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WD’s 2TB SN550 NVMe SSD is well cheap on Amazon UKThe best price we’ve ever seen on one of the best gaming SSDs.
The best price we’ve ever seen on one of the best gaming SSDs.
Get the WD Blue SN550 2TB for £140 (was £180)
The SN550 is quite special because it’s one of the first NVMe SSDs to be sold even cheaper than a 2TB SATA drive, despite being significantly faster than a SATA drive in most instances. That’s down to the fact that the SN550 lacks a DRAM cache, a relatively expensive component that boosts performance - especially for reading and writing small files - and also increases drive longevity. However, modern designs have found a way to go without these DRAM caches, pushing the cost of the drive down without hurting performance in a way that’s noticeable in most use cases. So for an OS drive, or for content creation, a DRAM cache probably makes sense - but for game storage, I’d argue it’s not particularly necessary.
So: pretty good deal, right? I think so - but there is something you should be aware of. WD was recentlyput under firefor silently changing the composition of the SN550, with some newer drives coming with slower QLC NAND instead of the previous TLC. Peak speeds are fine - in fact, they’re marginally better with the new components - but sustained speeds after the drive’s SLC cache have been exhausted are around half the speed of the old model. It’s not clear from the description which drive you’ll get here, but it’s worth checking if you’ll be using the drive as your OS drive. For gaming, it’s unlikely you’ll notice the difference, so the recommendation stands.
Top 10 New PC Games For September 2021Watch on YouTube
Top 10 New PC Games For September 2021
With that, we come to the end of this particular deals post. Thanks for joining me and stay tuned for one final deal for this week - this time on the other side of the Atlantic. Cheers!
