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Following my recent TerraMaster upgrade post, I’ve been looking for the best SSDs to use in my NAS.
I have already introduced the 2.5″ SATA SSD which is the only choice for my TerraMaster F4-422. However, if you’ve built your own server or have a NAS with PCIe M.2 slots, you can benefit from ultra-fast NVMe drives.
For example, the Synology DS920+ 4-Bay NAS chassis includes two M.2 NVMe slots for cache acceleration without occupying a storage drive bay.
Alternatively, some larger NAS enclosures, such as the Synology DS2422+ or the new TerraMaster T9-423, have dedicated expansion slots for adding PCIe M.2 expansion cards or 10Gbps+ network cards.
When it comes to servers and storage, overall read/write throughput isn’t necessarily the most important thing, but drive durability and warranty.
For simplicity, I looked at the prices and their endurance ratings for 500GB and 1TB (approximately) drives.
The Best SATA SSDs for Caching and Storage
notes:
- The list is not exhaustive, I will add more drives over time, including more PCIe Gen4.
- For most drives, prices and specifications are taken from Scan
- Some drives are smaller, like 480GB instead of 512GB.
- Read/write speeds may not be 100% accurate as they vary based on capacity
What about data center/enterprise drives?
You will often see people recommend used data center drives as cache drives. There are some good options for SATA SSDs, and the Samsung PM893 and PM897 are pretty affordable for large TBWs.
It’s not quite the same here, as some consumer drives offer excellent performance. The 960GB Samsung PM9A3 has 1.0 DWPD for 5 years and it has a TDW of 1752 for £180, they don’t do the 480/500GB model as I use in the list below, but at 1 DWPD that would be the same as the 876 TDW same. The £155 1TB WD Red SN700 has a TBW of 2000.
Highlights – Best consumer-grade SSD for caching
As with SATA SSD caching advice, you get your money’s worth.
The WD Red SN700 has the highest TBW on the list, which is perhaps unsurprising considering it’s designed for high-intensity NAS environments. It’s also cheaper and more well-rounded than the next-best Seagate IronWolf 510.
Sabrent Rocket (SB-ROCKET-512) is especially tempting. Technically, you only get a 1-year warranty, but if you register the drive, it extends to 5 years. Then it has a huge rating of 850 TBW.
The Seagate FireCuda 510 is a close second with 650 TBW, the same read/write speed but better IOP.
The Synology SNV3510 is an interesting option. At 400GB, you might argue that it shouldn’t be on the list, but I believe it’s due to overprovisioning. It’s obviously a great fit for any Synology NAS, but on paper, it’s not nearly as good value for money as other drives.
I recommend avoiding several drives for caching purposes. Anything less than 3 years old or 150 TBW probably isn’t worth the trouble, they’ll be fine on a PC for general use, not a NAS.
SATA SSD Comparison Chart
| SSD | 500GB price GBP |
read/write | IOPS | endurance TBW |
Warranty | PCIe generation | memory | dynamic random access memory |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AORUS RGB | 71.99 | 3480MB/sec 2000MB/sec |
360k/440k | 800TBW | 5 | PCIe Gen 3 | 3D Thin Layer Chromatography | 512MB |
| Corsair MP510b | 62 | 3480MB/sec 2000MB/sec |
120k/490k | 360TBW | PCIe Gen 3 | 3D Thin Layer Chromatography | Yes | |
| key P2 | 47.99 | 2300MB/sec 940MB/sec |
95k/215k | 150TBW | 5 | PCIe Gen 3 | Thin Layer Chromatography/QLC | Do not |
| Gigabyte NVMe SSD | 46.99 | 1700MB/sec 1550MB/sec |
430k/295k | 1 | PCIe Gen 3 | 3D Thin Layer Chromatography | Do not | |
| Intel 660p | 54.78 | 1500MB/sec 1000MB/sec |
90k/220k | 100TBW | 3 | PCIe Gen 3 | QLC | Yes |
| Intel 670p | 49.49 | 3100MB/sec 1600MB/sec |
220k/170k | 185TBW | 5 | PCIe Gen 3 | QLC | Yes |
| Kingston KC2000 | 59.99 | 3000MB/sec 2000MB/sec |
350k/250k | 300 tons | 3 | PCIe Gen 3 | 3D Thin Layer Chromatography | Yes |
| Kingston KC3000 | 95 | 7,000MB/sec 3900MB/sec |
450k/900k | 400TBW | 5 | PCIe Gen4 | 3D Thin Layer Chromatography | Yes |
| saber rocket | 66.98 | 3400MB/sec 2000MB/sec |
357k/456k | 850TB | 1 | PCIe Gen 3 | 3D Thin Layer Chromatography | Yes |
| Sabre Rocket Q | 59.99 | 2000MB/sec 1000MB/sec |
95k/250k | 120TBW | 1 | PCIe Gen 3 | QLC | Yes |
| Samsung 970EVO | 71.99 | 3400MB/sec 2300MB/sec |
370k/450k | 300 tons | 5 | PCIe Gen 3 | 3D Thin Layer Chromatography | Yes |
| Samsung 970 EVO PLUS | 74.39 | 3500MB/sec 3200MB/sec |
480k/550k | 300 tons | 5 | PCIe Gen 3 | 3D Thin Layer Chromatography | Yes |
| Samsung 970 PRO | 125.48 | 3500MB/sec 2300MB/sec |
370k/500k | 600TBW | 5 | PCIe Gen 3 | MLC | Yes |
| Samsung 980 | 55.39 | 3100 MB/sec 2600 MB/sec |
400l/470k | 300TBW | 5 | PCIe Gen 3 | 3D Thin Layer Chromatography | Yes |
| Seagate BarraCuda Q5 | 53.99 | 2300MB/sec 900MB/sec |
119TBW | 2 | PCIe Gen 3 | 3D Thin Layer Chromatography | Yes | |
| Seagate FireCuda 510 | 58.99 | 3450MB/sec 2500MB/sec |
420k/600k | 650 tons | 5 | PCIe Gen 3 | 3D Thin Layer Chromatography | Yes |
| Seagate IronWolf 510 | 105.98 | 2650MB/sec 600MB/sec |
193k/20k | 875TBW | 5 | PCIe Gen 3 | 3D Thin Layer Chromatography | Yes |
| Western Digital Blue SN570 | 52.99 | 3500MB/sec 2300MB/sec |
360k/390k | 300 tons | 5 | PCIe Gen 3 | 3D Thin Layer Chromatography | Do not |
| Western Digital Green SN350 | 45.98 | 2400MB/sec 1650MB/sec |
250k/170k | 60TBW | 2 | PCIe Gen 3 | 3D Thin Layer Chromatography | Do not |
| WD Red SN700 | 81.49 | 3430MB/sec 2600MB/sec |
420k/380k | 1,000TBW | 5 | PCIe Gen 3 | 3D Thin Layer Chromatography | Yes |
| Synology SNV3400-400G | 140 | 3,000 MB/sec 750 MB/sec |
225k/45k | 491 pending | 5 |
Which NAS enclosures can use M.2 NVMe SSD cache drives
Synology
All equipped with 2 NVMe M.2 drive slots
- DiskStation DS720+ – 2 bays, Intel Celeron J4125, 2GB RAM, 2x1GbE
- DiskStation DS420+ – 4 bays, Intel Celeron J4025, 2 GB DDR4, 2x1GbE
- DiskStation DS920+ – 4 bays, Intel Celeron J4125, 4GB DDR4, 2x1GbE
- DiskStation DS1520+ – 5 bays, Intel Celeron J4125, 8GB DDR4, 4x 1GbE
- DiskStation DS1821+ – 8 bays, AMD Ryzen V1500B, 4 GB DDR4 ECC, 4x1GbE + PCIe expansion
- DiskStation DS1621xs+ – 6 bays, Intel Xeon D-1527, 8 GB DDR4 ECC, 2x1GbE, 1x10GbE, + PCIe expansion
- DiskStation DS2419+II – 12 bays, Intel Atom C3538, 4 GB DDR4 non-ECC, 4x1GbE, + PCIe expansion
- DiskStation DS3617xsII – 12 bays, Intel Xeon D-1527, 16 GB DDR4 ECC, 4x1GbE + PCIe expansion
- DiskStation DS3622xs+ – 12 bays, Intel Xeon D-1531, 16 GB DDR4 ECC, 2x1GbE, 2x10GbE + PCIe expansion
Terracotta Warriors
Rack mount options feature PCIe expansion slots for adding M.2 NVMe cards. It’s just the new T9-423 with a dedicated single M.2 slot.
- TerraMaster T9-423 – 9 bays, Intel Celeron N5105/N5095, 8GB DDR4, 2×2.5GbE + PCIe expansion
QNAP
- TS-h686 – 4+2 bays – Intel Xeon D-1602
- TVS-672X
- TVS-872X
- TS-873A
- TS-673A
- TS-473A
Last updated on February 24, 2022 / Affiliate Links / Image from Amazon Product Advertising API
