MSI SPATIUM M470 PRO 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2

Not the fastest Gen4 drive, but 640 TBW endurance and hardware encryption make it a durability champ. Buy it cheap or buy something faster.

Sequential reads hit 6000 MB/s and writes land at 5000 MB/s, which is solid but not class-leading for PCIe 4.0. What surprised us is the endurance rating, 640 TBW is way above average and means this drive will outlive most people's builds. Random performance is strong too, with 950K IOPS on both reads and writes putting it near the top of our database. The PHISON E27T controller and DRAM cache keep things snappy under load.

The Samsung 990 PRO and Crucial T500 both beat this drive on sequential speed, with the 990 PRO hitting 7450 MB/s reads. But the M470 PRO counters with better endurance, 640 TBW versus 600 TBW on the 990 PRO. The Kingston Fury Renegade is the closest match on paper, similar speeds and endurance, but it has way more customer reviews and a more consistent price. If you want raw speed, get the 990 PRO. If you want endurance and encryption without paying Samsung prices, this MSI is worth a look.

Pricing is a mess. In the US you'll find it between USD 180 and USD 240, and the best deal is at Best Buy where it's listed at the lower end of that range. In Europe it's even worse, EUR 322 to EUR 493 across four countries, which is a huge spread for the same drive. At the low end it's a decent value for the endurance and encryption, but at the high end you're paying Samsung 990 PRO money for a slower drive.

The MSI SPATIUM M470 PRO is a PCIe 4.0 drive that punches above its weight in endurance and features, even if the raw speed numbers don't top the charts. The headline here is 640 TBW of write endurance, which is genuinely impressive for a 1TB drive and puts it in the top 10% of everything we track. It's not the fastest Gen4 drive out there, but it's built to last and comes with hardware encryption, which is rare at this level.

If you're chasing maximum sequential speed for gaming or video editing, this isn't it. Go grab a Samsung 990 PRO or Crucial T500 instead. And if you're on a tight budget, the Team Group MP44 gives you similar real-world performance for less money.

The MSI SPATIUM M470 PRO is a niche pick. It's not the fastest Gen4 drive, but the endurance rating and hardware encryption make it a smart choice for workstations or anyone who writes a lot of data and wants security baked in. Just make sure you're getting it at the low end of the price range, because at the high end there are better options.