Technology

How to protect yourself from bad external SSDs during the PC hardware apocalypse – newer drives will definitely cost more, and some may offer up shockingly poor performance

Source

Tom's Hardware

Published

Mar 13, 2026

TL;DR

AI Generated

The article discusses the impact of high demand on PC hardware prices, particularly external SSDs, which have nearly doubled in price. It warns consumers about potential poor performance in newer external drives due to supply chain constraints. The article highlights a specific Orico drive with significantly low sustained write speeds, attributing it to subpar NAND quality. It suggests considering older, well-tested SSD models over newer, potentially overpriced and underperforming options in the current market.

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How to protect yourself from bad external SSDs during the PC hardware apocalypse – newer drives will definitely cost more, and some may offer up shockingly poor performance

TL;DR

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China's next-gen CPUs and GPUs prepare to challenge last-gen Intel and AMD in 2027 — Loongson 3B6600 and 9A1000 aim to match Intel's 12th Gen and AMD's RX 550

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How to protect yourself from bad external SSDs during the PC hardware apocalypse – newer drives will definitely cost more, and some may offer up shockingly poor performance

TL;DR

Similar Articles

IPLM: Future Forward Webinar May 19th

China's next-gen CPUs and GPUs prepare to challenge last-gen Intel and AMD in 2027 — Loongson 3B6600 and 9A1000 aim to match Intel's 12th Gen and AMD's RX 550

What’s Really Needed For Advanced Test?

AMD is reportedly developing an entry-level RDNA 4 GPU with 8GB of VRAM — RX 9050 rumored to debut with 2048 cores, more than RX 9060