Best early October Prime Day deals on SSD & storage

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Amazon’s second big sales event for its Prime members is just around the corner—but you can get good deals already on SSDs. With luck, it’ll continue getting better in the lead up to October 10 and 11. The cost of solid-state drives have tumbled this year. All our recommended deals are all-time low prices (or very near it).

To get the best prices, you’ll need an Amazon Prime subscription, as the discounts are only available to members. Good news is, getting Amazon Prime for free is easy. Not interested in Prime, but still want to save money? We’re also keeping an eye out for sales at rival stores, like Newegg. Also, if you want more info on the drives we rate highest, check out our top picks for SSDs as well as our top picks for external storage.

Best Prime Day deals on SSDs

SSD prices have been good for most of this year, and the additional price cuts make them even sweeter. At the moment there aren’t a ton of deals just yet, but things should heat up the closer we get to October 10.

Note: Unless listed otherwise, the warranty for these SSDs is five years.

Best deals on internal 2.5-inch SATA SSDs

Crucial

Crucial MX500, 500GB 2.5″ SATA SSD – $35 (13% off)

Crucial MX500, 1TB 2.5″ SATA SSD – $49 (50% off)

Samsung 870 EVO, 1TB 2.5″ SATA SSD – $49 (16% off)

Team Group QX, 2TB 2.5 SATA SSD, 3-year warranty – $61 (12% off at Newegg)

The Crucial MX500 is a favorite among SATA SSDs for good reason—you get solid performance at an incredibly affordable price. Think of it as the upgraded version of the BX500, our current top pick for budget SATA drive. Meanwhile, the Team Group QX makes for a good secondary drive, especially as reasonably fast storage for game downloads.

Best deals on internal M.2 NVMe SSDs

Gen 3

PCWelt/Crucial

Crucial P3, 2TB PCIe Gen 3 M.2 SSD – $82 (18% off)

Our pick for the best PCIe Gen 3 has been tumbling in price all year—and right now it’s getting close to its all-time low again. If you have to buy something before next week, this is a pretty decent price.

Best Prime Day deals on general PC storage

Looking for an internal hard disk drive or external drive to expand your storage? These deals haven’t quite fully taken off yet, but you can already snag a deal on one of our favorite external SSDs.

Best deals on external storage

Samsung

Samsung T7 Shield, 1TB USB 3.2 Gen 2 portable SSD – $79 (51% off)

Crucial X8, 2TB USB 3.2 Gen 2 portable SSD – $100 (55% off)

You can snag a portable SSD for a solid price already, including the Samsung T7 Shield, our pick for the best external USB drive with high performance.

FAQ

Why are SSDs so cheap now?

Lower demand and high supply have led to a rapid tumble in solid-state drive (SSD) prices this year. Even before July’s Prime Day sales, SSDs cost much less. A 1TB drive that might have been $100 during Black Friday 2022 is now often around $80 (or 20 percent lower than before) or even less.

Is an SSD better than HDD?

SSDs are faster and take less room in a PC than a hard-disk drive (HDD), which gives them a strong advantage. If you only have one storage drive in your PC, it should ideally be an SSD so you get faster boot times and quicker access to your files. A HDD as your primary drive will feel much slower.

But HDDs still have their advantages. First, they’re much cheaper. The going price of a 2TB HDD is about the same as the sale price for a 1TB SSD. You also can get them in higher capacities than SSDs. If you work with huge files, you can pick up an 18TB or 20TB HDD (and as mentioned, since HDD cost less, you’ll spend as much or even less as a 4TB SSD). If you need secondary storage and you don’t need it to be fast, HDDs are a fantastic option.

How do I know if an SSD deal is good?

Here’s the guideline we use for picking deals: First, it should be for an SSD that performs well (or in select cases, performs well for its MSRP), and is a reasonable price when not on sale. The discount should also be significant for that particular model. Ex: For SSDs that almost never go on sale, a reduction of $5 to $10 is already hefty. For others, that might be closer to $20 to $30.

In other words, expect to pick up high-performing drives at an all-time low (or very close to that) during Prime Day. Ignore the options that don’t meet this criteria.

Author: Alaina Yee, Senior Editor

Alaina Yee is PCWorld’s resident bargain hunter—when she’s not covering software, PC building, and more, she’s scouring for the best tech deals. Previously her work has appeared in PC Gamer, IGN, Maximum PC, and Official Xbox Magazine. You can find her on Twitter at @morphingball.

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