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Oct 11, 2023

The best SSDs for Starfield: NVMe, SATA & more

If you are looking to pick up Starfield, you might want to equip yourself with the best SSD possible, as the game will not run well on PC without one. We go through the best options you should pick.

If you are looking to pick up Starfield, you might want to equip yourself with the best SSD possible, as the game will not run well on PC without one. We go through the best options you should pick.

If you take a look at Starfield’s system requirements, you might notice that the game will require you to use an SSD drive at the bare minimum in order to run the title well. This could be due to the game requiring rapid access to textures and data that a traditional hard drive simply cannot muster.

of course, in order to ensure that your gaming PC meets those requirements, we have listed some of our favorite SSD drives, so you can get the best performance possible.

There are several types of SSD too, from SATA to NVMe in PCI 3.0 or PCI 4.0. The fastest among them are PCI 4.0 drives, which will offer blisteringly fast speeds, so long as you have an appropriately specced port on your PC, too. While PCI 5.0 is on the horizon, they’re just too expensive to recommend right now. If you have an older system using an HDD, you might want to look into picking up a SATA SSD instead, which has slower transfer speeds than NVMe but will still offer rapid performance when compared to a standard spinning disk drive.

When it comes to getting the fastest NVMe SSD you can use in most PCs, the Samsung 990 Pro tops the transfer speed charts. We reviewed the drive when it was released late last year, and it’s one of the fastest PCIe 4.0 NVME SSDs you can buy.

Just make sure that your PC supports the PCI 4.0 standard to make full use of all of the speeds on offer here. While the 990 Pro did have issues surrounding firmware, we have been assured by Samsung that the drive’s issues have not been resolved, and will not result in any further errant read or write wear. Thanks to its 5-year warranty, should you come across any issues with the drive in the future, you’re also protected by that, too.

We were able to transfer large files in seconds, and it should help you cut down those pesky loading times in Starfield massively. The best part? The drive has been significantly discounted since its launch, meaning that you can grab an absolute bargain. Coming in either 1TB or 2TB flavors, no matter your storage needs, you won’t be disappointed with the 990 Pro in any capacity.

The Western Digital WD_Black SN850X is an incredibly accomplished PCI 4.0 NVMe drive. While it might not offer speeds quite as blisteringly quick as the Samsung 990 Pro, it will still manage to help you run Starfield thanks to its speeds. The benefit of the SN950X above other options out there right now is that it also comes in a huge 4TB variant.

This means that you could also pack your entire Steam Library on there. With Starfield’s huge size, it’s likely that you’ll want to cram many more games than a single 1TB stick can muster. Let’s be real, having an external drive dangling off somewhere is hardly the most appealing thing either, so getting the largest capacity that you can currently afford is always the best option, and you can pick from several storage sizes here, meaning that it will suit almost any budget.

If you have an older PC, then you might not need to splash out on more expensive drives. With the prices of NVMe drives plummeting, you might be able to score yourself an absolute bargain on the Crucial P3, which will still manage to achieve impressive transfer speeds, which are way above anything that a hard drive could ever hope to achieve.

It should be noted that you can still use PCI 4.0 drives in 3.0 slots, but for the sake of not wasting your cash, this could be a cheaper upgrade than you might think. Manufacturers are racing to get rid of 3.0 drives as 4.0 stockpiles continue to rise, meaning that you can grab yourself a modest amount of storage here for not much money at all, and help improve your Starfield loading times massively in the process.

If you’re not up to the taks of cracking open your PC in order to install a new SSD, you’re not out of options just yet. This USB 3.2 Gen 2-equipped drive can hook up to your PC, and be set up as an installation drive for Starfield. We’ve verified the transfer speeds in our full review.

It even offers faster speeds than installing our top option for SATA drive users, but comes with the added inconvenience of having it dangling off of your gaming PC or laptop at the same time. In our review of the drive, we praised its rugged nature, but just watch out for rapid dust accumulation. In our testing, the drive performed admirable, and will be an ideal drive for taking your installation across to multiple PC without needing to download all of Starfield again.

Still, its impressive transfer speeds mean that you will still be able to run Starfield from the drive reliably, and take it around with you.

If you find yourself lacking an NVMe slot, you’re not quite out of luck just yet. The Crucial MX500 is one of the best Starfield SATA SSDs you can get, simply because it’s still offered at around the same price as its NVMe brethren, and still offers a wide range of sizes to boot.

Sure, it might not be as fast as the swanky 990 Pro that we’ve listed up at the top, but it will still handily pound a tranditional HDD when it coemes to loading times and speeds. Just remember, that in order to hook this up to your PC, you will still need to provide the drive with SATA power and data from your power supply and motherboard. So, it’s not quite as straightforward as simply slotting in an NVMe SSD.

Looking for more Starfield content? Check out all of our coverage.

Starfield Achievement list | All Starfield skills | Will Starfield have mod support? | Is Starfield’s universe procedurally generated? | How big is Starfield? | Will Starfield be on Steam Deck? | Is Starfield on PS5? | Starfield PC requirements: Recommended & minimum specs | Will Starfield have a Photo Mode at launch? | Is Starfield coming to Nintendo Switch? | Is Starfield single-player? | Does Starfield have New Game Plus mode?

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