ADATA LEGEND 700 256GB PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe M.2 2280

The ADATA Legend 700 is a budget Gen3 drive with a heatsink and encryption, but 256GB capacity and 1000 MB/s writes hold it back. Random performance is decent, but the 2.5/5 customer rating is a red flag. Only worth it at the low end of the USD 55 to USD 75 price range.

The Legend 700 hits 1900 MB/s sequential reads and 1000 MB/s writes. That read speed is solid for PCIe 3.0, but the write speed is roughly half the read, which you'll feel when moving large files. Random performance is actually a bright spot, with 180K read IOPS and 280K write IOPS landing in the 79th percentile. The DRAM-less design leans on Host Memory Buffer to keep things snappy, and for everyday tasks it works okay. But sustained writes will slow down once the SLC cache fills, and with only 256GB of space, that cache fills fast.

Against the Crucial T500, SK Hynix Platinum P41, and Kingston NV3, the Legend 700 is outclassed in raw speed and capacity. Those drives are Gen4 or high-end Gen3 with much bigger capacities and faster writes. The Corsair MP600 Elite and Team Group MP44L also beat it on most performance metrics. Where the Legend 700 holds its own is on features, with the heatsink and encryption scoring in the 88th percentile. But features don't make up for a 256GB capacity and half-speed writes when competitors offer more for similar money.

Pricing is all over the place. US listings range from USD 55 to USD 75, which is a USD 20 spread for the same drive. At USD 55 it's a reasonable budget pick. At USD 75 it's a hard pass, since you can get faster 500GB drives for not much more. The Canadian listing at CAD 221 is frankly absurd for a 256GB Gen3 drive, so if you're north of the border, skip this one entirely. The 74th percentile affordability score only makes sense at the low end of that US range.

The ADATA Legend 700 is a budget PCIe 3.0 drive that tries to punch above its weight with a heatsink and hardware encryption. The 256GB capacity is small by today's standards, but the feature set is surprisingly decent for the price. You get TLC NAND, HMB support, and AES 256-bit encryption, which is more than you'd expect from a drive in this range.

But the numbers tell a mixed story. Sequential reads hit 1900 MB/s, which is fine for Gen3, but writes drop to 1000 MB/s. That's a big gap. The drive scores well on features and random performance in our database, but capacity and social proof are weak spots. More on that below.

Skip this if you need more than 256GB of storage, which is most people. Also skip it if you do any kind of content creation or large file transfers, since the 1000 MB/s write speed will frustrate you. And if you're in Canada, the CAD 221 price is a joke, buy literally anything else.

The Legend 700 makes sense for one specific buyer: someone building a budget system who needs a basic boot drive and doesn't want to spend much. The heatsink is a nice touch for small form factor builds, and the random performance keeps everyday tasks feeling responsive. But for anyone storing games, video, or large projects, 256GB is too small and the write speed is too slow. If you can stretch your budget to a 500GB drive, do it.