SSK SD301 1TB USB

The physical connection to your computer, console, or camera. NVMe is typically fastest, but SATA, USB, and SD speeds vary a lot between products, check the Read Speed row too.

The drive's physical size and shape. M.2 is a slim stick for modern SSDs, 2.5″ and 3.5″ are older cased formats.

How fast data can be read from the drive. Higher is better, especially for boot times and load screens.

How fast data can be written to the drive. Matters most for copying large files, recording video, or heavy multitasking.

TLC is the mainstream flash type with a solid balance of speed and endurance. QLC costs less per gigabyte but slows more under heavy writes.

A DRAM cache gives steadier performance under heavy or random workloads. Drives without one are usually fine for everyday use.

Whether the flash chips are mounted on one side of the circuit board or both. Single-sided drives fit in more laptops and handhelds with tight internal clearance, and their heatsinks are an easier fit in the PS5's expansion bay too.