Imagine this: you’re working on an important project, and your computer suddenly slows to a crawl. Files take forever to open, applications lag, and frustration mounts. The culprit? Your storage drive ...

It’s time to upgrade to an external solid-state drive for faster performance than ever. Explore the best external SSD options ...

The first is a SATA SSD, which comes in a 2.5-inch form factor and connects to your motherboard with the same cables and ports as a SATA HDD. The second (and newer) is the M.2 SSD.

With 250MB/s reads and 250MB/s writes on average, it's not what you'd call a fast SSD. It still has the advantages of no hard drive platter seek time, but don't expect Thunderbolt speed.