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While buying an SSD these days isn’t quite as painful as buying RAM, SSD prices have been steadily climbing as AI demand continues to reshape the market for computer components. The NAND flash market grew by 90 percent in Q1 2026 on the back of increasing demand and pricing for solid-state storage. It doesn’t help that three of the biggest NAND flash manufacturers are also the three biggest RAM manufacturers. Micron, the company that commands the third-largest DRAM market share behind Samsung and SK Hynix, exited the consumer NAND and RAM market in favor of shifting focus to the obscene profits to be had in the AI and enterprise segments. This has dwindled consumer NAND supply even further.

With limited supply and extreme market pressure, consumer SSD prices have doubled or even tripled over the last couple of years. That means putting off upgrades or carefully timing a purchase. We continue to monitor SSD pricing, and there’s evidence that rising prices may be slowing and could even stabilize by 2027. We’ll have to wait and see, but if you’re intent on buying an SSD now, we’ve scoured the internet to find some of the best deals currently available.

If you’re looking for an external SSD, there probably isn’t a better deal than this. The Verbatim Pocket line of external SSDs comes in capacities of 512GB and 1TB, but the Verbatim Pocket 1TB model currently has the deepest discount at $149.99 — 50% off its MSRP of $299.99, which is rare, given the current market conditions. This is a limited-time deal, so it’s best to act fast if you plan to buy.

The Verbatim Pocket lists read and write speeds of up to 1000 MB/s, and the USB 3.2 Gen 2 interface supports a data rate of up to 10 Gbps, which should make for speedy transfers. The SSD also uses USB-C connectivity, which Verbatim notes should make the drive compatible with PCs, Macs, and gaming consoles. The marquee feature here is how slim and portable the SSD is, making it easy to fit in your pocket or attach to a bag with the included keyring. Windows users can also use the included Nero Backup software.

Samsung announced the 990 Pro SSD in 2022, and reviews at the time painted it as one of the best SSDs for gaming and creative workloads, as well as a suitable upgrade to the 980 Pro. The Samsung 990 Pro 2TB is currently discounted on Amazon to $389.99, roughly 39% off the inflated $639.99 price. While this is a good deal relative to current pricing, it still stings, given that this model launched with an MSRP of $289.99.

The Samsung 990 Pro uses Samsung’s own seventh-generation 176-layer TLC 3D V-NAND and an in-house Samsung controller. It uses a PCIe Gen 4.0 x4, NVMe 2.0 interface, and Samsung lists read/write speeds of up to 7,450 MB/s and 6,900 MB/s, respectively. Synthetic workload tests from TechPowerUp and Tom’s Hardware found those numbers to be fairly close. The Samsung 990 Pro has a listed endurance rating of 1200 TBW (Terabytes Written), a 2GB LPDDR4 DRAM cache, and an M.2 2280 form factor, making it compatible with laptops, desktops, and the PlayStation 5.

If you’re looking to splurge on a newer PCIe 5.0 SSD, Amazon currently has the Samsung 9100 Pro 2TB listed for $399.99, which is around 40% off the $679.99 MSRP. The caveat here is that you need to ensure your PC can fully benefit from a PCIe 5.0 SSD, which means you’ll need a motherboard and CPU that support PCIe 5.0. For Intel, that means an LGA 1700 (Alder Lake and Raptor Lake) or later CPU. For AMD, you’ll need an AM5 socket CPU and a motherboard with a B650E, X670E, X870, or X870E chipset.

Reviews from TechPowerUp, Tom’s Hardware, and PC World have all given the Samsung 9100 Pro relatively high marks. The SSD uses Samsung’s eighth-generation 236-layer TLC V-NAND and a proprietary controller, with capacities up to 8TB — for an eye-watering $2,719.99 MSRP. Samsung lists read and write speeds of up to 14,700 MB/s and 13,400 MB/s, which easily outpace its PCIe 4.0 counterpart, the Samsung 990 Pro. Whether or not you see those speeds in the real world will depend on the type of software and workloads you’re running.

This might be the cheapest high-speed SSD available this month, but the M.2 2230 form factor is going to limit compatibility just a bit. The Western Digital WD Black 1TB SN770M is on sale for $199.99, which is about 40% off the more recent $334.99 MSRP. This SSD requires an M.2 2230 slot, which means it’s ideal for gaming handhelds like the Steam Deck or the ROG Ally, the latter of which is one of the best Steam Deck alternatives for PC gaming. This form factor is also compatible with select laptops from Microsoft’s Surface line and Dell’s XPS line.

The WD Black SN770M is a DRAM-less SSD, which means it doesn’t have a DRAM cache and instead relies on Host Memory Buffer (HMB) technology, which allocates a small amount of system memory for caching. Otherwise, it offers read and write speeds up to 5150 MB/s and 4900 MB/s, respectively, with a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface. It has a pretty low endurance rating of 600 TBW, which isn’t uncommon for DRAM-less, single-sided SSDs. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as this model is intended for game storage and not write-heavy applications.