Crucial 1TB SSD for $110.19 at NewEgg

Great deal. This SSD has a DRAM cache.

Quote from espresso360 : Great deal. This SSD has a DRAM cache.

Even though it's not m.2? Wouldn't SATA limit the speed to where it's materially not as good by measure of performance unless SATA ports is all you've got?

After having both an M2 and a standard Sata Drive SSD (this one) I have to say that I'm going back to Sata. Sure M2 is MUCH faster but this comes at a price. You need to use up two Sata ports on many Motherboards to use one M2. Now if you only run a single SSD then this is no issue but to me giving up a second sata port is huge. That extra speed come from somewhere. The other issue is heat. M2's can run so hot that many (myself included) suggest you add a small heatsink and fan to them. Yes they get that hot on large xfers. This adds to the cost of the M2 and needs to be factored in.

In the end, SSD's are so fast due to the almost instant access time. Most people would be hard pressed aside from a benchmark to tell the difference between an M2 and an Sata SSD. Sure the M2 will transfer large files at 3000ish vs 500ish (200-250 for a fast HDD) but it's the access time that is most attractive about an SSD and both access data about the same.

For boot drive and the vast majority of all games, 500 is plenty fast and saving a second or two loading a large map in a game is hardly something you notice.

Now as I said... if you only have one SSD and don't mind paying an extra $20 or so to add a heatsink/fan to an M2 then go for it. M2's are clearly the very best but don't count out a great Sata SSD like the MX500 just because it's not an M2 model.

Quote from Areopagus : Even though it's not m.2? Wouldn't SATA limit the speed to where it's materially not as good by measure of performance unless SATA ports is all you've got?

Many motherboards share sata ports with m2 ports and when you occupy an M2 port, you often lose a sata port or two. Now maybe the newer motherboard have gotten around this but a year ago this was the case.

Quote from jrb531 : Many motherboards share sata ports with m2 ports and when you occupy an M2 port, you often lose a sata port or two. Now maybe the newer motherboard have gotten around this but a year ago this was the case.

Maybe you mean pcie lanes from the CPU, since the ports are just the physical places to jack in storage whereas the lanes are traced out circuitry on the motherboard