Best SSD Under $100: Speed Up Your Gaming PC

Nvme SSD under $100
Nvme SSD under $100
(Image credit: Corsair)

We have to admit that arriving first on the battlefield gives a special joy that you can’t find it somewhere else. But to experience this feeling, you need to have an SSD. Whether you are building an entry-level or a high-end gaming machine, a solid-state drive should be one of the primary components in your list. It’s life-changing, especially when you are upgrading from an HDD. And thanks to the current tough competition in the PC industry, we have succeeded in gathering some fantastic powerful SSD under $100. Yes, that’s right, folks; you are going to get rid of your endless loading time without breaking the bank.

For those who don’t have time or energy to go through the whole article, here is a quick table showing you all the essential information that you need to know regarding these SSDs.

1-Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus

Just like the well-known Samsung 870 EVO, 970 EVO Plus SSD from the same brand is the ideal choice to take your user experience a step further. Its amazing performance will allow your gaming machine to have light speed by reducing your booting and loading significantly.

What makes it good?

Boasting increased speeds and very high endurance compared to SSDs of previous generations, the Samsung 970 EVO Plus in M.2 2280 format will take your PC to another level of performance thanks to its sequential read and write speeds of up to 3.5GB/s and 3.2GB/s, respectively. The number of operations per second reaches an impressive level of 480,000 read IOPS, and 550,000 write IOPS (4KB, QD32), enough to launch your applications in the blink of an eye.

With the 970 EVO Plus range, you assemble a configuration for ultimate performance. This model features a PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe 1.3 interface and offers an improved Phoenix controller. Besides, it sets a new level in endurance thanks to Samsung’s in-house 3-bit V-NAND memory chips.

With the simple and intuitive user interface that the Samsung Magician software offers, you can manage your SSD easily. You can receive notifications when new firmware is deployed and easily install updates to improve your SSD performance. You can also check the read and write speeds of your SSD and maintain the highest performance, as well as select your security options to protect your data.

Pros
  • Relatively less expensive
  • Fast
Cons
  • N/A

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2-Crucial P2 500 GB

Whether you’re at work, in the middle of the game, or on the go, slow starts can be frustrating. With massive storage and performance powered by NVMe technology, the P2 has the speed and reliability you need every day to increase the performance of your daily use and your gaming experience.

What makes it good?

Starting up your PC, using heavy software, or arriving first on the battlefield becomes a simple matter with this Crucial P2 SSD. It combines high storage capacity with PCIe 3.0 x 4 NVMe technologies to unlock your PC’s potential. Besides, it provides faster load times and faster data transfers with reading speeds up to 2300MB/s and writes one up to 940MB/s. Thus, everything just gets faster and smoother.

A designer of several of the most advanced memory technologies in the world: “Micron” offers its expertise to Crucial’s SSDs, including MX500, to enable them to have fast and reliable memory chips. State-of-the-art components are designed from the ground up for optimum efficiency. Therefore, the P2 benefits from low power consumption while offering a high performance/price ratio.

What could have been better?

Unfortunately, not everyone will be able to enjoy this mighty SSD due to its 8cm length, which makes it not compatible with some motherboards.

Pros
  • Impressive speeds
  • Long-Lasting
  • high performance/price ratio
Cons
  • Lenghty

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3-Kingston SSD A400 960 GB

Belonging to the best budget SSDs, Kingston’s A400 dramatically improves your current system’s responsiveness with a boot, load, and transfer speeds compared to conventional hard drives. With incredible speeds and rock-solid reliability, this SSD is really going to catch your attention!

What makes it good?

This 2.5-inch SATA SSD offers read and write speeds of up to 500MB/s and 450MB/s, respectively. This SSD is ten times faster than a traditional hard drive (a 7200rpm one) and offers higher performance, Ultra-responsive multitasking management, and speeds up the entire system. It will also improve your gaming experience, especially if you play games where you have to change the map constantly.

More reliable and more durable than a hard drive, the A400 contains no moving parts. It is less exposed to the risk of failure than a typical HDD. It is also more resistant to vibration and shock, making it an ideal solution for laptops and other mobile computing systems.

With an average time before failure of 1 million hours (MTBF), the A400 SSD is durable and allows you to have plenty of space for your files, applications, videos, photos, and gaming library.

What could have been better?

The TLC Nand is less durable than other SSD flash memories.

Pros
  • Budget-Friendly
  • Large size
Cons
  • N/A

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4-Corsair Force MP510 480 GB

Built specifically to impress you with its lightning speed, the Corsair MP 510 is one of our preferred SSDs on this list. Ultra-fast and reliable, it will significantly boost your gaming machine’s performance, allowing you to have a smooth and fantastic user-experience.

What makes it good?

Corsair Force unveils its MP510 V2, an M.2 2280 format SSD that leverages the PCI-E 3.0 x4 interface and NVMe technology to provide you with better bandwidth and very low latency. It can indeed reach speeds of up to 3480 MB/s in reading and 3000 MB/s in writing, enough to boost your gaming PC and further reduce loading times.

Ideally designed and suited for programs that demand high performance, such as gaming, HD multimedia use, and heavy programs, Force MP510 SSDs give you the level of efficiency you need.

With its storage capacity of 480 GB, store your OS, preferred games, and your most common applications for a quick start! Besides, benefit from a maximum of operations processed per second (max IOPS) of 120,000 reads and 490,000 writes, allowing you to launch several applications simultaneously in a fraction of a second.

What could have been better?

This device is more expensive than other competitors offering almost the same features.

Pros
  • High speed
  • Impressive performance
Cons
  • Slightly overpriced

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5-SANDISK PLUS 1TB

SanDisk is a globally recognized brand in solid-state storage technologies. Owing to the professionals’ trust, it delivers enhanced speed and performance with the SanDisk Plus SSD. You’ll enjoy faster startup, shutdown, data transfer, fast gaming load time, and application response times than traditional hard drivers.

What makes it good?

Extend your laptop or desktop life and upgrade them with fast sequential read speeds of up to 545MB/s and write speeds of up to 450MB/s. Therefore, you can ensure better performance for all your activities, allowing you to be much more productive!

It is ideal for everyday PC workloads as it offers SLC caching, which maximizes burst write performance. This makes it the perfect storage solution for typical PC workloads such as web browsing, email, casual games, office productivity, and audio/video entertainment. Furthermore, this device generates less heat and more efficient, so your laptop battery lasts a long time on a single charge.

Pros
  • Fast
  • High performance
Cons
  • N/A

Check it Out Here on Amazon

Conclusion

Now that you have an idea about the best SSD worth the money, here are some quick tips to help you choose the right one. Before you make the last call on one of these SSDs, we recommend taking a look at your motherboard’s specifications to make sure that it supports an M.2 SSD in case one of them caught your attention.

Also, if you are into a journey where you are trying to spend your money wisely, we highly recommend that you take a look at our budget CPU coolers. They will maintain your CPU under good temps without leaving you with an empty wallet.

Also, even though an SSD is mandatory, we recommend avoiding overspending on one of the mentioned above, especially if you got other components to purchase, such as a graphics card.

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