Crucial’s MX500 1TB is still an excellent SSD and it’s down to just $85 right now

A great price for what still ranks as one of our favorite SSDs. (Image credit: Crucial)

At the risk of jinxing it, SSDs are still readily available, unlike the newest CPUs and GPUs. Storage products have not experienced the same shortages or price hikes as those other parts. There are even deals to be had, like this one for Crucial's MX500 in 1TB form.

The MX500 still holds a place in our roundup of the best SSDs for gaming (we mainly recommend it as a secondary storage drive these days, if your M.2 slots are occupied), and it can be had for $84.99 at Newegg. That price is after applying coupon code 63WTNTY277 at checkout.

The MX500 is a 2.5-inch form factor SSD with a SATA 6Gbps interface. Faster M.2 form factor models with NVMe interfaces are the better option for primary storage duties, though this discount keeps the MX500 in play as a notable alternative worthy of consideration.

As things stand, gaming on a SATA SSD is about the same as gaming on an NVMe SSD, in terms of load times and overall performance. That will hopefully change as developers start to leverage Microsoft's DirectStorage API for Windows 10, but at this very moment, there is very little difference between the two.

That's to say, even as a primary storage option, the MX500 can still hold its own right now, if that is the direction you want to go. It's really better as a secondary drive, though, where it can offer up speedier backups than a mechanical HDD without thrashing your bank account. Either way, this is a good price for a 1TB SSD.

Paul has been playing PC games and raking his knuckles on computer hardware since the Commodore 64. He does not have any tattoos, but thinks it would be cool to get one that reads LOAD"*",8,1. In his off time, he rides motorcycles and wrestles alligators (only one of those is true).