Best PCIe 4.0 SSDs 2024: Top picks from experts

While older computers and storage drives might still use the common SATA or the older PCIe 3.0 interfaces to sling your bits of data around, more recent computing equipment most often offers the far faster PCIe 4.0 protocol. If you’re really lucky (or spent a lot of money), you might even have faster PCIe 5.0. But that’s a subject for another roundup.

We’ve tested nearly three dozen PCIe 4.0 SSDs and the best one to cross our labs thus far is Solidgm’s P44 Pro. In a field of tough contenders it delivered ferociously fast speeds rivaled only by next-gen PCIe 5.0 SSDs.

Whether you want to upgrade, or add more storage to your PCIe 4.0 computer, there’s an SSD for you. Read on to learn more, including what to look for in PCIe 4.0 SSD.

Why you should trust us: We’re not called PCWorld for nothing. Our reviewers have been testing PC hardware for decades. Our storage evaluations are exhaustive, testing the limits of every product — from performance benchmarks to the practicalities of regular use. As PC users ourselves, we know what makes a killer product stand out. Only the best SSDs make this list. For more about our testing process, scroll to the bottom of this article.

Our latest PCIe 4.0 SSD reviews

990 EVO Plus: This is an update to Samsung’s 990 EVO hybrid drive that can use either the PCIe 4.0 or PCIe 5.0 interface — although the latter is limited to PCIe 4.0’s theoretical bandwidth. The purpose is flexibility, and the update brings improved performance to boot, albeit at a higher-than-average price for HMB drives.

Teamgroup T-Force A440 Lite: A decent performer but only 14th overall in a pool of 21, and at times slower than it’s less expensive sibling, the T-Force G50 below.

T-Force G50: If you’re looking to stretch your SSD dollar, this drive should be on your short list. It’s an inexpensive, solid performing PCIe 4.0 drive for everyday tasks.

Lexar Play 2280: This is an interesting drive. It’s marketed at PS5 users, but it features a Host Memory Buffer (HMB) design, which the PS5 doesn’t support. Still it’s a fine drive for PC, just very pricey currently.

Kingston NV3: This PCIe 4.0 SSD is proof that DRAM-less drives — those use a Host Memory Buffer (HMB) as cache — can offer competitive performance, while also saving the consumer some money. The NV3 would be even better with a more generous warranty.

Sabrent Rocket Nano 2242: Featuring a smaller form factor (22mm x 42mm), this good-performing drive was tailor-made for Lenovo’s Legion Go and Thinkpads — but it can also be used in a standard slot as well.

What to look for in an PCIe 4.0 SSD

There are a few things to look out for, but most importantly you’ll want to focus on capacity, price, and warranty length. Three-year warranties are standard with bargain drives, but nicer models are generally guaranteed for up to five years. And unlike the early days of SSDs and NAND, modern drives won’t wear out with normal consumer usage, as Tech Report tested and proved years ago with a grueling endurance test.

Another crucial thing to watch out for is the technology used to connect the SSD to your PC. For more details and buying advice you can read our in-depth guide on which type of SSD you should buy.

A few handy definitions:

SATA: This older, slower technology is both a connection type and a transfer protocol, used to connect most 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch hard drives and SSDs to your PC. SATA III speeds can hit roughly 600MBps, and most—but not all—modern drives max it out. (More on that in the next section.)

PCIe: This interface taps into four of your computer’s PCIe lanes and blows away SATA speed, to the tune of nearly 4GBps over PCIe gen 3 and well over 10GBps when you reach PCIe 5.0. The transport technology pairs nicely with the NVMe protocol (see the next entry) used by all modern M.2 PCIe SSDs. Both the PCIe slots in your motherboard and the M.2 slot in your motherboard are generally wired to support the PCIe interface, and you can buy adapters that allow you to employ “gumstick” (2280) M.2 drives in a PCIe slot. PCIe 4.0 drives are significantly faster, but require an AMD Ryzen 3000-series or Intel Core 11th-gen (or newer) processor, along with a compatible PCIe 4.0 motherboard.

NVMe: Non-Volatile Memory Express technology takes advantage of PCIe’s bountiful bandwidth and the unique properties of NAND to create blisteringly fast SSD performance. Check out PCWorld’s “Everything you need to know about NVMe” for a nitty-gritty deep-dive.

M.2: You might assume M.2 drives are PCIe/NVMe. You might not know, however, that before NVMe was a thing, some M.2 slots and SSDs were SATA. If you’re shopping to upgrade an older computer make sure which technology you need — NVMe or SATA.

mSATA and U.2: You may also stumble across mSATA in older equipment, and U.2 SSDs for enterprise-grade servers and the like, but consumer motherboard support is almost nil for the latter.

Speed matters, of course, but most modern SSDs, even the slower ones are ridiculously fast. Also, don’t overbuy. A PCIe SSD will only perform as fast as the generation of the device it’s installed in. In other words, don’t expect a PCIe 5.0 SSD to perform at its rated speed on a PCIe 3.0 computer.

Speaking of which, you can expect roughly 3.5GBps max from PCIe 3.0, 7.5GBps max from PCIe 4.0, and somewhere just north of 12GBps with PCIe 5.0 under optimal conditions — i.e., using benchmarks or software that supports NVMe’s multiple queues. Single-queue Windows limits all flavors to under 4GBps during normal transfers. Again, don’t overbuy in terms of performance.

How we test SSDs

Drive tests currently utilize Windows 11, 64-bit running on an X790 (PCIe 4.0/5.0) motherboard/i5-12400 CPU combo with two Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5 4800MHz modules (64GB of memory total). Both 20Gbps USB and Thunderbolt 4 are integrated to the back panel and Intel CPU/GPU graphics are used. The 48GB transfer tests utilize an ImDisk RAM disk taking up 58GB of the 64GB of total memory. The 450GB file is transferred from a 2TB Samsung 990 Pro which also runs the OS.

Each test is performed on a newly formatted and TRIM’d drive so the results are optimal. Note that in normal use, as a drive fills up, performance may decrease due to less NAND for secondary caching, as well as other factors. This can be less of a factor with the current crop of SSDs with far faster late-generation NAND.

Caveat: The performance numbers shown apply only to the drive we were shipped and to the capacity tested. SSD performance can and will vary by capacity due to more or fewer chips to shotgun reads/writes across and the amount of NAND available for secondary caching. Vendors also occasionally swap components. If you ever notice a large discrepancy between the performance you experience and that which we report, by all means, let us know.

To learn more about our testing methodology see PCWorld’s article on how we test internal SSDs.