SanDisk Optimus GX PRO 850X 2TB with Heatsink (formerly WD_BLACK SN850X) - NVMe SSD for PS5

Our analysis

Like the WD_BLACK SN850P 2TB, it is a 2 TB Gen4 drive that arrives with its heatsink fitted for the PS5 slot; the SN850P carries Sony's official license, while this one, formerly sold as the WD_BLACK SN850X, is the version that also lists WD Game Mode 2.0 for PC. Sony asks for two things in that slot, a fast NVMe drive and a heatsink, and this one ships with both: open the cover, drop it in and you are done.

What stands out

• Heatsink included and pre-installed. Nothing extra to buy and no guessing about the height the PS5 slot allows.
• Up to 7300 MB/s reads and 6600 MB/s writes. SanDisk's figures, on a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface, above the 5500 MB/s Sony recommends for the PS5 slot.
• 2 TB of space. For a PS5 owner who has run out of room, it means installing new games again without deciding what to delete first.
• WD Game Mode 2.0 on PC. A mode WD designed to reduce stutter while a game loads textures in the background.

Where it falls short

• On a PC, the heatsink can be redundant: if your motherboard has its own M.2 heatsink, the version without one fits better.

Look elsewhere if

• The drive is going into a PC: the Crucial P310 2TB is our pick for price per terabyte, with 7100 MB/s reads in the plain M.2 2280 format. If you want a DRAM cache in your desktop drive, the Samsung 990 PRO lists 7450 MB/s reads and has one.

It is the PS5 pick in our best gaming SSD guide, where we also compare Gen4 against Gen5, and all our drives are in the SSD storage category.