If you’ve been thinking about upgrading your PC’s storage banks recently, you’ll be pleased to know that there are a lot of SSDs on sale at Amazon UK today. Our group pick is £ 30 off the 1TB model of the excellent WD Black SN750, its flagship SSD for gaming which is now the cheapest since last year’s Black Friday sale.
The 1 TB model of the Black SN750 stuck at £ 139 for most of January, making today’s bargain price of £ 110 a savings. In fact, the last time it was so cheap was during the Black Friday sale last year, according to my Amazon price tracker, where it dropped to £ 105 the week before Black Friday festivities – and even more tempting £ 100 on the same day.
There is also a £ 15 discount on the Adata XPG SX8200 Pro today, reducing this great value to £ 100. In fact, it is the same as the Black Friday price, making it a great time to buy it. The SX8200 Pro is not as fast as the WD Black SN750 when it comes to random write speeds – it’s about 12% slower by my benchmarks – but its random read speeds are exceptional. In fact, it is still the fastest PCIe 3.0 drive I’ve tested in this regard, and it’s worth considering whether the current price of the SN750 is a little expensive for you.
Of course, if you’re looking for a real 1 TB NVMe bargain, I still recommend going with WD’s From others quite an excellent SSD, the Blue SN550. It’s almost as fast as the Black SN750, but it costs £ 20 less for just £ 90. However, it’s currently sold out, so if you need new storage right away, the Black SN750 or SX8200 Pro are arguably the best bets for a while.
Alternatively, if £ 90 is slightly beyond your current budget, the older TBD Blue 3D NAND M.2 variant 1 TB and 500 GB are also on sale today, with £ 10 cut from the regular price from the previous to reduce to £ 82 and £ 4 off to £ 49.
However, while these drives may be very similar to the Black SN750 in terms of format, they are actually SATA SSDs instead of suitable NVMe. As such, they will be limited to SATA speeds instead of the faster PCIe 3.0 standard. SATA is still much faster than an HDD, of course, but PCIe 3.0 is even faster.
I reviewed the 2.5-inch version of the WD Blue 3D NAND a while ago and it’s a great SSD for those on a limited budget. In fact, with these new prices, the M.2 versions of the drive are cheaper or priced the same as their 2.5-inch counterparts. That said, I still recommend opting for the 2.5 inch models if you can avoid it, just because ideally you want to save the limited number of M.2 slots you have on your motherboard to suitable NVMe drives. Most motherboards come with just one or two M.2 slots today (three if you’re lucky and have enough money for a high-end motherboard), so it seems like a waste to use these slots in drives other than for you make the most of it.