DRAM or DRAM-less, both these 2 TB WD_Black SSDs are great deals, thanks to their big beautiful Bezos discounts of up to 25% off

News
By published

It's the DRAM-equipped one for me but either drive will be perfect for your gaming PC.

A pair of WD_Black NVMe M.2 SSDs against a teal background with a white border.
(Image credit: WD_Black)
Jump to:

Yeah, I know. Big and beautiful aren't everyone's favorite words right now, whether or not a Bezos is involved, but in the case of these two WD_Black SSDs, it really is a great combination.

👉Shop all the early Prime Day deals on Amazon👈

One of them is an old stalwart, a long-term top choice of everyone in the PC Gamer hardware team, whereas the other one is a new kid on the block. It's shoved the older drive off the top slot of the best gaming SSDs you can buy, thanks to its great performance and price tag.

But no matter which 2 TB drive you pick, you're going to have bags of storage that's fast and long-lasting, giving you years of solid state storage loveliness. You're really not going to be left wanting for anything else, except perhaps another three or four of them to max out your PC.

Quick links

2 TB WD_Black SN7100

WD_BLACK SN7100 M.2 2280 | 2 TB | PCIe 4.0 | up to 7,250MB/s read | up to 6,900MB/s write |$159.99 $127.49 at Amazon (Prime Members only, save $32.50)

WD_BLACK SN7100 M.2 2280 | 2 TB | PCIe 4.0 | up to 7,250MB/s read | up to 6,900MB/s write | $159.99 $127.49 at Amazon (Prime Members only, save $32.50)
Despite being a lot newer than the SN850X, you're only getting small performance gains. But it's no slouch and still offers some of the best in-class 4K read performance. To keep the cost down, the DDR4 DRAM cache has been dropped. However, its single-sided drive design gives it a versatile form factor that perfectly suits this heatsink-less drive to PCs, consoles, and laptops.

Price check: Newegg $137.99

View Deal

The WD_Black SN7100 is currently our top choice for the best gaming SSD you can buy at the moment. It doesn't have the same outright performance as some other NVMe SSDs, especially compared to PCIe 5.0 models, but in the area that matters the most—random 4K read/writes—it's extremely good.

By dropping the DRAM cache, the SN7100 can be sold for less than the SN850X and by no small margin. What you gain in money, though, you lose in sustained write performance because once the pseudo-SLC cache (roughly 250 GB) is full, the data throughput speed will crash right down.

That only matters if your use case for the drive involves routine data writes over 200 GB, and let's be honest here, that's going to be very niche for most PC users. For the vast majority, the SN7100 will just feel like a spacious, cool-running, and fast SSD. What more do you want?

2 TB WD_Black SN850X

WD Black SN850X | 2 TB | NVMe | PCIe 4.0 | 7,300 MB/s read | 6,600 MB/s write | $189.99 $142.49 at Amazon (Prime Members only, save $47.50)

WD Black SN850X | 2 TB | NVMe | PCIe 4.0 | 7,300 MB/s read | 6,600 MB/s write | $189.99 $142.49 at Amazon (Prime Members only, save $47.50)
It's a few years old now, but SanDisk's (formerly Western Digital's) classic SN850X is still a very good SSD. That's down to having a fast controller, a large pseudo-SLC cache, and a big heap of DRAM on top. Pricey but worth it.

Price check: Newegg $154.99

View Deal

I'll fess up right now. I'm a huge fan of the SN850X—so much so that I have four of them (each 2 TB) in my main PC, and another three 1 TB drives dotted about in other rigs and test platforms.

They cope with anything I care to throw at them: gaming, Unreal Engine builds, video editing, and years of random file hoarding (you never know when that research paper on ray marching will come in handy). They don't run hot, and thanks to two enormous caches—pseudo-SLC and DRAM—the write performance stays full speed for really long periods of time.

Sure, the SN7100 is better performing. It should be, as it's so much newer, but we first reviewed the SN850X back in October 2022, and it's just as potent as it was then. Its main weakness has always been the price tag, and I'll admit that even with this big discount, it's quite a lot of cash to hand over for a 2 TB SSD.

I genuinely believe it's worth every single cent, though, and I can't see myself replacing my collection of SN850X drives until they finally give up the ghost and head off to silicon heaven.

👉Check out Amazon's Prime Day SSD deals right here👈

WD_Black SN7100 SSD
Best SSD for gaming 2025

👉Check out our full guide👈

1. Best overall: WD_Black SN7100

2. Best budget: Lexar NM790

3. Best PCIe 5.0: WD_Black SN8100

4. Best budget PCIe 5.0: Crucial P510

5. Best 4 TB: TeamGroup MP44

6. Best 8 TB: WD_Black SN850X

7. Best M.2 2230: Lexar Play 2230

8. Best for PS5: Silicon Power XS70

9. Best SATA: Crucial MX500

Nick Evanson
Nick Evanson
Hardware Writer

Nick, gaming, and computers all first met in 1981, with the love affair starting on a Sinclair ZX81 in kit form and a book on ZX Basic. He ended up becoming a physics and IT teacher, but by the late 1990s decided it was time to cut his teeth writing for a long defunct UK tech site. He went on to do the same at Madonion, helping to write the help files for 3DMark and PCMark. After a short stint working at Beyond3D.com, Nick joined Futuremark (MadOnion rebranded) full-time, as editor-in-chief for its gaming and hardware section, YouGamers. After the site shutdown, he became an engineering and computing lecturer for many years, but missed the writing bug. Cue four years at TechSpot.com and over 100 long articles on anything and everything. He freely admits to being far too obsessed with GPUs and open world grindy RPGs, but who isn't these days? 

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.