Fikwot FX520

The Fikwot FX520 is a budget 256GB NVMe drive with a 5-year warranty and hardware encryption. Its 2100 MB/s read speed is fine for everyday use, but the 1000 MB/s write speed and DRAM-less design hold it back. At $60 USD, the price per gigabyte is steep compared to larger drives. It's a decent upgrade for an old laptop, but most people should stretch to a bigger or faster drive.

Let's talk about those numbers. 2100 MB/s sequential read is about what you'd expect from a mid-tier PCIe 3.0 drive. It's roughly double what a good SATA SSD can do, and it's more than enough for Windows to boot in seconds and apps to pop open without drama. The 1000 MB/s write speed is where you'll feel the ceiling. Copying large files, installing games, or moving video projects will take noticeably longer than on pricier drives.

The DRAM-less design is the main culprit here. Without onboard cache, the drive uses a chunk of your system RAM to track where data lives. For light workloads, you won't notice. But if you're hammering it with sustained writes, performance can dip once the SLC cache fills up. The dynamic SLC cache helps smooth things out, but it's a band-aid, not a cure. In our database, this drive's speed lands in the 43rd percentile, which is about average for budget NVMe drives but well behind the top performers.

The competitors here are interesting. The Samsung 980 is the most direct comparison, another DRAM-less PCIe 3.0 drive, but it typically offers higher write speeds and better sustained performance. The WD Blue SN5100 is a newer Gen4 drive that will absolutely smoke the FX520 in benchmarks, though it costs more. The Crucial T500 and Seagate FireCuda 530 are in a completely different league, Gen4 and Gen5 drives aimed at enthusiasts and creators.

Against the Samsung 980, the FX520's main advantage is price and warranty length. Samsung's warranty is also 5 years, but their drives tend to cost more per gigabyte. Against the WD Blue SN5100, the FX520 loses on raw speed but might win on price if you're on a tight budget. The SanDisk Optimus GX 7100 is another Gen4 option that outclasses this drive in every performance metric. If your motherboard supports Gen4, even a budget Gen4 drive will feel faster than this.

Here's where things get tricky. The FX520 is listed at $60 USD for 256GB. That works out to about 23 cents per gigabyte. For comparison, you can often find 1TB Gen3 drives on sale for $60 to $70, which is less than a third of that cost per gigabyte. The 256GB capacity also lands in the 16th percentile in our database, meaning it's smaller than the vast majority of drives we track.

That said, if you only need a boot drive and don't store much locally, $60 for a 5-year warranty and hardware encryption isn't outrageous. The CAD price of $103 is harder to swallow, but that's a different market with different taxes and import costs. The real question is whether you can stretch to a 500GB or 1TB drive for a little more money. In most cases, you probably should.

The Fikwot FX520 is one of those drives that makes you do a double take. It's a 256GB M.2 NVMe SSD with a 5-year warranty, hardware encryption, and a price tag that sits at the budget end of the spectrum. On paper, it looks like a no-brainer for breathing life into an older laptop or desktop. And for a lot of people, it probably is.

But here's the thing. This isn't a drive for speed demons. The 2100 MB/s read and 1000 MB/s write speeds put it firmly in PCIe 3.0 territory, and the DRAM-less design means it leans on your system's memory to keep things moving. That's fine for everyday tasks, booting Windows, launching apps, and general office work. It's not going to win any benchmark races against newer Gen4 or Gen5 drives.

Who's this for? Someone with an older machine that has an empty M.2 slot and a spinning hard drive or a tiny SATA SSD. The jump from either of those to this will feel transformative. If you're building a new system or doing heavy video editing, you'll want to look elsewhere. But as a cheap, reliable upgrade for a secondary PC or a hand-me-down laptop, the FX520 makes a decent case for itself.

If you're building a new PC or upgrading a system that already has a decent SATA SSD, this drive probably isn't worth it. The capacity is too small for a primary drive in 2025, and the write speed will frustrate anyone who moves large files regularly. Gamers should also look elsewhere, a single modern AAA title can eat 100GB or more, so 256GB fills up after two or three games.

Content creators, video editors, and anyone working with large datasets should look at Gen4 drives like the WD Blue SN5100 or Crucial T500. Even a budget Gen4 drive will offer significantly better sustained performance. And if you're on a really tight budget, consider a 500GB SATA SSD instead. You'll get more capacity for similar money, and for everyday tasks, the real-world difference between SATA and this drive is smaller than the spec sheet suggests.

For an older laptop that just needs to feel snappy again, the FX520 is a solid pick. The 5-year warranty gives you peace of mind, and the jump from a hard drive or SATA SSD will be dramatic. Boot times will drop, apps will load faster, and the whole system will feel more responsive. If that's your goal, this drive does the job.

But if you're building a new system, doing any kind of content creation, or planning to store a lot of games, skip this. The 256GB capacity fills up fast, and the write speed will bottleneck you on large transfers. Spend a little more on a 500GB or 1TB drive, ideally one with DRAM or at least faster NAND. The FX520 is a fine upgrade for a specific use case, but it's not a drive to build around.