to 11,700MBps is the best form of future-proofing possible if you’re passionate about ultra quick 4K video file transfers or want to slice load times in the best PS5 games to an even more absurdly rapid degree.
With the best GPU on the planet paired with what is arguably the finest gaming-focused CPU around in the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D hunkered inside one of the best gaming PCs, you can probably tell I have less for my weekly food budget than a Netflix subscription. Hey, when you double down on the best graphics card and gaming processor ever made, you’ve got to cut trifling matters like eating from your budget, right? PSA: Please don’t take my fiduciary and dietary advice literally.
Anyway, yes I have indeed recently bought one of the fastest SSDs ever. We’re talking about a drive that’s so blistering, it makes the stock M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD inside the PS5 (phew, that’s a lot of ultra niche tech terms!), look practically decrepit.
For the record, I’m not actually throwing shade at the SSD Sony has chosen for its sales-smashing console, as it posts respectable numbers. With read speeds of 7,100MBps and write numbers of 6,800MBps, this drive offers perhaps the most immediately appreciable console upgrade since the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X embraced 4K to squeeze the most out of the best OLED TVs at the time.
Drive of your life
Want a couple of great examples of how a Flash-fast SSD can improve your gaming experiences in ways you instantly take for granted? Just look at the near load time-free standards Insomniac has set this console generation in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.
Load times in games and how long you twiddle your thumbs during file transfers matter, folks. Time is precious, so why waste yours attempting to shift huge amounts of data onto a hard drive that’s practically as old as Philly’s Liberty Bell?
While Crucial claims my 4TB T700 can hit read speeds of 12,400MBps, the fastest testing results I’ve produced is a “mere” 10,564MBps"
While Crucial claims my 4TB T700 can hit read speeds of 12,400MBps, the fastest real-world testing result I’ve managed to produce is a “mere” reading of 10,564MBps. Shocking, I know. Bizarrely, I find the best way to test the speed of Crucial’s T700 NVMe SSD is to use the Sabrent Rocket Control Panel that's my go-to app for monitoring my Sabrent Rocket 4.0 Plus SSD. That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement for the crash-prone Crucial Storage Executive Tool app — hardly a snappy name — that I’ve quickly given up on.
In average usage terms after migrating Windows 11 from my Sabrent drive to the far quicker Crucial T700, the practical everyday results haven’t exactly blown my mind. Does Microsoft’s latest OS load a hair quicker on my new NVMe, sure? Are large file transfers faster at that eye-watering 12,100MBps write speed? Absolutely. Are any of the factors I’ve droned on about truly going to transform your PC/console experience in the here and now, though? Not hugely, at least not for the moment.
Still, as someone who is obsessed with all things related to PC hardware, I can’t deny there’s a comfort to be had in the thought of the future best PC games being able to fully take advantage of the Crucial T700’s ludicrously impressive numbers. Until that day occurs, I’ll simply take solace knowing I’ve got 4TB of storage to play with.
More from Tom’s Guide
- The best PS5 internal SSDs you can buy today
- The latest Ratchet & Clank has restored my faith in PC gaming
- I just made Steam Deck OLED even better with this $33 accessory
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