If you have a need for sheer storage speed, the best SSD for most people just hit its lowest price ever for Black Friday. The SK Hynix Gold S31 is down to a mere $43 in its entry-level 500GB capacity, and $76 for 1TB at Amazon. That’s a whopping $59 (44%) off the normal price for the 1TB model, which love partly due to its appealing value even at full cost. You need to be an Amazon Prime member to get the full discount, but this is a must-buy even at $95 for non-subscribers.
A solid-state drive speeds up everything you do, especially if you’re coming from a pokey mechanical hard drive. Expect to see blazingly fast boot speeds, game loading, and response times whenever you’re opening programs or files. And even if you already have an SSD, you can always use more storage, and it’s especially nice if it’s more speedy storage, rather than resorting to a slower hard drive for big files.
The Gold S31 is a traditional 2.5-inch SATA drive, so it should slip seamlessly into the vast majority of laptops and desktops out there. It’s one of the fastest SSDs we’ve tested of this type, coming very close to the performance of a best-in-class Samsung 870 Evo.
If you have a more modern PC with an M.2 slot and desire even faster speeds, SK Hynix’s NVMe SSD, the Gold P31, also received a deep discount. Prime members can grab the 500GB version for $56 or the 1TB model for $104. The Gold P31 reigns as our favorite NVMe drive for most people thanks to its blend of raw speed and killer value, and that goes even more so today. Just make sure you have an M.2 slot for it, and that you can put that NVMe speed to good use: If you’re doing big file transfers regularly, the P31 is worth paying more for, but if you’re simply gaming and doing everyday tasks, you’ll still get more than enough speed and responsiveness from the cheaper Gold S31—hence the reason we crowned it the best SSD for most people. They’re both sterling drives though.
Hit up our reviews of the SK Hynix Gold S31 and Gold P31 if you want deeper details. For even more juicy sales, be sure to check out our roundup of the best Black Friday PC storage deals, or wander over to our wider roundup of the best Black Friday tech deals if you’re interested in seeing our favorite sales outside of the world of storage.
