This solid Kioxia 1TB NVMe SSD is just £43 and comes complete with TLC NAND and DRAM cache
A serviceable SSD for a solid price.
Not everyone needs the zany speeds that some of the best gaming SSDs offer with PCIe 4.0 and PCIe 5.0 SSDs offer. There are more affordable drives to be had, though, if you just want to upgrade an older system with a much-needed speed boost, for instance. To this end, this 1TB Kioxia Exceria for £43 from Scan Computers is a great choice for a serviceable drive that comes with both a DRAM cache and TLC NAND.
Usually, these discounted SSDs are able to hit their low price points because they use the cheapest available flash memory, QLC NAND, and leave out a DRAM cache. These sorts of drives are still great for media and game storage, but tend to suffer in terms of longevity and sustained write performance. This Exceria drive, on the other hand, offers TLC NAND and comes with a DRAM cache. That makes its performance more reliable, rather than starting off fast and then dipping precipitously in extended write scenarios.
It may not be the fastest NVMe drive in the world in terms of peak speeds, with up to 1700MB/s reads and 1600MB/s writes, but its random performance is actually quite strong - 350K IOPS reads and 400K IOPS writes put it in the same league as high-end PCIe 3.0 SSDs. And though its sequential speeds are a little low, they're still several times faster than even the best SATA SSDs, which cap out around 550MB/s, and a lot faster than any older mechanical hard drives you may be replacing. This makes it a great drive for upgrading older systems, and what's especially handy is that affordability - £43 for 1TB of storage works out to 4.3p per GB.
So this is a drive you can use for a whole lot of stuff, be it for media or games, and as there's a DRAM cache, and it uses TLC NAND memory, you can also use it as your primary drive, where your OS is installed. The fact is that this is a more general drive for PC use, as opposed to for gaming or intensive workloads, and for that, it's a solid choice.. Being a PCIe Gen 3 drive means you can use it on older PC systems, as long as they've got a spare M.2 slot, and it'll be a handy choice for upgrading older laptops or desktops with some speedier storage, especially if you're moving straight from a mechanical hard drive.
The Kioxia Exceria 1TB for £43 is a solid SSD for a whole range of uses, and even if it is a little bit slow in terms of peak speeds compared to more modern PCIe 3.0 or 4.0 SSDs, it still makes a lot of sense at this reduced price point thanks to its reliable performance.