Is there a drive tier list somewhere?
There are a few categories:
- Budget QLC/TLC drives, like Kingston's NV2 and Crucial P3. Larger capacities are usually QLC, but smaller capacities can be TLC, so the write endurance and read/write figures are quoted very low to give them options.
- Fast QLC drives, which might have DRAM and perform very well (often competitively with TLC) until their cache runs out, at which point they can be slower writing than a hard drive.
- Midrange TLC drives which are dramless, like WD's SN770.
- High-end TLC drives with DRAM, like Samsung 980/990 Pro, Kingston KC3000, WD SN850X and Crucial T500.
- PCI-E 5.0 drives, which tend to be only mildly faster than high-end PCI-E 4.0 drives, but with a big price premium.
I recommend taking a look at Newmaxx's resources, especially the spreadsheet, which is handy for comparing drives you've never heard of: