Black Friday SSD deals 2021: the fastest PC storage for the best price
Jump straight to the deals you want...
1. NVMe SSD deals
2. SATA SSD deals
3. External SSD deals
Storage is one of the few areas where you can expect some blinding deals this Black Friday sales season. The silicon shortage is still wreaking havoc with the graphics card market and everyone's system-building plans, but as we transition from SATA SSDs to PCIe 3.0 drives, and on to PCIe 4.0 drives, there are some serious bargains to be had out there. Especially as Intel's Alder Lake is ushering in support for PCIe 5.0.
So if you're somehow still packing a SATA drive, then it's time to do yourself a favor and get the NVMe bandwagon. Check what your motherboard supports first, and then take a gander below at the best deals around. Whether you just want to bolster the amount of storage you have in your machine, or planning on enjoying a serious performance boost, you'll find something that's perfect for you on this page.
NVMe SSDs are much faster than their SATA SSD counterparts, and we're not just talking game loads here, either; general Windows usage will be a whole lot slicker with a good SSD. You can upgrade to an NVMe SSD as your main boot drive and turn your old SATA SSD into a speedy Steam library storage unit as well—great given the size of modern games like Call of Duty, Destiny 2, and Red Dead Redemption 2. Thankfully, SSD storage has never been cheaper, and 2TB SSDs are actually a reachable goal thanks to some huge discounts from Amazon's Black Friday deals. Go on, give your PC's storage an overhaul.
Remember size isn't the be-all-and-end-all when it comes to storage. With the next-gen consoles, both launching with speedy SSDs at their heart, performance will be front and center in the minds of game developers moving forward. Over the next few years, we're going to see NVMe SSDs becoming the default, and that push for faster performance should benefit PCs as well as consoles. Vast open-world games with basically no loading times—sounds pretty good, right?
When will Black Friday SSD deals start to appear?
Black Friday itself occurs on November 26 this year, but there will be offers from a wide variety of retailers well ahead of time. Last year that might have just meant at the start of November, but we're expecting there to be sales kicking off even before that in October.
Where will have the best Black Friday SSD deals?
In the US:
- Amazon - Black Friday deals on SSDs
- Walmart - Deals on internal and external SSDs
- B&H Photo - Internal NVMe and SATA SSDs
- Best Buy - HDDs, SSDs, and Storage
- Target - Deals on drives and storage
- Staples - SSDs, USB sticks, and external hard drives
- Newegg - Everything from internal SSDs to external HDDs
In the UK:
- Amazon UK - Black Friday deals on SSDs
- Newegg - Everything from internal SSDs to external HDDs
- Scan - Internal and external SSDs
- Box - Range of internal and external SSDs
- Ebuyer - Internal and external SSDs and HDDs
- Overclockers - Deals on internal SSDs
- Currys - Internal SATA and NVME SSDs
- Laptops Direct - Variety of SATA and NVMe SSD deals
What to look out for in a Black Friday SSD
The main things to watch out for are the same for Black Friday SSD deals as with any other technology bargain hunting you do around this November period. Go in there with an idea of what you want, and above all, what you need. It's easy to get carried away at this time of year, but if you have a notion of how much you want to spend and what sort of SSD you're after, you'll be in good stead.
Capacity is a good starting point, and at the moment, we're looking at some excellent 1TB offers, but a 512GB SSD will still afford you a lot of speed storage for a boot drive, with enough space for your most regularly played games. I mean, they're not all Call of Duty, right?
Then think about the interface. Chances are, if you're rocking a PC of the last five years, you'll have an M.2 slot in your motherboard with NVMe support. However, it's worth digging into the specifics of your motherboard to make sure that it can definitely support booting from such drives as not all can. Check out the manufacturer's pages and maybe forums too.
If you're considering making the switch to an AMD Zen 2 or Zen 3 processor and X570 or B550 chipsets, then there you also have a decision to make regarding PCIe 3.0 or PCIe 4.0 SSDs. The same's true if you pick up an Intel Rocket Lake CPU with a Z590 motherboard. PCIe 4.0 is the newer standard, with the higher bandwidth, but is backward compatible with older boards. That means you can buy the latest SSDs now, and they'll still be lightning-fast in your existing setup, just not to the full extent you'll see when you do make the upgrade.
That said, PCIe 3.0 drives are still incredibly speedy compared to anything that has come before, so you'll be in a great place with any high-performance NVMe SSD purchase.
There are some things to look out for, however. Some budget PCIe 3.0 drives only operate at x2 speed, which means they're half as fast as the standard x4 NVMe SSDs. It's also worth ensuring your M.2 SSD actually is an NVMe drive. There are some M.2 SSDs that still operate over the SATA interface and can only reach a maximum theoretical speed of 600MB/s, while the theoretical maximum of an x4 PCIe 3.0 interface is 4,000MB/s.
Early Black Friday NVMe SSD deals
Our magic price searching bots are all over the web, tracking down the best prices all the time. That means this list will be regularly curated multiple times each day.
Early Black Friday SATA SSD deals
Our magic price searching bots are all over the web, tracking down the best prices all the time. That means this list will be regularly curated multiple times each day.
Early Black Friday External SSD deals
Our magic price searching bots are all over the web, tracking down the best prices all the time. That means this list will be regularly curated multiple times each day.