Western Digital’s got some smashing SSD Deals this week

Western Digital’s WD_BLACK SSDs are available at great prices this week  

SSD pricing has been turbulent over recent months, with high-end drives frequently seeing price rises and decreases at retailers as supply remains in flux. Today, we have been looking on Amazon and found that Western Digital’s WD_BLACK series is available at some appealing price points today, especially their 1TB models. 

Western Digital’s WD_BLACK SN850 is currently the cheapest PS5-compatible 1TB SSD on Amazon, shipping for £132.98. Yes, this model needs a heatsink, but when the heatsinked version costs over £200, you can buy the heatsink-less model and a compatible heatsink at a much lower price. 

For those who do not need PCIe 4.0 speeds, Western Digital’s WD_BLACK SN750 1TB is available for £88.98. For a high-end PCIe 3.0 drive that represents excellent value. This pricing level is similar to many 1TB SATA SSDs, making this M.2 SSD a no-brainer for anyone with a spare M.2 slot. Even the 500GB model represents excellent value at £46.98. 

Western Digital SN750/850 Pricing (Heatsink-less)

– WD_BLACK SN750 PCIe 3.0 SSD 500GB £46.98
– WD_BLACK SN750 PCIe 3.0 SSD 1TB £88.98
– WD_BLACK SN750 PCIe 3.0 SSD 2TB £203.99

– WD_BLACK SN850 PCIe 4.0 SSD 1TB £132.98
– WD_BLACK SN850 PCIe 4.0 SSD 2TB £299.98
  
The future of SSD is NVMe

In 2022, Microsoft’s DirectStorage API will start to be used in games. This innovation will help game developers on Xbox and PC to utilise the potential of NVMe SSD storage, enabling more efficient storage utilisation, faster loading times, and optimised data decompression. 

DirectStorage is designed to be used with NVMe storage devices, which means that older SATA SSDs and HDDs will not benefit from DirectStorage. This means that many future games will require NVMe SSD storage solutions, making SATA-based SSDs irrelevant for some use cases. It will take time for this future to be released, but it is clear that SATA-based SSDs will eventually not be good enough for high-end gaming. 

You can join the discussion on Western Digital’s NVMe SSD deals on the OC3D Forums.