In summary:
- PCWorld reports that World Backup Day storage deals are significantly weaker this year, with SSD prices at least double what they were in 2023 due to shortages.
- Traditional discounts on SSDs are largely absent from major retailers, with only limited deals on hard drives and memory cards available instead.
- While 2TB SSD prices may be stabilizing according to market data, consumers should consider hardware bundles and used options to find savings.
The first advertised sale on B&H’s storage specials for World Backup Day is a 512GB SanDisk microSDXC memory card, marked down from $111.99 to $109.99. Yes, a discount of just two dollars.
Such is 2026.
The manufactured holiday of World Backup Day usually can be counted upon to offer sales on external drives, SSDs, and other storage solutions. But with SSD prices continuing to rocket upwards — and to continue doing so for years — B&H doesn’t even offer a single SSD drive, external or internal, on its World Backup Day list of sales. Other sales are hard to find, too.
A year ago, Samsung marked down its own 2TB external T9 SSD by 31 percent to $180 in a World Backup Day sale. At press time, Samsung’s price for that same drive is $499.99, a $75 discount from the $574.99 listed MSRP and 2.78 times the 2025 price.
This year, “backup” discounts mean hard drives, microSD cards, and possibly the cloud. Kind of.
Manufactured holiday, manufactured deals…but not this year
World Backup Day was proposed fifteen years ago on Reddit, when user “adamjeff” suggested that “I just think it would be for the good of everyone to have a reminder to save all your cherished pictures, videos, and other important data to somewhere secure.”
Markus Spiske / Unsplash
“Companies should also get involved, making sure that their customers and their own data is secure and safe,” “adamjeff” added. “Maybe even the backup providers could offer discounts and rates based on the date to encourage sales and participation.”
With a little cajoling (including trying to enlist rapper 50 Cent), World Backup Day was born. This event neatly dovetails with the so-called “rule of three,” which recommends storing data in three different locations: on your PC, in the cloud, and probably as a physical backup. (To be truly safe, however, you should store that backup in a secure offsite location, to minimize the risk of fire or theft.)
It’s also usually a day where storage companies happily promote discounts and other promotions.
Not this year.
The best World Backup Day storage deals we’ve found
Normally, a few big discounts surface on sales holidays like this one. But searching for storage deals this year is more like panning for gold rather than selecting from dozens of eager candidates.
One of the few SSD sales carrying over to World Backup Day is the 2TB Samsung T7 external hard drive at Best Buy, available for $239.99 ($100 off the $339.99 MSRP). (This deal has since expired.) Best Buy is also selling the 2TB WD Black SN850P internal SSD (link updated), which is designed for the PlayStation 5 but can be fitted into a PC’s M.2 2280 slot, for $329.99. Best Buy calls that a $739 discount (?!). Comparatively, though, it’s only $10 more than the 1TB model, so there’s definitely some savings here.
Amazon is also including some SSD sales…though some aren’t really sales. PCPartPicker pegs the average price of a 2TB internal M.2 SSD at just about $430….and that’s what Amazon is selling the 2TB WD Black SN8100 for. A better deal is probably the 4TB WD Blue SN5000, on sale for $567.99. Amazon claims that this is 57 percent off, but with the average 4TB drive hovering about $830, that’s indeed a better deal. The same applies to WD Black SN7100 at 4TB, on sale for $589.99 at Amazon. They do seem like genuine sales, even if the prices are much higher than months ago.
Jon L. Jacobi
Another source of storage deals, if you’re willing to try a newcomer, is Newegg. Here, you’ll find deals on a 2TB M.2 SSD from KingSpec ($274.99, 31 percent off) as well as a KingSpec 4TB internal 2.5-inch SSD for $313.99 (37 percent off). KingSpec is one of those up-and-comer SSD makers, which is betting on another relative newcomer in the flash market, YMTC. (Gamers Nexus did a brief examination of YMTC and its flash architecture in a video that talks more about the stratospheric price increases in the SSD market.)
B&H is only offering a few external hard drives on sale, and the discounts are just a few shavings off the retail price. They include a 16TB easystore external WD hard drive for $299.99 ($80 off the $379.99 MSRP) and an 8TB WD Elements ($224.99, $25 off the $249.99 MSRP) and a 20TB WD Elements ($439.99, $44 off the $484.99 MSRP) external desktop drive. All three include a USB 3.2 Gen 1 interface, however, which translates into 5Gbps throughput.
B&H is also offering a few dozen memory cards, including microSDXC and SDHC cards, for slightly better discounts. One of the best is the SanDisk 128GB Extreme Pro UHS-II SDXC (V60) memory card, on sale for $109.99, about a third off of its $159.99 MSRP, or the SanDisk 128GB Extreme Pro UHS-II SDXC (V90) memory card, on sale for $199.99 ($80 off). But again, the term “backup” is somewhat fungible. The higher the capacity point, the higher the price; the faster the interface, the higher the price.
For comparison, the $199.99 SanDisk Extreme Pro (V90) reads and writes at about 300 megabytes per second across its 128GB of storage, while a professional hard drive like the SanDisk Professional boasts transfer speeds of 250 MB/s or more across 8 terabytes. But the SanDisk Professional costs about $489.99 on Amazon with no discounts, either.
And then there’s the opportunists. WD promoted discounts on its external My Passport lineup, from 1TB to 6TB capacity points, with discounts ranging from 25 percent to 35 percent — but only on Amazon’s India site. Epson is urging users to snap up its WorkForce ES-C320W. Oh, that’s not a hard drive. It’s a desktop document scanner. Backup, you know?
As for cloud backup, it’s possible that cloud providers will offer promotional discounts for World Backup Day. For now, however, we’d recommend that you review our list of tested, recommended cloud backup services for any available sales.
Are drive prices flattening?
Fortunately, pricing data acquired and compiled by PCPartPicker.com (above) shows that pricing may be flattening a bit, though prices are definitely at least double what they were a year ago. Whether the trend will remain flat or rise again isn’t known.
What isn’t shown here, however, is the price of even higher-capacity parts. Asian news sources began warning late last year that in addition to price hikes, the overall SSD capacity points may remain flat or dip a bit. Any discounts seem to be occurring at the 1-,2-, and 4TB capacity points, and not at higher capacities.
Still, the presence of some discounts is still cause for hope. Our advice remains the same: look for bundles of hardware, discounts where you can get them, and don’t be afraid to buy used. If you don’t, you’ll be paying a significant premium for the latest hardware.
Story updated on April 1 at 9:35 AM with additional deals.
Author: Mark Hachman, Senior Editor, PCWorld
Mark has written for PCWorld for the last decade, with 30 years of experience covering technology. He has authored over 3,500 articles for PCWorld alone, covering PC microprocessors, peripherals, and Microsoft Windows, among other topics. Mark has written for publications including PC Magazine, Byte, eWEEK, Popular Science and Electronic Buyers' News, where he shared a Jesse H. Neal Award for breaking news. He recently handed over a collection of several dozen Thunderbolt docks and USB-C hubs because his office simply has no more room.