This SSD holds my Steam games, and it's half-off for Prime Day

This external SSD holds my Steam library, and it’s half-off for Prime Day

By Jacob Roach July 12, 2022

I jump around PCs a lot, so I’m not thrilled when I have to wait hours to re-download all the games in my Steam library that I want to play. Instead, I use external hard drives: a 1TB Samsung T7 and a 2TB SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD, and the latter is on sale for nearly half off during Prime Day this year.

The SanDisk Extreme Portable is an external SSD that I use to transfer my Steam library between PCs. The 2TB model I use has a list price of $460, but it usually sells for less than that — between $300 and $350 over the past year. During Prime Day, though, it’s selling for much less: .

SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD sitting next to keys.

SanDisk has four capacities available, but I’d recommend the 1TB or 2TB model because they both have around a 50% discount. The 4TB and 500GB models aren’t as good of a deal with only about a 30% discount. The 1TB or 2TB size should be plenty for your Steam library, too. It’s certainly enough for mine.

I don’t have every game in my Steam library installed, but the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD holds everything that matters. It’s dead simple to transfer an external SSD between PCs, too. Just head into your Steam settings, select Downloads, and select the drive as a Steam library folder. All of your games will pop in right away.

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You can find other external hard drives on Prime Day for less, but you really want an external SSD for gaming — and the SanDisk Extreme Portable is among the best external hard drives you can buy. The one I use has speeds of up to 1,050 MB/s over a USB-C connection, which is more than enough for games.

If you’re a speed chaser, the 2TB SanDisk Extreme Pro is on sale, as well. This model is $280 with a 45% discount, and it goes up to speeds of 2,000 MB/s. You don’t need that much for most games, but if you want to kill loading screens, that’s an option as well.

Outside of the speed, the SanDisk Extreme Portable is a great travel SSD. It has IP55 dust and water resistance, and it can take a drop of up to 6 feet. It’s not quite as protcted as the Samsung T7 Shield, but it has enough protection to keep your Steam library safe while you’re traveling. And if you have some extra space where you want to store your files, you can encrypt it with AES-256 behind a password.

I mainly use the SanDisk Extreme Portable to transfer games between my desktop and my laptop, but you can use it elsewhere, too. It works with the PlayStation 5 through the USB-C connection, for example, and I’m interested in throwing some Velcro on the back so I can mount it to the Steam Deck.

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