Two portable X6 SSDs and the PC/PS5-compatible P5 Plus 2TB.
Crucial make some of the highest-performance and best value SSDs on the market, and today in the UK three of their best offerings are discounted at Scan. These are the Crucial X6, a 540MB/s portable SSD in 1TB and 2TB sizes, and the Crucial P5 Plus 2TB, a PC and PS5-compatible PCIe 4.0 internal SSD that offers blistering read speeds of up to 6600MB/s.
So why do we recommend these drives, and these deals? Well, the Crucial X6 is a small, rugged and super-fast portable SSD that offers transfer speeds up to 540MB/s - putting it in direct contention with SATA-based SSDs that are limited to around 550MB/s. As a USB-connected drive, latency is a bit higher, but transfer speeds remain excellent. I use a drive like this to move downloaded videos from my PC to the TV downstairs, playing them in full quality rather than relying on dodgy streaming. It’s dramatically faster than the external hard drive I used to use for this purpose, and much more convenient as well as it doesn’t require external power and can’t be damaged by an errant drop or knock.
The Crucial P5 Plus is another highly useful option, a high-end PCIe 4.0 NVMe storage solution that slots into the PS5 or PC without a second worry. (For PS5 use, aheatsink like this oneis recommended.) These sorts of drives are great right now as your main OS drive or for content creation tasks, due to their very high sequential speeds and competitive random I/O, and should become even more useful for fast game load times asDirectStorage slowly becomes a thing. This 2TB size is particularly handy if you’re perpetually running out of space, as I am!
So: two great, Will-tested drives going cheap at a non-Amazonian retailer. Let me know what you think in the comments below, and stay tuned for more soon!