I hope these July 4 SSD sales aren't a sign of things to come for Prime Day—they're pretty trash

We've been following SSD prices closely over the past few weeks, months, years even… during which there have been some really bad times, some good times, and some middling times. We're in the middling times now—some NVMe SSDs can be found for decent prices today, though you'll need to spend more than you would have last year to get the same thing. The 4th of July sales haven't really done much to change that, either.

I've been looking around to see if there's anything around worth shouting about for PC gamers, and the frank answer is, no, not massively.

SSDs have been floating a little above where they were this time last year—a likely symptom of lower production levels to mediate slow demand. This WD Black SN850X is a good example. It's one of our favorite SSDs today for PCIe 4.0 storage needs. 

Over on Amazon, the SN850X is down from $190 to $150—a 21% saving. Except that's not much of a discount at all. This drive has been sitting at $150 or thereabouts since… 2023. It was July last year when this drive dropped down to $90—right around Prime Day.

WD Black SN850X | 2 TB | NVMe | PCIe 4.0 | 7,300 MB/s read | 6,300 MB/s write | $189.99$149.99 at Amazon (save $40)
Our favorite SSD for gaming right now encapsulates the best PCIe 4.0 offers in terms of performance (check out our review). That makes it a great fit for a boot drive with space to spare for your game library, and at this price, we're happy to pay the premium for its higher speed.

Price check: Newegg  $156.54 | Best Buy $179.99

Another from WD, the SN770, is down to $78 for 1TB of decently quick PCIe 4.0 storage. That seems pretty great, though looking through previous pricing we've covered for this drive, it's not worth shouting about. You could've grabbed this drive for the superb price of $43 last July.

You may be noticing a trend here: besides November, when Black Friday rolls around, one of the better months to buy PC hardware is July.

I won't chalk that entirely up to Amazon's incoming Prime Day