Transcend MTE250H 4TB Review: Big Gen4 Storage, Fins Attached (2026)
Quick answer
Buy the Transcend MTE250H 4TB for PS5 expansion or a large game and video library where a fitted heatsink and a 3,120 TBW endurance budget matter more than absolute peak speed.
Read: 7500 MB/s Write: 6700 MB/s Endurance: 3120 TBW Warranty: 5 years Interface: M.2 4.0 x 4
The Transcend MTE250H 4TB tops its family with 7,500 MB/s reads, 6,700 MB/s writes and a 3,120 TBW endurance budget, cooler already fitted.
Controller & Memory
The Transcend MTE250H 4TB is the flagship capacity of the family, and it earns the position: 7,500 MB/s sequential reads and 6,700 MB/s writes are the highest ratings Transcend publishes for the 250H line, alongside 540K random-read and 440K random-write IOPS. The platform underneath matches its siblings — Silicon Motion's SM2264F controller, Kioxia BiCS5 112-layer TLC NAND, a DRAM cache and NVMe 1.4 over PCIe 4.0 x4 — but the extra NAND raises the parallelism that feeds those numbers. The finned aluminum heatsink arrives pre-fitted, taking the assembled drive to 9.2 mm and roughly 34 grams.
The ladder explains why the 4TB is where the family makes its strongest case. Endurance runs 780 TBW on the 1TB, 1,560 on the 2TB and 3,120 here, and because Transcend holds the 0.43 drive-writes-per-day class across the range, the 4TB carries the largest absolute flash budget. Speeds climb with capacity too: writes rise from 6,200 to 6,500 to 6,700 MB/s. For PS5 owners, the fitted heatsink, 80 x 23.1 x 9.2 mm dimensions and 7,500 MB/s read rating clear every published Sony requirement, and 4TB is the right size for a modern console library where 100 GB-plus games are routine.
The competitive set at 4TB is stiffer than below it: Samsung's 990 Pro and WD's Black SN850X both sell 4TB versions with faster rated speeds, and Crucial's QLC-based P3 Plus undercuts on price with a steep post-cache penalty. Tom's Hardware's family review flagged US pricing as the 250H's weak point while crediting its warranty, thermals and SSD Scope software. The realistic buyer wants capacity, a fitted cooler and a long warranty more than the last few hundred MB/s — a PS5 storage expansion, a game archive or a 4K video project drive.
Storage Comparisons:
MTE250H Performance & Benchmarks
Transcend rates the 4TB MTE250H at 7,500 MB/s sequential reads, 6,700 MB/s writes and 540K/440K random read/write IOPS — the strongest figures in the family, and ratings that clear Sony's 5,500 MB/s PS5 guidance with room to spare. TechPowerUp measured the 1TB sibling's dynamic pseudo-SLC cache at roughly 100 GB before writes fell to about 788 MB/s; the cache scales with capacity on this platform, so the 4TB model holds cache-protected writes for longer stretches before settling to its steady-state floor.
Transcend MTE250H 4 TB vs M.2 4.0 x 4 peers
Switch between sequential throughput and random IOPS to see how this drive stacks up against other M.2 4.0 x 4 SSDs in our database. The highlighted bar is the drive on this page — click any other bar to open that drive.
- Patriot Viper PV593 1 TB: 14,500 MB/s read, 14,000 MB/s write
- Patriot Viper PV593 2 TB: 14,500 MB/s read, 14,000 MB/s write
- Patriot Viper PV593 4 TB: 14,500 MB/s read, 14,000 MB/s write
- Patriot Viper PV573 2 TB: 14,000 MB/s read, 12,000 MB/s write
- Transcend MTE250H 4 TB (this drive): 7,500 MB/s read, 6,700 MB/s write
For the target workloads, character matters more than peak burst. A 4TB pool absorbs huge game installs and shader caches; sustained transfers — moving a Steam library, offloading an SD card of 4K footage — run at multi-GB/s rates while the cache lasts and remain far above SATA speeds after it. Tom's Hardware's family testing highlighted how effectively the factory fins hold thermals, which is what keeps those sustained rates from throttling on a long copy. Random-write ratings trail DRAM-based flagships like Kingston's KC3000, but queue-depth-1 responsiveness — what boots, clicks and level loads actually feel like — is governed by latency, and the DRAM cache keeps that consistent.
Transcend MTE250H vs Competitors
See how the MTE250H stacks up against other M.2 4.0 x 4 drives in our database:
Compare with rival drives:
Endurance, TBW & Warranty
The 4TB MTE250H carries the family's largest endurance budget: 3,120 TBW under a five-year limited warranty, whichever arrives first, equal to 0.43 drive writes per day across the term. In everyday terms, a steady 20 GB of daily writes would take more than four centuries to exhaust, so the warranty clock is the only realistic limit. The ladder below is 780 TBW on the 1TB and 1,560 on the 2TB at the same daily-write class — the 4TB simply multiplies the budget. MTBF is rated at 3.0 million hours, a fleet-level statistic rather than a promise for any single unit. Transcend's documentation warns that removing the factory-fitted heatsink can cause damage not covered under warranty, so the drive should be installed as-is, and the bundled SSD Scope utility tracks health and remaining life.
Transcend MTE250H 4 TB Specifications
| Category | Value |
|---|---|
| Capacity [?] | 4 TB |
| Interface [?] | M.2 4.0 x 4 |
| Controller [?] | SMI SM2264 8 Channel |
| Memory type [?] | Kioxia 112-L TLC |
| DRAM [?] | Yes |
| Read speed (MB/s) [?] | 7500 |
| Write speed (MB/s) [?] | 6700 |
| Read IOPS [?] | 540000 |
| Write IOPS [?] | 440000 |
| Endurance (TBW) [?] | 3120 |
| MTBF (million hours) [?] | 3000000 |
| Warranty (years) [?] | 5 |
Verdict: Is the MTE250H Worth It in 2026?
Buy the Transcend MTE250H 4TB for PS5 expansion or a large game and video library where a fitted heatsink and a 3,120 TBW endurance budget matter more than absolute peak speed. Skip it if price per gigabyte drives the decision — Crucial's QLC-based P3 Plus 4TB undercuts it, with a steep post-cache write penalty as the cost — or if rated speed leads, where Samsung's 990 Pro 4TB and WD's SN850X 4TB both outrate it. Tom's Hardware found the family pricey in the US, so the value case rests on the warranty, thermals and convenience. As a set-and-forget 4TB Gen4 drive with cooling solved at the factory, it makes a coherent package.
+ Pros
- Rated 7,500/6,700 MB/s — family's fastest
- 3,120 TBW endurance, five-year warranty
- Pre-fitted aluminum heatsink, PS5-eligible size
- 540K/440K random IOPS rating
- DRAM cache platform with NVMe 1.4
- Fits Sony's 11.25 mm PS5 envelope
- Cons
- 990 Pro and SN850X 4TB rate faster
- Priced high in the US, per Tom's Hardware
- Post-cache write floor untested at 4TB
- 9.2 mm height fouls some laptop M.2 slots
- Heatsink removal risks warranty, per Transcend
Buy this or similar SSD Storage:
Video Review
4TB SSDs Worth Buying - Transcend 250
