KITGURU SHORTLISTS: THE BEST SOLID STATE DRIVE OF 2025

Not one to rest on their laurels, Crucial decided that the Gen 5 T700 isn't quite quick enough, so we now have the T705, the new flagship of the company's SSD range. Although basically using the same hardware as the T700, the T705 has everything turned up to the max - so instead of the 12,400MB/s and 11,800MB/s for Sequential read and writes respectively for the 2TB T700, the new 2TB T705 drive is rated at up to 14,500MB/s for reads and 12,700MB/s for writes.

Crucial's T700 model lineup comprises three capacities; 1TB, 2TB and 4TB and is available in two guises, one with a heatsink, and one without. The 2TB and 4TB are rated at up to 12,400MB/s and 11,800MB/s for read and writes respectively.  Random performance is quoted as up to 1,350,000 IOPS for reads and up to 1,400,000 IOPS for the 1TB model. Both the 2TB and 4TB models are rated as up to 1,500,000 IOPS for read and writes.

Seagate's FireCuda 540 uses the same controller/NAND combination as the other three Gen 5 drives we've tested; Phsion S5026-E26 controller and 232-Layer Micron B58R TLC NAND, with Seagate paying close attention to the controller firmware. The E26 supports NAND data transfer speeds of up to 2,400 MT/s but Seagate have chosen to run the NAND at 1,600MT/s, hence the 10,000MB/s Sequential speed ratings.

Corsair's latest drive, the MP700 PRO SE, is the third member of the Gen 5 MP700 family and takes over from the MP700 PRO as the flagship drive for the range. The MP700 PRO offered speeds of up to 12,400MB/s and 11,800MB/s for read and writes, but for the SE version, Corsair has turned up the wicks so we have Sequential performance ratings of 14,000MB/s for reads and up to 12,000MB/s for writes.

Motherboard manufacturers have been proudly boasting about having motherboards with PCIe 5.0 supporting M.2 slots for a while without there actually being anything remotely Gen5 to stick in them. Well all that changes with the launch of Gigabyte's AORUS Gen5 10000 SSD. What's with the "10000" part of the name you might ask, ah well that's the official maximum Sequential read rating for the drive, well for the 2TB drive to be exact, 10,000MB/s.