Good SSD deals are increasingly difficult to come by, with prices rising left, right, and centre. In fact, all but one drive had become substantially more expensive when I recently updated my best SSD list. Fortunately, there’s one shining light at the end of this dark tunnel: Crucial T500.
Getting your hands on an extra 2TB is a little more affordable on Amazon right now, saving you up to 27%. In the US, you can grab the standard model for $138.99 and the heatsink-clad version for $154.99. Meanwhile, the UK offers the same selections for £151.99 and £150.97, respectively. Prices in Europe vary, but I spotted the storage going for €201.99 in Italy and €164.00 in Germany.
Crucial T500 2TB
“Elevate your system’s performance with the high-speed Gen 4 SSD that’s 12x faster than SATA.”
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Sitting on the upper end of PCIe 4.0, Crucial T500 2TB speeds to victory with a 7,400MB/s sequential read speed and 7,000MB/s write. It promises loading times that are up to 16% faster than the previous generation, ensuring you’re never the last to load into the lobby. The brand even claims it’s 42% faster than Gen 3 drives in productivity apps like Adobe Creative Cloud.
Unlike pesky Gen 5 models, it doesn’t need a noisy active cooler to achieve its potential. With a 40% higher performance-to-power ratio, it stays chilled underneath a simple passive heatsink, whether that’s integrated into your motherboard or sold separately. Do make sure you cover it with something thermally designed, though.
As always, don’t just take our word for it, especially since this is an SSD we haven’t tested first-hand. Amazon gives you the opportunity to try it out for yourself. If you’re not happy, just return it within a 30-day window.
A final note for those of you filling out your motherboard: keep in mind that some M.2 slots share bandwidth with the PCIe slots. Consult your manual to see which ones to keep empty or judge whether it’s a worthy trade-off.
In the meantime, we’ll keep our eyes out for more SSD deals and any other tech discounts that crop up. Follow us on Twitter or Facebook, and subscribe to our free weekly newsletter to keep up to date with everything that we find.