Take it from me, you’ll want to jump on this Black Friday Steam Deck SSD deal while it’s hot

WD_Black SN770M SSD sitting on Steam Deck — (Image credit: Future)

You can now expand your internal Steam Deck storage for less, and if I were you, I’d jump on this Black Friday deal sooner rather than later. While you’ll be able to find compatible drives out there by brands you’ve never heard of, this WD_Black NVMe SSD is at its lowest price yet and comes with a 5-year warranty.

That latter boon is more beneficial than you’d think, as you pick up a cheaper alternative for your Steam Deck, there’s always a chance it could fail down the line with no warranty to fall back on. That’s ultimately going to put Valve’s handheld out of commission, prompting the need to re-open it back up and source a replacement. I’m not afraid of the Deck’s innards, but I am of the opinion that the less time you spend poking around in there, the better.

In any case, over at Best Buy right now, you can bag yourself a 1TB WD Black SN770M 2230 SSD for $79.99, as the big box store has knocked $50 off. Without this Black Friday Steam Deck deal, you’d be looking at $129.99, so it’s needless to say I’m thrilled about this $50 discount. It’s going to come in especially handy for any of you out there with a 64GB version, as you’ll end up with the same amount of storage as the shiny new Steam Deck OLED. That’s something you can boast to your friends about, even if it does mean missing out on a shiny new screen. Who needs OLED anyway, right? Well, I’ll leave that up to you.

WD BLACK SN770M 1TB SSD | $129.99 $79.00 at Best Buy
Save $50 - The SNN770M hasn't been around long, but Best Buy has knocked $50 off for Black Friday. Not only is it a drive by a company you've probably heard of, but it also comes with a 5-year warranty. If you'd reached to pick this upgrade up a week ago, you'd have ended up paying $130, so this is a great deal in my book.

Buy it if:

✅ You want a permanent storage upgrade
✅ You need faster read/write speeds

Don't buy it if:

❌ You'd rather not operate on your Steam Deck

Price check: Amazon (out of stock) | Newegg (out of stock)

Should you buy a WD_Black SN770M SSD?

Before you get too excited and slam your mouse down on the buy button, it’s worth weighing up whether your Steam Deck needs an SSD upgrade. Personally, I stuck the SN770M into my Deck and I’ve never looked back, as having to swap out chonky new releases was getting tedious. Plus, thanks to the fact this is a PCIe Gen 4 drive, I don’t have to worry about the limitations of microSD cards causing any slow load times as if I wanted to deal with loading screens, I’d reach for my Sega CD console.

Retro gags aside, not everyone is going to want to operate on their Steam Deck, and if you don’t mind the potential for slightly slower load times, then 1TB microSD cards are the easy way out. If you’ve got a 512GB Steam Deck, there’s also a chance you haven’t even experienced any storage woes, particularly if you tend to only play indie games using the handheld anyway.

If it’s the price you’re concerned about, I am pretty confident this is the lowest price we’ll see on the WD_Black SN770M. Not only is this the first discount this SSD has received since its debut, but it’s also pretty cheap even compared to other affordable options like the Sabrent Rocket. It’ll no doubt end up on sale again at some other point, but if you don’t want to have to wait, I’d pick it up now while it’s at a record low.

Looking for more discounted drives? Check out Black Friday SSD deals.

TOPICS

Phil is the Hardware Editor at GamesRadar+ who specializes in retro console setups, choosing the latest gaming handhelds, and navigating the choppy seas of using modern-day PC hardware. In the past, they have covered everything from retro gaming history to the latest gaming news, in-depth features, and tech advice for publications like TechRadar, The Daily Star, the BBC, PCGamesN, and Den of Geek. In their spare time, they pour hours into fixing old consoles, modding Game Boys, exploring ways to get the most out of the Steam Deck, and blasting old CRT TV visuals into their eye sockets.