7 hours ago
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Crucial T710 Gen5 NVMe SSD
ZDNET's key takeaways
- Crazy fast drive, with reads and writes up to 14,900 and 13,800MB/s, respectively
- It does get warm in use, so you might need to fixe PC airflow or use a cooler
- You need the right system to take advantage of the Gen5 performance that this drive has to offer
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Storage has always been a bottleneck in terms of performance, and it's a demand-driven thing. As storage gets faster, so do the pressures put on it. This is why 5th-generation NVMe SSDs are such a game-changer for serious gamers who need all the speed they can get and pro-grade content creators, especially those who handle 100GB-plus files.
Also: The best M.2 SSDs you can buy
These drives offer twice the performance of the previous-generation hardware, and they've now been around for a bit, so prices have come down.
A good example of this is the Crucial T710. This drive is a beast -- as long as you have a system that can handle it.
The first thing that anyone thinking about upgrading to a Gen5 NVMe SSD needs to consider is whether their system can handle the drive. While it is backward-compatible with older Gen4 and Gen3 systems, you won't get the performance.
To make use of a Gen5 drive, you'll need an AMD Ryzen 7000 series or later or an Intel 12th, 13th or 14th generation Core processor. Additionally, you'll need that paired with a motherboard with an AMD X670E, X670, B650E, or Intel Z890, Z790, and Z690 chipset.
If you have that sorted, you're ready to go.
Also: Why I no longer recommend pre-built SSDs for Windows PCs - and what you should buy instead
The Crucial T710 2280 M.2 SSD is about as fast as they get. On paper, it's rated for sequential reads and writes up to 14,900 and 13,800MB/s, respectively. I've benchmarked a drive from this range and got results within 5% of these figures (well, at least I did once I updated the system's firmware to fix a performance issue).
The drive supports AES-256 encryption and has a TBW (terabytes written) rating between 600TB and 2400TB (the larger the drive, the bigger the rating), and comes with a 5-year limited warranty.
A fact of life about running Gen5 NVMe SSDs is that they run warm to hot. And the harder you work them, the hotter they get. This isn't usually a problem -- it certainly wasn't for me when testing the T710 -- but if your case has poor airflow or all the fans are choked up with dirt, you might want to sort that out or, at the very least, use a cooler.
If you have the room in your system, you can use a basic passive cooler, something a bit more fancy, or something really fancy (which is still less than $30).
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Every time I mention Gen5 NVMe SSDs, someone always asks me about external enclosures' support for this. Enclosures do exist -- take the Acasis 80Gbps M.2 NVMe SSD enclosure -- but you're going to pay around $200, and even with Thunderbolt 5 support on the system it's connected to, performance is going to level out at around 6,000MB/s. That's good, but it leaves a lot in the tank unused.
ZDNET's buying advice
The T710 is certainly worth considering for a system that can handle Gen5 NVMe SSDs. Its performance and price are exceptional.
The Crucial T710 is offered in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB configurations. And right now, prices are unbelievably good with 17% off the 1TB version, bringing that down to $200, 18% off the 2TB version, now only $294, and a massive 35% off the 4TB version, bringing it down from $660 to only $430.
Those are prices that are very hard to beat, and the sort of thing that makes me sit up and pay attention.
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