Storage

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gigabyte z390 optane slot
Intel discontinued its strangest SSD years ago, but it still makes my modern NVMe drives feel slow
SSD

RIP Optane, gone but not forgotten

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Image of a Kingston SSD slotted in an M.2 port.
Your SSD might be quietly borrowing your RAM, and you'd never know from the box
SSD

DRAM-less SSDs are fast becoming the default, so it might just be happening to you

An NVMe SSD in display next to its heatsink.
My first NVMe upgrade taught me the drive was never the bottleneck I thought it was
SSD

Everything wasn't blazing-fast, because everything was already fast enough

The PGYTech CreateMate SD Card Reader.
Someone stress-tested just under 300 SD cards over three years, and the results are surprising

One of my favorite brands caught some serious flak.

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synology ds925 plus hard drive
High-capacity external drives hide a secret that makes shucking almost worth the risk

Sometimes it's worth the risk.

Close-up of a motherboard showing M.2 slots
Your motherboard's second M.2 slot might be crippling your SSD performance
SSD

Check if your motherboard is bottlenecking your second SSD

The TerraMaster F4-424 Max NAS
Hard drives quietly changed how they write data, and it's why some of them are awful in your NAS

You should stay away from cheaper SMR drives for your NAS

CrystalDisk Mark test on Adata XPG S70 Blade 2TB NVMe drive in Windows 11.
Your SSD has a hidden write limit, and Windows is counting down to it every single day
SSD

Quiet background chores relentlessly tick away at your SSD with tiny, constant writes that add up over months.

A MicroSD card next to a microSD card slot
I ditched 2TB SSD upgrade plan for a 1TB microSD card, and the speed difference matters way less than I expected

Not all my files need expensive NVMe storage.

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A USB Stick with a Steam Library.
I put my Steam library on a cheap USB stick, and it changed how I think about game storage

My library travels with me, everywhere I go

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An image of a Crucial SATA SSD.
The cheapest upgrade I made this year fixed a problem I'd blamed on Windows for months
SSD

Sometimes old hardware solves new problems

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XPG 2TB SSD with CrystalDiskMark running in the background.
Installing an SSD should be foolproof, but these five-minute oversights will destroy it
SSD

Your SSD is probably bottlenecked and you don't even know it

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A photo of two SAS drives installed in a PC
The AI hard drive shortage is a real problem, and it's changing how I'd build my next NAS

AI has touched far more than just DRAM, and it's affecting my home storage strategy

holding four flash drives in palm in front of a windows desktop
The $5 flash drive is still the most useful thing in my tech drawer, and no SSD changes that
SSD

Convenience and cost play a major role, especially when SSD prices are near an all-time high

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Close-up of the Satechi NVMe SSD enclosure being inserted into a pocket
That USB flash drive you rely on is slower and less safe than this alternative
SSD

You probably already have the expensive part covered.

samsung 990 box wide
PCIe 5.0 SSDs are overkill, and manufacturers finally realized most people don't need them

Samsung's latest drive is Gen 4 with updated NAND

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XPG Adata Gammix S70 Blade 2TB SSD with CrystalDisk Mark running on the PC.
Your SSD is quietly telling you when it's dying, but Windows hides the warning signs
SSD

That SSD health bar is deliberately misleading

A photo of two SAS drives installed in a PC
Shucking external drives is still the cheapest way to stock a NAS, if you know what to look for

The next level of storing lots of data.

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XPG Gammix S70 Blade 2TB NVMe SSD with Blazing Heatsink from AsRock.
These 4 SSD habits are costing you thousands in premature replacements

2026 is the worst possible year to replace one

An image of an NVMe SSD slotted into a motherboard port. 
Your flagship SSD might be running at half speed, and your motherboard manual knows why
SSD

Make sure your motherboard is not the unexpected bottleneck!

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