Best gaming SSD in 2025 (UK)

Here’s a top pro for gamers: Success is about small margins. Whether you’re looking to invest in a new mouse, keyboard, or gaming monitor, the goal is the same. The hardware is designed to improve your overall experience and thus gain a competitive advantage over other players. No matter how small the variables are, you have to participate to win.

The same goes for SSDs. Sure, they’re few and far between, but these devices can have a significant impact on your gaming system. And it’s never a good time for an upgrade. SSDs (solid state drives) have become the standard memory hardware for a reason and the technology is evolving – like the best SSDs – at lightning speeds.

That’s all very good, but if you don’t know your SSDs from your RPGs, it’s not easy to select the model suited to you and your computer. That’s why we’re here to help you. Keep reading for helpful solid state drive information and a selection of the best SSDs available for gaming right now.

What is an SSD?

A solid state drive is a completely electronic, non-volatile random access storage device. SSDs are used as internal storage in smartphones, tablets and laptops, and are increasingly used in place of hard drives in desktop computers. This is because they run faster, meaning a device’s operating system will boot faster, programs will load faster, and files can be saved almost instantly.

Do you need an SSD for gaming?

The short answer is “no, not necessarily.” If you’re already equipped with a decent CPU, RAM, GPU, and storage, you should have no issues with your gaming system. However, if you’re really looking to get the most out of your experience, you might benefit from investing in a gaming-friendly SSD. Adding an SSD will result in faster game loading times, improved game boot times, and smoother overall gameplay. And what player doesn’t want that? It’s obvious.

Do you need an SSD for a PS5?

In this case, we say “yes, absolutely”. The PS5 is equipped with only 667 GB of usable internal storage. Not only will this fill up in no time, but we’re only scratching the surface of PS5 games. This means there are still plenty of games, campaigns, and data coming that you’ll need additional storage space for.

How does an SSD work?

Unlike a hard drive, an SSD is made up of two key components: a controller and flash memory chips. The SSD reads and writes data to these flash memory chips. If this all seems confusing, here’s a quick guide to some of the jargon:

• Endurance — This is the maximum amount of data that can be written to an SSD, usually measured by DWPD (disk writes per day).

• Flash memory — A type of non-volatile data storage. This basically means that it retains data even when the power source is turned off.

• Heat sink — A heat sink transfers heat from your SSD. A heatsink can be built into your SSD or can be purchased separately.

• Read/write speeds — This is the speed at which the SSD opens a file on your device (i.e. reads) and the speed at which it saves data to the SSD (writes). This is measured in MB/s (megabits per second). These speeds are sometimes measured in IOPS (input/output operations per second) depending on the manufacturers.

• SATA- Serial ATA is an interface that connects the SSD to your computer. This is generally the standard connection technology. SATA SSDs have maximum speeds of around 600 MB/s.

• PCIe- PCI Express is a faster alternative interface used on latest generation SSDs with speeds of 3000 MB/s or more.

• NVMe — It is a high-speed transfer protocol. NVMe SSDs typically use PCIe, so they are usually defined as SATA or NVMe.

We know that’s a lot to take into account, but we promise it’s not that complicated. Keep these points in mind when considering the options available.

What is the best SSD for gaming?

You have many options when it comes to SSDs. There are many well-known brands that produce high-quality devices that can significantly improve your gaming experience. To help you find the best option for your system, we’ve put together a selection of the best SSDs for gaming.

These are the best gaming SSDs in 2025.