Pick up a high-spec Samsung 980 Pro 2TB NVMe SSD with heatsink for £184
27% off the UK RRP for one of the fastest drives available.
The Samsung 980 Pro is one of the fastest NVMe SSDs on the market, making excellent use of the PCIe 4.0 spec, and today a 2TB model has been reduced to £184 on Amazon UK. The usual price for this model is £252, making this a sweet 27% reduction.
As Katharine noted in her 2020 review, the 980 Pro is a 'PCIe 4.0 SSD speed demon', offering similar speeds to even later releases like the WD Black SN850 and Kingston Fury Renegade SSD. The performance here is perhaps the result of Samsung's tight vertical integration - they make both the controller and the NAND flash that's used - and performance is normally excellent on their higher-end drives as a result.
This particular drive comes with an integrated heatsink that should keep performance high for longer and also allows the drive to be an all-in-one solution for the PS5, as Sony recommends that internal expansion SSDs do use heatsinks.
Looking at Amazon, there are very few genuine alternatives for this deal. The Crucial P5 Plus is £188 for a 2TB drive, but offers worse performance in terms of both sequential and random speeds. Conversely, the WD Black SN850 with a heatsink performs about the same, but costs £299 - significantly more than the 980 Pro at the moment. There are other PCIe 4.0 options out there, but these are the frontrunners for the 'second-gen' PCIe 4.0 crown, and right now the 980 Pro is by far the best pick.
What do you think - is this the right price, or do you need to see this drive at £125 or even lower to bite? Let me know in the comments below!