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, a heatsink like this one is 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 as DirectStorage slowly becomes a thing. This 2TB size is particularly handy if you’re perpetually running out of space, as I am!
