2023 could be regarded as something of a bumper year for SSDs, as we saw many great PCIe Gen 4 drives in large sizes retail for very attractive prices. Super fast high capacity storage for reasonable money was the order of the day, and given the increasing size of game installations, PC hardware was all the better for it.
Gen 4 SSDs remained the major talking points as Gen 5 drives still sit on the expensive side compared to the relative real-world performance, availability and cost of a good Gen 4 drive. We saw 2TB and even 4TB drives released for very reasonable MSRPs, and were particularly taken with offerings like the Lexar NM790 4TB and Nextorage NEM-PA 2TB that proved that you didn’t have to spend a huge amount of money for ultra fast and capacious SSD storage.
With the continued rise of handheld PC gaming platforms like the Steam Deck (and the newly-released Steam Deck OLED model) and the Asus ROG Ally, we also saw several M2 2230 NVMe drives released to provide upgrades to suit, and came away very impressed with Sabrent’s Rocket 2230 in particular.
While pricing remained cheap for most of the year with some of the best deals to be found over the Black Friday weekend, we’ve also covered potential SSD price rises incoming due to lower manufacturing levels, and the knock-on effect that’s likely to have on consumer pricing going into 2024.
While we haven’t seen prices climb significantly just yet it’s unlikely that we’ll see SSDs this cheap again in the near future, so 2023 may well stand out as the year big SSDs with big performance were available for much less than you might expect.
Best SSD 2023: the nominees
The winner of the PC Gamer Hardware Award for the best gaming SSD will be announced on New Year’s Eve. Each of these drives would make a worthy winner, but to find out which takes the prize make sure you check back in with us then.