Best October Prime Day SSD deals - I've been tracking the spiraling prices all year so I know where the best deals are

It's a fair chunk of cash for a slow SSD but if you're looking for lots of storage and don't need a blazing fast NVMe drive, then this is the cheapest way of putting a 1 TB SSD in your gaming PC. Just don't expect it to sustain full speed under heavy workloads and you'll be fine.

Key specs: 2.5-inch | 560 MB/s read | 500 MB/s write

With 6,000 MB/s read speed and 5,000 MB/s write speed, this is slower than the best but not as slow as the rest. It's still going to feel plenty fast for most use cases, particularly if you're replacing a Gen3 drive or using it as some extra backup space. Great for the cash, I reckon.

Key specs: NVMe | PCIe 4.0 | 6,000 MB/s read | 5,000 MB/s write

This DRAM-less drive is well-suited for stashing your operating system alongside a few games from your ever-growing Steam backlog. This is the version without a heatsink, which means you can slot it straight into a console, too.

Key specs: NVMe | PCIe 4.0 | 7,100 MB/s read | 6,000 MB/s write

Price Check: Newegg $185.00

Okay, so our tests demonstrate it's slightly slower than the advertised speeds, but the actual sequential performance still isn't bad. Couple that with a very reasonable price point, plus its practically frosty temps, and you might well be looking at your next upgrade.

Key specs: NVMe | PCIe 4.0 | 7,400 MB/s read | 6,500 MB/s write

There's a weird wrinkle here in that you're buying this SSD from Amazon Germany rather than its American counterpart. If you're willing to roll the dice on delivery, this is a banging price for a PCIe 5.0 drive—check out our full review from last year.

Key specs: NVMe | PCIe 5.0 | 11,000 MB/s read | 9,500 MB/s write

Price check: Newegg $213.30

The US75 might not technically have the fastest read and write speeds of all the Gen 4 drives on the market, but it's absolutely no slouch either, and would make a seriously brilliant games storage drive. Or anything else, for that matter.

Key specs: NVMe | PCIe 4.0 | 7,000 MB/s read | 6,500 MB/s write

This SSD is no slouch and still offers some of the best-in-class 4K read performance (read our full review here). Though this drops the DRAM cache and opts for a single-sided design, it's still a quality drive for a gaming PC.

Key specs: NVMe | PCIe 4.0 | 7,250 MB/s read | 6,900 MB/s write

Price check: Newegg $189.99

Yes, this is a pricey 1 TB drive, but it's also a relatively affordable PCIe 5.0 SSD. Just get a load of those read/write speeds! If you're still not convinced, be sure to have a read of Zak's review.

Key specs: NVMe | PCIe 5.0 | 14,700 MB/s read | 13,300 MB/s write

Price check: Newegg $249.99

This drive uses QLC memory and comes without DRAM cache, but it's still an impressively quick drive for the money, with strong sequential performance.

Key specs: NVMe | PCIe 4.0 | Up to 7,100 MB/s read | up to 6,000 MB/s write

Price check: Newegg $298.99

This Team Group boasts some mighty specs for the money, though it's actually the same hardware as in the Lexar NM790. The sequential read/write speeds are extremely high, but it can only sustain them over short bursts. Read our full review of this SSD for more info.

Key specs: NVMe | PCIe 4.0 | 7,400 MB/s read | 6,900 MB/s write

Price check: Amazon $509.99

What it lacks in outright NVMe speed, this SN5000 makes up for with capacity. It's a lot of cash for four terabytes, especially with slower speeds, but if you consider the cost of two terabytes, it's not actually the worst deal under the current circumstances.

Key specs: NVMe | PCIe 4.0 | 5,500 MB/s read | 4,000 MB/s write speed

This is a good drive for bulking out your storage, especially for a Steam library. It uses QLC NAND rather than TLC, which the slightly more expensive MP44 also uses, and that means it is a bit slower. Thankfully, that won't really be a problem unless you're moving huge files around on the regular.

Key specs: NVMe | PCIe 4.0 | Up to 7,400 MB/s read | Up to 6,200 MB/s write

Price check: Amazon $492.99

With a sequential read/write of 5,000 MB/s and 4,500 MB/s, this isn't what you'd call slow and should be fine for gaming, plus it comes from a reliable brand.

Key specs: NVMe | PCIe 4.0 | 5,000 MB/s read | 4,500 MB/s write

Price check: Amazon $537.97

It's not often you see a 2000 MB/s external SSD going for this sorta money. That's speedier than most in this price bracket. We've tested it, and while we don't love the peak transfer speed dropping so quickly, the size and (relative) price help alleviate some of our concerns.

Key specs: USB 3.2 Gen2x2 | 2,000 MB/s read and write

For just storing documents, this small SATA SSD is a lot faster than a traditional HDD, and Lexar makes reliable and robust SSDs. You're still better off getting an NVMe M.2 SSD for games and your operating system, though.

Key specs: 2.5-inch | SATA 6 Gb/s | 550 MB/s read | 520 MB/s write

Okay, so our tests demonstrate it's slightly slower than the advertised speeds, but the actual sequential performance still isn't bad. Couple that with a very reasonable price point, plus its practically frosty temps, and you might well be looking at your next upgrade.

Key specs: NVMe | PCIe 4.0 | 7,400 MB/s read | 6,500 MB/s write

Though not as fast nor always as cheap as the Biwin, this drive does happen to be supported by the Biwin Intelligence performance management software. That's some consolation, right?

Key specs: NVMe | PCIe 4.0 | 7,200 MB/s read | 6,200 MB/s write

While this is QLC memory and comes without a DRAM cache, it's still an impressively quick drive for the money, with strong sequential performance.

Key specs: NVMe | PCIe 4.0 | 7,100 MB/s read | 6,000 MB/s write

This SSD is no slouch and still offers some of the best-in-class 4K read performance (read our full review here). Though this drops the DDR4 DRAM cache and instead opts for a single-sided design, it's still got the same versatile form factor that perfectly suits this heat-sinkless drive to PCs, consoles, and laptops.

Key specs: NVMe | PCIe 4.0 | 7,250 MB/s read | 6,900 MB/s write

This drive's endurance rating of 600 TBW is pretty decent for 1 TB. The price, the five year warranty, and the read/write speeds also make this an appealing option for bulking out your storage.

Key specs: NVMe | PCIe 4.0 | 7,000 MB/s read | 5,000 MB/s write

This is one of our favourite SSDs for gaming right now. Unlike the cheaper SN770, the SN850X encapsulates the best PCIe 4.0 offers in terms of performance (check out our review). That makes it a great fit for a boot drive with space to spare for your game library, and at this price, we're happy to pay the premium for its higher speed.

Key specs: NVMe | PCIe 4.0 | 7,300 MB/s read | 6,300 MB/s write

Though not as fast nor always as cheap as the Biwin, this drive does happen to be supported by the Biwin Intelligence performance management software. That's some consolation, right?

Key specs: NVMe | PCIe 4.0 | 7,200 MB/s read | 6,200 MB/s write

Okay, so our tests demonstrate it's slightly slower than the advertised speeds, but the actual sequential performance still isn't bad. Couple that with a very reasonable price point, plus its practically frosty temps, and you might well be looking at your next upgrade.

Key specs: NVMe | PCIe 4.0 | 7,400 MB/s read | 6,500 MB/s write

It's a lot of dosh to spend on a storage drive, but it's actually great value for the money right now in these memory shortage times.

Key specs: NVMe | PCIe 4.0 | 7,400 MB/s read | 6,500 MB/s write

A slower drive but more affordable than most with 2 TB of capacity. If you're not worried about fast transfers, this is well suited to most tasks without a time limit.

Key specs: USB 3.2 Gen2 | 1,050 MB/s read | 1,000 MB/s write

Though chunky, you can definitely forgive this drive's more rugged design in light of its 5-year limited warranty. It's not as fast as other options, but still worth considering at this price point.

Key specs: USB 3.2 Gen2x2 | 2,000 MB/s read | 2,000 MB/s write

This is quite a capacious and reasonably snappy drive for surprisingly little money. It doesn't come with steel bracing, but it does offer shock, vibration, and drop resistance up to 2.29 m. It even comes with a lanyard loop too, making this a solid drive to take out and about.

Key specs: USB 3.2 | 1,050 MB/s read and write

Though chunky, you can definitely forgive this drive's more rugged design in light of its 5-year limited warranty. It's not as fast as other options out there, but still worth considering at this price point.

Key specs: USB 3.2 Gen2x2 | 2,000 MB/s read | 2,000 MB/s write

If you need a small external SSD but don't want to sacrifice capacity or performance, then Crucial's X10 Pro is a great choice. It's the same size as the X6 model but has double the read/write performance, though you will need to plug it into a 20 Gbps USB port to reach full speed.

Key specs: USB 3.2 Gen2x2 | 2,100 MB/s read | 2,000 MB/s write