Finding storage solutions can be tricky, but this external gaming SSD deal helps alleviate the monetary strain of increasing your system’s overall capacity. While internal SSDs are the way to go for a more permanent PC solution, this WD Black external SSD is a great way to expand your downloaded games on Steam or even on your PS5 and Xbox Series X.
On paper, the WD Black P40 is one of the best external SSDs for gaming, boasting 2,000MB/s sequential read and write speeds. Better still, it’s on offer right now at Best Buy for $119.99, that’s a $60 saving against its $179.99 MSRP.
This drive is the perfect companion for your gaming PC or home console. For PC, you can create an additional Steam library on an external drive and boot your games from it, although even today this is still not advised by Valve. There are, however, endless cases where gamers are expanding their available storage with external SSDs and playing games via the new library with no issues at all.
You also won’t be able to play PS5 and Xbox Series X games directly from the drive, but it can be used to store the files, ready for transfer back to the console’s native SSD whenever you need them. This is where the 2,000MB/s sequential speeds come in, meaning moving large files shouldn’t take too long and it’s an alternative to more expensive gaming SSD solutions.
However, previous generations of games are playable directly from the drive, so any PS4 and Xbox One games can boot directly from the WD Black P40.
The deal at Best Buy thankfully isn’t the only one available, should stock sell out, with the drive available for the same $119.99 price point on Amazon and Newegg, although each site lists a different original MSRP.
For a look at some internal options, check out our WD Black SN850X review and Samsung 980 Pro review with both drives featuring as picks on our best SSD for gaming in 2024 guide.