Somehow these 2TB SSDs are better value than their 1TB brethren

Crucial P3 Plus SSD
(Image credit: Crucial)
Crucial P3 Plus | 2TB | NVMe | PCIe 4.0 | 5,000 MB/s read | 4,200 MB/s writes | $134.99 $112.99 at Best Buy (save $22)

Crucial P3 Plus | 2TB | NVMe | PCIe 4.0 | 5,000 MB/s read | 4,200 MB/s writes | <a href="https://shop-links.co/link?skuId=6509713&publisher_slug=future&exclusive=1&u1=hawk-custom-tracking&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bestbuy.com%2Fsite%2Fcrucial-p3-plus-2tb-internal-ssd-pcie-gen-4-0-nvme%2F6509713.p%3FskuId%3D6509713&article_name=hawk-article-name&article_url=hawk-article-url" data-link-merchant="bestbuy.com"" target="_blank">$134.99 $112.99 at Best Buy (save $22)
The Crucial drive might not be the absolute fastest PCIe 4.0 SSD out there, but it will still make any last-gen drive look like a slouch. And it's such a bargain price for this much fast storage—throw your OS and game library on this drive and watch it fly.

WD Black SN770 | 2TB | NVMe | PCIe 4.0 | 5,150 MB/s read | 4,850 MB/s write | $134.99$119.99 at Amazon (save $15)

WD Black SN770 | 2TB | NVMe | PCIe 4.0 | 5,150 MB/s read | 4,850 MB/s write | <a href="https://target.georiot.com/Proxy.ashx?tsid=8432&GR_URL=https%3A%2F%2Famazon.com%2Fdp%2FB09QV5KJHV%3Fth%3D1%26tag%3Dhawk-future-20%26ascsubtag%3Dhawk-custom-tracking-20" data-link-merchant="Amazon US"" target="_blank">$134.99 $119.99 at Amazon (save $15)
The Western Digital drive is a touch more expensive, but it is also quicker than the Crucial P3 Plus. We've had great experiences with the WD Black drives over the years, including this one, so would be happy to pay the extra few dollars for the extra speed and reassurance of the brand.

Memory and, therefore storage prices are pretty much the only things in tech land dropping in price. You won't find graphics card makers tripping over each other to slash the cost of an RTX 4070 Ti, and then following up a week later with another hefty discount. And yet, that is precisely what's going down in SSD town.

We've already covered the excellent Nextorage 2TB SSD dropping down to $160—that's the best price for one of the fastest PCIe 4.0 drives around we've ever seen. And it is a discount upon a discount.

But it's not the cheapest 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSD out there. That accolade falls to the Crucial P3 Plus at just $113, though the WD Black SN770 at just $120 is a touch quicker and probably the drive we'd go for if it's just a matter of seven bucks. The WD drive isn't the last word in SSD pace, but at over 5,000 MB/s for reads, and just shy of that in writes, it's still a supremely quick chunk of SSD storage.

It's ludicrous that at a time when everything else is growing ever more expensive, some of the best SSDs are getting such massive price cuts. At this point, if you haven't got at least 1TB of speedy storage in your PC, I don't know what else I can tell you.

The WD Black SN770 is available in 1TB trim for just $70, after all.

And if your concern is that you're only sporting a motherboard or PC with PCIe 3.0 slots inside it, the good news is that a PCIe 4.0 drive will still run in your rig as fast as any last-gen SSD you could stick in it. Then you can take that drive with you if you choose to upgrade and have even more performance. It's a win-win.

WD Black SN770 | 1TB | NVMe | PCIe 4.0 | 5,150MB/s read | 4,900MB/s write | $89.99$69.99 at Amazon (save $20)

WD Black SN770 | 1TB | NVMe | PCIe 4.0 | 5,150MB/s read | 4,900MB/s write | <a href="https://target.georiot.com/Proxy.ashx?tsid=8432&GR_URL=https%3A%2F%2Famazon.com%2Fdp%2FB09QV692XY%3Ftag%3Dhawk-future-20%26ascsubtag%3Dhawk-custom-tracking-20" data-link-merchant="Amazon US"" target="_blank">$89.99 $69.99 at Amazon (save $20)
WD is ruling the mainstream SSD market right now. The SN770 is a great buy if you're after speedy PCIe 4.0 performance without breaking the bank on a more cutting-edge storage device. It may not be the fastest Gen4 drive, but it easily outpaces any SATA drive or older PCIe 3.0 SSDs—a great price for 1TB of speedy storage.

Dave James
Managing Editor, Hardware

Dave has been gaming since the days of Zaxxon and Lady Bug on the Colecovision, and code books for the Commodore Vic 20 (Death Race 2000!). He built his first gaming PC at the tender age of 16, and finally finished bug-fixing the Cyrix-based system around a year later. When he dropped it out of the window. He first started writing for Official PlayStation Magazine and Xbox World many decades ago, then moved onto PC Format full-time, then PC Gamer, TechRadar, and T3 among others. Now he's back, writing about the nightmarish graphics card market, CPUs with more cores than sense, gaming laptops hotter than the sun, and SSDs more capacious than a Cybertruck.