Crucial BX300 480GB $145

ONCE YOU’VE used an M.2, you can’t go back. To be fair, that’s not strictly true, but it’s a good sound bite, and there are some transfers where you can notice the difference. Not every system has access to M.2, though, and even those that do tend to be limited to one or maybe two slots. M.2 drives also demand a slight premium over 2.5-inch SSDs. That means there is still a market for the more traditional SSD, and such drives are still the go-to upgrade for anyone who is still running a spinning hard drive.

The Crucial BX300 is our new favorite budget SSD, packing half a terabyte for a wallet-friendly $145. As with any modern SSD, performance is decent enough, although you’ll find that the straight throughput of any SSD that uses SATA is ultimately limited by the interface. You can check out the full review of this new drive on page 86.