There’s by no means been a greater time to purchase an SSD than 2023. Costs of solid-state drives have dropped throughout the board in the previous couple of years, placing even among the greatest SSDs within the arms of even essentially the most informal PC builder.
However simply because costs are low doesn’t imply they’ll’t be decrease. Choose up an SSD on the proper time, and you may web your self a chunky saving even on new drives and high-capacity fashions. And it’s not simply PC avid gamers which might be in luck. Most of the greatest PS5 SSDs and greatest Xbox Sequence X|S SSDs additionally get value cuts all year long throughout main sale occasions.
Finest Time to Purchase an SSD
Black Friday/Cyber Monday
SSDs typically obtain hefty reductions throughout Black Friday gross sales. Higher but, the higher-end and newer fashions are sometimes those that get pleasure from the very best offers. Final yr, for example, the 1TB WD_Black SN850X dropped to its lowest-ever value at almost a 50% low cost just a few months after hitting cabinets. It’s a helpful reminder: If an SSD you just like the look of seems in the summertime, it’s price ready just a few months to see should you can seize it at a discount value in autumn.
Black Friday is November twenty fourth this yr, although retailers typically launch reductions within the previous weeks. Your subsequent greatest guess is the Amazon Black Friday sale kicking off on Friday November 17. They’ll additionally tick over to Cyber Monday on the twenty seventh should you miss these gross sales. There’s not often a lot, if any, distinction between the reductions on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, so should you see one thing on Friday for a value you want, don’t hold about within the hope it can get an additional value reduce by the next Monday. It gained’t, however inventory may run out.
Amazon Prime Day
Huge offers additionally pop up on Amazon Prime Day in July. We noticed reductions topping 50% and on a number of new-ish drives in 2023. Prime Day offers are normally a contact extra scattershot, with many lesser-known manufacturers promoting the most important reductions whereas the heavyweight SSDs get much less spectacular value knocks. That’s not all the time the case, although, and the Xbox growth playing cards obtained hefty value cuts over the past October Prime Day.
Amazon held two Prime Day occasions this yr – within the spring and autumn. The second had fewer offers total and few of these have been price raving about. Amazon will doubtless deliver again each in 2024, so you’ll be able to anticipate reductions in each July and October as soon as once more.
Seasonal Retailer Gross sales
Different on-line retailers – like Newegg and Finest Purchase – additionally maintain their very own seasonal gross sales all year long. They’re price maintaining your eye on, though among the greatest offers are normally saved for Black Friday. Nonetheless, should you see an SSD you want for a value you fancy earlier within the yr, it might be price grabbing as there’s no assure the deal will return for Black Friday.
Costs Have By no means Been So Low
It wasn’t too way back that SSDs may solely be afforded by essentially the most enthusiastic PC avid gamers. Now, they’re present in each new PC gaming rig in addition to the PS5 and Xbox Sequence X|S. They’ve turn into a staple, largely as a result of their costs have plummeted. Flashy 2TB SSDs that might just a few years in the past have set you again $300 can now be had for simply over the $100 mark. Smaller capacities are even cheaper, and it’s not laborious to discover a dependable drive for half that.
The costs of the greatest PS5 SSDs have additionally been steadily dropping during the last couple of years, however Xbox gamers aren’t having fairly pretty much as good a time of it: the Xbox Sequence X|S is barely suitable with a few bespoke growth playing cards, driving up their costs.
All of which is to say you’ll be able to’t go far flawed. Time your buy round a giant gross sales occasion like Black Friday or Prime Day for the most important financial savings, or think about ready one other 12 months to see simply how low the ever-falling costs will drop. Shopping for an reasonably priced SSD has by no means been simpler.
Do You Want an SSD?
Earlier than throwing down the money for a brand new SSD, it’s price contemplating whether or not you really want one. In the event you like dipping into a number of AAA video games at a time, or don’t need the trouble of re-downloading them once you fancy one other go round, then a roomy SSD is crucial. A few of the hottest video video games eat up more and more massive quantities of cupboard space, and dwell service titles like Fortnite and Future 2 solely get extra grasping with their storage necessities as they drop new seasons of content material and expansions.
Equally, it’s price nabbing an SSD in case your gaming PC remains to be working off a tough drive. SSDs are faster, extra sturdy and fewer noisy. Set up Home windows on an SSD and your PC will boot quicker. Set up video games on it, they usually’ll load extra rapidly. The distinction might be immediate and noticeable.
If you have already got an SSD, although, and have a tendency to solely rotate between a small collection of video games or get pleasure from having one on the go at a time, it’s possible you’ll not have to improve. Not everybody wants oceans of additional storage, and until you ceaselessly seize screenshots, video clips, and intensely switch recordsdata to and from the drive, quicker learn and write speeds might be redundant. In that case, it’s possible you’ll discover your cash is healthier spent (or saved) on the very best CPUs or greatest graphics card to improve your rig.
Can Your Rig Deal with It?
Nabbing an SSD on the proper time fortunately much less of a chore than discovering the greatest time to purchase a graphics card. There’s by no means any draw back to increasing your PC or console’s storage capability, and the efficiency of your sparkly new SSD gained’t be bottlenecked by any of your rig’s different ageing parts.
However think about your construct all the identical. In the event you’re upgrading your SSD with the hope of putting in extra of the newest AAA blockbusters, test whether or not your GPU and CPU are as much as the duty of taking part in them. That expansive storage gained’t depend for a lot should you’re solely capable of play the video games you cram on it at low, juddering body charges.
Callum Bains is a contract tech contributor and author for IGN, with work seen on MSN, Yahoo and extra.
