What’s in a name? While we wouldn’t blame you for relying on the tried and trusted heavyweight names in PC hardware when picking out components for your next upgrade, sometimes it’s worth giving the new kids on the block a once over, just in case they have something interesting going on under the hood. Sometimes great deals on great components are to be found simply by doing a little digging past the name on the box.

Case in point: The Nextorage Japan 1TB Gen 4 NVMe SSD. We wouldn’t blame you if the name looks unfamiliar, as Nextorage has only been a name in the hardware industry since 2019 when it was created by Sony to build SSDs for the PlayStation 5. However, once Phison took a controlling stake in the company and imbued its latest drives with the mighty Phison E18 controller, people really started to take notice.

Since then, Nexstorage has quickly developed a name for itself in the high-performance SSD market, and the 1TB Gen 4 model we’re featuring here certainly lives up to that new-found reputation. 

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When Jeremy reviewed the 2TB model back in February he was pleased to find it delivered a strong overall performance, particularly when it came to sustained writes and sequential speeds that pushed the realistic limitations of PCIe 4.0. 

But the real catch? Amazon currently has it listed for a mere $55, making it something of a barnstormer when it comes to giving you all the speed you could wish for out of a 4th Gen drive while keeping the drain on your wallet to a minimum.

Of course, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. 4k single queue depth read speeds fall somewhere in the average category, and its PCMark 10 benchmarks are nothing particularly to write home about, but as a great upgrade or extra drive in your system it’s difficult to think of a realistic performance contender for similar money. While the tried and tested WD Black SN850 1TB pips it to the post in some of our benchmarks, it’s really not by a margin that would make any noticeable real world difference.

The Nextorage Japan 1TB may not have the instant brand recognition of its rivals, at this price it represents a fantastic amount of performance for not very much money at all, and that makes it well worth a look if you’re in the market for something fast, cheap and ready to perform.

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