If you shoot video, edit photos, or just want a fast backup drive that can survive being tossed in a bag, this deal is worth grabbing. The SanDisk Extreme 1TB Portable SSD is $240 (was $300) at Best Buy — a $60 saving on a drive built to handle both speed and rough treatment.

This is SanDisk's newer Extreme Portable SSD rated for read and write speeds of up to 2000 MB/s over USB-C - a notable jump over the 1050 MB/s the excellent previous generation of this drive topped out at. It's rated IP65 for water and dust resistance and backed by a 5-year limited warranty.

Should you buy it?

✅ Buy the SanDisk Extreme 1TB if...

You need a fast external drive for video editing, large file transfers, or backing up a laptop, and want something rugged enough to travel with. The 2000 MB/s and IP65 ratings make it well-suited to fieldwork, whether that's a shoot, a shared desk, or a backpack.

❌ Skip the SanDisk Extreme 1TB if...

Your device or cable setup can't take advantage of the faster USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 interface — you won't see the full 2000MB/s speeds on an older USB-C port, and a cheaper standard SSD would serve just as well.

Why we recommend it

SanDisk's Extreme line has always impressed us - we awarded the older model 4.5 stars in our review, with a TechRadar Pro Recommends badge. At the time, we called it "hands-down one of the best external SSDs (rugged or not) on the market, and its 1TB version is particularly attractive."

This is a faster version, but it's still the same design, including the durability rating for outdoor use (or a particularly violent commute).

The jump to 2000MB/s puts this drive well ahead of the standard 1050MB/s tier most portable SSDs in this price range are still stuck at, which matters if you're regularly moving large video files or full camera card dumps. Pairing that speed with IP65 durability and a 5-year warranty is still fairly rare below $250.

Price Context & Historical Value

Best Buy lists this drive at $299.99, and it's held close to that price for most of the time we've tracked it. $239.99 is a genuine $60 markdown rather than an inflated 'was' price, and it's one of the better prices we've seen on this specific 1TB, 2000MB/s model since it launched.

The Catch: What to know before you buy

To actually hit the rated 2000MB/s speeds, you'll need a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2-capable port on your computer — plug it into an older USB-C or USB-A port, and you'll see noticeably lower real-world speeds. It's also worth knowing that IP65 resistance protects against splashes and dust, not full submersion, so this isn't a drive to take diving.

• See all SSD deals at Best Buy.

If you're looking for a capable laptop that can handle demanding tasks without costing the Earth, I found a great deal on the 15.6" Lenovo LOQ for $750 (was $1050) at Best Buy.

The laptop combines an AMD Ryzen 5 7235HS processor with 16GB of DDR5 memory, a 512GB PCIe 4.0 SSD, and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 graphics with 6GB of dedicated memory, making it a terrific choice for students and beginner creators.

The IPS display delivers a Full HD resolution, 144Hz refresh rate, 350 nits of brightness, and 100% sRGB color coverage. Connectivity includes Wi-Fi 6, Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI 2.1, USB-C with DisplayPort 1.4, three USB-A ports, and a backlit keyboard.

Should you buy it?

✅ Buy the Lenovo LOQ if...

You need a capable laptop for demanding work, study, creative projects, and everyday multitasking. With an AMD Ryzen 5 7235HS processor, 16GB of DDR5 memory, GeForce RTX 4050 graphics, and a 512GB PCIe 4.0 SSD, it offers plenty of performance for productivity software, photo editing, video work, and other intensive applications.

❌ Skip the Lenovo LOQ if...

You mainly browse the web, stream videos, and work with office documents. You'll be paying for dedicated graphics and a high-refresh-rate display that lighter workloads won't fully benefit from. If portability and battery life are your priorities, a thinner ultrabook with integrated graphics is likely to be a better fit.

Today's top Lenovo laptop deal

Why we recommend it

The LOQ laptop delivers an excellent balance of features for the discounted asking price. The combination of upgradeable memory and storage, a color-accurate 144Hz IPS display, modern connectivity, and solid build quality means it should remain useful for years to come, plus it comes from a top brand.

It is a smart long-term investment whether you're replacing an ageing system or buying a laptop for the first time.

Price Context & Historical Value

At $749.99, the Lenovo LOQ represents excellent value given its hardware and upgrade potential. The last time I saw this on sale at Best Buy was in April, where it was priced at $790.

A $300 discount brings it well below its usual $1,049.99 price, making it far more competitive with mid-range laptops that often offer less memory, slower displays, or integrated graphics.

If you've been considering a higher-performance laptop for work, study, or creative tasks, this is one of those deals that's genuinely excellent.

The Catch: What to know before you buy

While battery life is rated at up to five hours, the Lenovo LOQ is designed as a high-performance laptop that's happiest plugged into its 170W power adapter during heavier workloads. At $749.99, it offers a strong mix of processing power, upgradeability, and display quality for anyone looking to replace an ageing laptop or invest in a more capable everyday machine.

• Shop all laptops at Best Buy

Samsung's 9100 Pro 2TB SSD has dropped to AU$434.47 at Amazon Australia, well below the typical AU$699 pricing it's selling for at other retailers. Even on Amazon it was AU$644.83 before the current discount.

This isn't a deal to snooze on either, with the sale due to end at 12pm on July 29. Just note that it ships from Amazon US, so delivery can take up to two weeks.

AU$434 is still a lot to spend on a 2TB SSD, particularly if you remember how cheap storage was until relatively recently.

But SSD prices have shifted hugely since last year, and these days this is an excellent deal on Samsung's flagship PCIe 5.0 drive, which can reach sequential read speeds of up to 14,700MB/s and writes of up to 13,400MB/s.

In our review of the 9100 Pro we said, "Samsung's first true PCIe 5.0 drive is the best there is", as well as "This is a very professional-specific drive in ways that previous Samsung Pro SSDs were not. If you're not a professional user, there are better PCIe 5.0 drives out there, but for pros, there's none better than the 9100 Pro."

This is a premium 2TB SSD, so it's aimed at those who can actually take advantage of its performance, whether that's moving huge files, working with demanding creative projects or running workloads that benefit from very fast storage.

But what makes this deal particularly compelling is that the 9100 Pro is currently cheaper than some of Samsung's slower PCIe 4.0 drives. At the time of writing, the 2TB 990 EVO Plus is AU$446 at Amazon, while the 2TB 990 Pro is AU$517.67.

You don't necessarily need a PCIe 5.0 system to take advantage of the deal either. The 9100 Pro is backwards compatible with PCIe 4.0, so it'll work just fine in an older machine, albeit with its performance capped by the slower interface.

That makes it a great buy even if you're upgrading a PCIe 4.0 PC today, or using the drive in a handheld device. Plus, if you do move it to a PCIe 5.0 system later, you can unlock the full performance the drive is capable of.

Just keep in mind that this deal is specifically for the 2TB model without a heatsink as the other versions and capacities of the 9100 Pro aren't discounted.

And yes, AU$434.47 is still frustratingly pricey for 2TB of storage by historical standards, but I think getting Samsung's flagship PCIe 5.0 SSD for less than its slower models makes this an excellent deal considering current prices.

• A Steam user has found a way to store games on SSDs with an auto-navigation and auto-start script
• These are effectively physical 'game cartridges' complete with key art
• However, costly SSDs means this is a pricey endeavor (the Steam gamer was lucky enough to pick up used drives on the cheap)

Physical copies of PlayStation games are coming to an end from January 2028, and as the backlash around that continues, a restoration of physical media on PC has been discovered — and it's novel to say the least.

A Steam user on Reddit has managed to store games on 'cheap 2.5-inch' SATA SSDs, effectively acting as old-school 'game cartridges' with key art, and a script that auto-navigates Steam to each game's page. The user also notes that automatically starting games from each drive is possible.

This comes amid a significant uproar from gamers following the revelation of Sony's plan to eradicate physical game discs, supposedly by the time its next PlayStation console arrives. It's a very controversial move that has united gamers across all platforms to fight to retain discs and to ensure game ownership remains intact.

With that said, physical media for PC has been dead for a long while, since a modern desktop PC doesn't come with a disc drive, and there are hardly any publishers selling physical copies for the platform.

With most games only accessible digitally on PC, in theory those titles can be taken away from buyers at any time. The trouble is that consumer-friendly figures like Gabe Newell, who leads Valve, the owner of Steam, won't be in charge forever.

So in the future, under new leadership, it's possible more anti-consumer measures might be introduced, or other aspects of PC gaming that consumers dislike, such as DRM (like Denuvo).

Steam Game Cartridges from r/pcmasterrace

Imagine if this 'game cartridge' system was adopted by PC game publishers? It's a smart idea, and a nice thought, but clearly not a realistic one. For starters, it'd be a prohibitively expensive method of reintroducing physical PC game copies.

Of course, platforms like Epic Games and Steam require users to be logged in and have their app installed to play games, so it's still a long way off true game copy ownership, anyway.

However, this concept would be paired perfectly with GOG, a platform that is DRM-free and doesn't require the launcher to play purchased games — in other words, you fully own purchased games on GOG.

Admittedly, publishers releasing PC game cartridges in the form of SSDs is a pipe dream, especially with the current state of the hardware market, and the RAM crisis, complete with skyrocketing SSD prices.

The idea comes at the wrong time, then, but if the RAM crisis ever settles down, then maybe this is something we'll see more PC hobbyists doing — and perhaps even the odd publisher.

I’m sure this scenario is familiar to you — you buy an external hard drive for a certain capacity, thinking that it would have more than enough space to store all your current files, and many more in the future — but then you soon realise that you’ve filled it up in no time. You’re then forced to delete some files to make enough room for new ones that you need to back up or archive. And so it goes.

I can definitely relate, having filled up a couple of hard drives ranging from 2TB to 6TB containing photo libraries, videos and Steam game backups, then later finding myself auditing those files more often than I’d like to clear up storage space.

If you’re in the same boat as me, Amazon has discounted the 20TB Seagate Expansion Desktop external hard drive by 32% to AU$623.73. That price averages to around 3 cents per gigabyte, which is brilliant value for a backup drive that’s also fast enough to be used regularly. I don't know about you, but it would certainly cure my storage anxiety woes.

This deal can also benefit those who work with large files regularly, like content creators, video editors, data professionals, graphic artists and more, where they can focus on their work and not constantly worry about storage.

In our best external hard drives buying guide, our reviewer called the Seagate Expansion Desktop the best-performing HDD they'd tested thanks to the read and write speeds of 242 MB/s and 237 MB/s, respectively, and for its relatively compact size compared to others in this category.

The main downsides the tester mentioned were the hard drive’s external power requirement — which is something I would certainly live with for a capacity of this size — and the expensive RRP, which this 32% discount handily takes care of.

While you can invest in some network attached storage (NAS) devices for your growing storage needs, the Seagate Expansion Desktop is an easier plug-and-play solution that won’t require much fiddling to set up — it’s as easy as plugging the drive in and moving files to it via Windows Explorer or macOS Finder. Plus, this deal is a much cheaper alternative as the NAS devices themselves without drives cost around the same or even more in some cases.

On the other hand, this external drive can be used in a NAS device (or your PC, even) through “shucking”, or removing the external casing and installing the bare drive into a hard drive bay to add more storage for redundancy or otherwise. Do note that this will void the drive’s warranty.

In any case, a deal like this in a period of storage component shortages is hard to pass up for anyone in need of extra storage space for backups, archiving or any work that involves large file sizes.