GM228 1TB PCIe 3.0 NVMe M.2 2280

The Bestoss GM228 hits 2400 MB/s read and 1900 MB/s write, landing at the 55th percentile for speed. It scores 82.1 for budget use, making it a solid cheap boot drive. But endurance sits at the 15th percentile, so don't expect it to survive heavy write workloads.

2400 MB/s read and 1900 MB/s write. That's the headline, and it's a solid middle-of-the-road result for PCIe 3.0. You'll boot in seconds, apps will pop open, and game load times will feel fine compared to any SATA drive. The dynamic SLC cache helps with bursty workloads, so everyday tasks feel snappier than the raw numbers suggest. But once that cache fills up, you're writing straight to TLC NAND, and that's where the DRAM-less design starts to sweat.

The endurance number is the real story here. At the 15th percentile, this drive is near the bottom of what we track for write durability. TLC helps it outlast QLC drives, sure, but the lack of DRAM and the modest controller mean sustained transfers will dip. The graphene-copper heatsink is a nice touch for thermals, especially in laptops, but it can't fix the fundamental ceiling of PCIe 3.0. If you're moving huge files around all day, this drive will let you know it.

Stacked against the Samsung 990 PRO or Crucial T500, the GM228 looks like it's from a different era. Those PCIe 4.0 drives hit 7000+ MB/s reads, triple what the Bestoss manages. The Fikwot FX910, which shows up in the retailer notes, claims 7300 MB/s with a heatsink for PS5 use. That's a completely different class of drive. Even the MSI SPATIUM M480 PRO and Lexar NM1090 PRO leave the GM228 in the dust on raw speed. But here's the thing: if you're on a PCIe 3.0 motherboard, you'll never see those speeds anyway. The GM228's real competition is other budget PCIe 3.0 drives, and there it's a middle-of-the-pack option with a decent feature set and a worrying endurance score.

We can't talk price per performance without a price, and this drive has no listed price in our data. That's frustrating. What we do know: it's positioned as a budget drive, and the 82.1 budget score backs that up. The 3-year warranty adds some peace of mind, and TLC NAND means you're not getting the absolute cheapest flash on the market. If this lands under typical PCIe 3.0 1TB pricing, it's a reasonable deal. If it's priced near PCIe 4.0 drives, skip it and get something faster.

The Bestoss GM228 is a 1TB PCIe 3.0 NVMe drive that tops out at 2400 MB/s read and 1900 MB/s write. That puts it right around the middle of the pack in our database, with speed landing at the 55th percentile. For a DRAM-less TLC drive with a graphene-copper heatsink, those are honest numbers, not marketing fantasy. It scores 82.1 for budget use, which tells you exactly who this drive is for: people who want a cheap capacity bump without chasing benchmark glory.

But the cracks show fast. Endurance sits at the 15th percentile, which is rough. The portable score is a brutal 15.6 out of 100, and gaming lands at 56.7. This isn't a drive for heavy sustained writes or throwing in an external enclosure. It's a basic workhorse for booting Windows, loading a few games, and keeping your laptop snappy. Nothing more, nothing less.

Skip this if you do heavy video editing, run a NAS, or constantly move large files. The 15th percentile endurance is a dealbreaker for sustained workloads, and the DRAM-less design will choke on big transfers. Gamers chasing fast load times should also look at PCIe 4.0 drives, since the 56.7 gaming score is nothing to brag about. And if you want a portable drive for an enclosure, the 15.6 portable score makes this a hard pass.

The Bestoss GM228 is a fine budget boot drive if you can find it cheap. The 82.1 budget score says it does the basics well, and TLC NAND plus a heatsink are nice touches at this tier. But the 15th percentile endurance and 15.6 portable score are red flags. If you're building a simple desktop or upgrading an older laptop, this drive will do the job. If you plan to hammer it with writes or use it in an enclosure, look elsewhere. The 3-year warranty helps, but it doesn't erase the endurance concerns.