Storage comes in different forms, both fast and slow, large and small. For example, the Seagate Exos 20TB and BarraCuda 16 TB are high-capacity CMR hard disk drives, and they are currently still selling at great prices. On the other hand, we have SSDs, which are much faster. The SK hynix P41 Platinum, for example, is a PCIe 4.0 drive and it is up for grabs at $120.
If you need something faster, then take a look at Western Digital (WD) options, wherein we have the SN8100 PCIe Gen5 NVMe SSD at the lowest prices of just $480 for the 4TB variant and $260 for the 2TB variant (purchase links down below).
Since this is a PCIe 5.0 SSD it is very fast, but like other Gen5 drives, it gets very hot especially for sustained reads and writes. So a heatsink is definitely recommended.
The S8100 promises sequential reads of up to 14900 MB/s and sequential writes of up to 14,000 MB/s. In terms of random reads, it is rated for 2.3 million IOPS (input output operations per second) and random writes of up to 2.4 million IOPS.
There are two reasons for the high random throughputs, first is the DRAM, as the SN8100 packs its own DRAM cache instead of relying on system memory, and second, the relatively new NAND technology called CMOS directly bonded to array (CBA) that helps boost interface speed.
Speaking of NAND, the SN8100 features TLC, or triple-level, cells which provides excellent endurance and this 4TB drive is rated for 2400 TBW, while the 2TB is at 1200 TBW.
Get the WD SN8100 at the links below:
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WD_BLACK 4TB SN8100 - WDS400T1X0M: $479.99 (Sold and Shipped by Amazon US) || $479.99 (Sold and Shipped by Newegg US)
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WD_BLACK 2TB SN8100 - WDS400T1X0M: $259.99 (Sold and Shipped by Amazon US) || $259.99 (Sold and Shipped by Newegg US)
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