Ahead of Black Friday, Best Buy and Amazon are offering the 2TB WD Black SN850X PCIe Gen4 M.2 NVMe solid state drive (SSD) for the best price we've seen all year long. Right now you can get it without heatsink for $129.99 or with heatsink (at Walmart) for $134.99. The WD Black SN850X is one of the best performing PCIe 4.0 SSDs on the market; this is the best SSD for your PlayStation 5 console, but it can also be a blazing fast boot drive for your gaming rig.
2TB WD Black SN850X PS5 SSD (Without Heatsink)
2TB WD Black SN850X PS5 SSD (With Heatsink)
The SN850X is the latest generation of WD's flagship Black series M.2 SSDs. In terms of performance, it's considered a top-tier SSD with sustained read speeds of up to 7,300MBps, write speeds of 6,600MBps, random read speeds of up to 1,200K IOPS, and write speeds of 1,100IOPS. It's faster than the previous generation SN850 thanks to newer flash chips (BiCS5 vs BiCS4) and an updated firmware.
If you plan to install this in your gaming PC, WD includes Game Mode 2.0 utility software that's designed to tune the SSD for better performance during gaming sessions. Unless you have an unlimited budget, 2TB is the size I would recommend for a boot solid state drive; for most people, this is plenty of space for your OS and apps, and the price is still reasonable.
The SN850X also makes for an excellent SSD for your PlayStation 5 console. It's identical to Sony's officially licensed WD SN850P SSD. It more than fulfills all of Sony's PS5 recommendations, including a M.2 2280 form factor, minimum 5,500MB/s speed, and PCI-E Gen4x4 interface. You can get the version with the pre-installed heatsink for $10 more, or you can just pick out a cheaper heatsink (it's very easy to install). The SSD comes with a five-year warranty.
If you don't yet own a PlayStation console, fret not because there are some fantastic PS5 deals coming for Black Friday. Sony recently unveiled a “Play Has No Limits | PS5” ad promoting a special holiday price for the PlayStation 5 Slim (Digital) at $379.99. The deal is set to run through Black Friday and expire after December 24.
Should You Wait for Black Friday?
That is a great question. We will unquestionably see more SSD deals on November 29. The WD SN850X, however, is one of the fastest SSDs on the market and if you're looking for the best of the best, we think there's a slim (although not zero) chance that you'll find a better deal. However, if you're more flexible and willing to buy an SSD that isn't quite the best, but still fast enough to fulfill all of Sony's recommended PS5 specs, then you should wait and find a deal that's closer to $100.
Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn't hunting for deals for other people at work, he's hunting for deals for himself during his free time.
