We scoured the Web to update our guide to the best deals on SSDs, but the results were less than stellar. Most of the SSDs we recommend have seen gradual price increases over the past few months, with new "sale" prices overshadowing the previous genuinely excellent prices.

These seasonal price spikes were to some extent to be expected. Last year's Black Friday and holiday sales season was the cheapest SSDs ever, and it was unlikely that this would continue through 2024. Similarly, there is the threat of higher prices for NAND chips more generally, but it is hard to say the exact cause of the generally higher prices I am finding now.

Thankfully, there are still some good deals to be had. This Lexar NM790 2TB is one of them, at $120. That's still more than what it was discounted for on Prime Day, Black Friday, and other sales, but you have to take what you can get now.

The NM790 is an SSD I reviewed last year and was really impressed with the performance of this drive. I was dealing with the 4TB version in my review of the Lexar NM790, but the 2TB looks just as good, with a 7400 MB/sec read speed and 6500 MB/sec write speed that will speed through any gaming or file transfer. The 4TB drive also benchmarks found to be very close to the manufacturer's rated figures.

The Lexar NM790 is a DRAM-less drive. That is, there is no DRAM chip in the SSD to fast cache files for later processing. But that is not a problem, as my tests have shown that SLC cache mode is sufficient and can deliver very fast real-world performance numbers.

Unfortunately, both the 4TB and 1TB drives are out of reach right now. One is over $300 and the other is out of stock everywhere you look. However, if you are looking for a ray of sunshine in the overpriced SSD market, the 2 TB Lexar NM790 will suffice.