This Black Friday 1TB SSD deal is almost too cheap not to buy
For $50, this capable 1TB SanDisk Plus SSD is a great option to replace an old hard drive
SanDisk SSD Plus | 1TB | SATA | 550MB/s reads | 350 MB/s writes | $79.99 $49.99 at Amazon (save $30)
A reliable, well-reviewed SATA SSD; we'll call it an oldie but a goodie. You're not going to find a cheaper SSD with this much storage from a good brand, making this a great buy for an older laptop or to replace a HDD in your desktop.
SanDisk has been one of the go-to brands for flash memory for as long as digital cameras have used memory cards. Western Digital, which now owns SanDisk, has been one of the biggest names in storage for decades. So it's safe to say an SSD from SanDisk is a safe buy, which is why I'm confident recommending the SanDisk SSD Plus as a ludicrously cheap way to add a full terabyte of solid state storage to your PC.
Let me put this deal in context: the SanDisk SSD Plus isn't going to set any speed records. It's a SATA SSD, rated for 535 MB/s reads and 350MB/s writes, which means its read speed is basically hitting the cap of what SATA can offer. For a boot drive, you should now be looking for an NVMe SSD, which can offer much higher speeds. We have a load of recommendations on those in our Black Friday SSD deals blog.
The strength of the SanDisk SSD Plus is that it's just cheap as hell—the lowest price I've seen for a 1TB SSD from a solid brand.
If you need to bulk out your desktop PC with more storage, you probably have SATA ports and SSD mounting spots to spare; you can add two terabytes of storage here for only $100, three terabytes for $150, etc (I'm really showing off my math skills here). It's also good to note that reviews for this drive are very positive. Again, it's not going to win any races, but you can count on it doing its job. A less-famous brand, Team Group, actually has an SSD on sale for a couple bucks cheaper than normal, so if you're after 2TB, check out this one on Newegg for $94.
- We're curating all the best Black Friday PC gaming deals right here.
At $50, the SanDisk SSD Plus is also a perfect drive to buy if you have an aging laptop around that runs off a 2.5-inch HDD or an older, smaller SATA SSD. Upgrading those kinds of laptops tends to be extremely easy, and you could give it a few more years of life with a big storage boost like this.
Remember that this drive is suited to bulk storage—fill it up with indie games, videos, less-demanding programs—but, again, don't use it as a boot drive. It's not fast enough to give you the experience running Windows you deserve. For that, check out a few of these NVMe deals we've found while Black Friday hunting. They'll all turbo charge your rig.
WD_BLACK SN850X | 1TB | PCIe 4.0 | 7,300MB/s read | 6,300MB/s writes | $134.99 $99.99 at Newegg (save $35)
The updated SN850X isn't hugely different from the non-X version, but it has a slightly different SanDisk controller and higher performance. The big thing, though, is that it runs much cooler, so you don't really need a heatsinked version. It's also cheaper than the older drive right now, too.
SK hynix Platinum P41 | 2TB | PCIe 4.0 | 7,000MB/s reads | 6,500MB/s writes | $259.99 $169.99 at Amazon (save $90)
This deal on this impressive SK Hynix Platinum P41 might be the cheapest 2TB PCIe 4.0 we've found far. It's a fine SSD with excellent performance. At $169.99, you won't find a faster SSD at this price.
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Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.
When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).