Micro Center Offers New Customers a 256GB SSD for Free

Micro Center Inland 256GB Free SSD Promotion
(Image credit: MicroCenter)

MicroCenter is offering a promotion where new customers can grab an Inland 256GB Professional or Platinum SATA 3 SSD for free from its brick-and-mortar locations. There is no red tape, and the offer is available until supplies run out. All you have to do is sign the form and you'll receive a coupon to get either one of the two SSDs.

256GB isn't a lot of storage these days, especially for 2.5-inch SATA SSDs like the one MicroCenter is offering. However, they are still perfectly viable solutions as boot drives for a budget PC build. If you have the space, you can also throw one of these into your tower, just to have an additional 256GB of storage if you need it.

Arguably the best solution of them all is to turn the drive into an external drive with a USB enclosure. Enclosers are as cheap as $10 on Amazon these days, and in conjunction with a SATA 3 SSD, you can get up to 520MBps of storage speed in a portable form factor — something which cannot be said of all USB 3.0 or even 3.1 USB thumb drives.

The Inland Professional or Platinum SATA SSDs, on offer from MicroCenter, are 256GB 3D TLC NAND flash models with read speeds of up to 520MBps and read speeds of up to 430MBps. The professional version is slightly more capable though, with 170TBW of endurance, 55,000 IOPS of random read 4k performance, and 50,000 IOPS of random write 4k performance.

The Platinum version comes with 150TBW of endurance, and 40,000 IOPS of read-and-write random 4k performance respectively. Both drives retail anywhere between $45-$69.99 without a discount (free or not) at MicroCenter. They can be found elsewhere, however, for considerably less. If you're looking for a drive that's faster or more spacious (or both), be sure to check out our SSD deals page for more good offers.

Aaron Klotz
Freelance News Writer

Aaron Klotz is a freelance writer for Tom’s Hardware US, covering news topics related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

  • TechieTwo
    More than likely with their walk in store policy they are starting to feel the loss of customers with the economic recession just like Best Buy who is laying off workers and shifting to more online sales.
    Reply
  • King_V
    I dunno about that. They're supposedly going to be opening 2 or 3 new stores.
    Reply
  • btmedic04
    TechieTwo said:
    More than likely with their walk in store policy they are starting to feel the loss of customers with the economic recession just like Best Buy who is laying off workers and shifting to more online sales.

    Microcenter has been running discounts and freebies for new customers for a while now. I've seen the ssd before, as well as $50 off any cpu and even the ender 3 pro for $99 after the new customer coupon.
    Reply
  • UWguy
    King_V said:
    I dunno about that. They're supposedly going to be opening 2 or 3 new stores.
    I’m sure those stores were set in motion several years ago.
    Reply
  • anonymousdude
    TechieTwo said:
    More than likely with their walk in store policy they are starting to feel the loss of customers with the economic recession just like Best Buy who is laying off workers and shifting to more online sales.
    Anecdotally the MC where I live is busy all the time. Plus they run promos like this all the time. Free flash drives, $100 Ender 3 Pros, $50 off any CPU, and a free SSD are the ones I've seen recently. Even existing customers get deals. Free DDR5 RAM with AM5 builds, CPU+Mobo discount, etc. Their true goal is to get you in the door and then you buy the stuff with higher margins. Cases, PSU, coolers, fans, i.e accessories and RGB. Let's be honest if you're buying a CPU, mobo, and RAM you'll want to buy the rest of the parts too. The only thing I've ever found lacking at MC is their GPU selection and that has less to do with them and more to do with the nature of brick and mortar. Can't expect them to stock too many of the higher end variants of cards when the basic one does the trick just fine.
    Reply
  • Dr3ams
    256GB? 2 or 3 games and it's full. It may be useful as a coaster though.
    Reply
  • pug_s
    Dr3ams said:
    256GB? 2 or 3 games and it's full. It may be useful as a coaster though.
    These drives are good for boot drives in older computers. In my work computer, company is too cheap to upgrade mechanical drives so I upgraded to a free inland professional 240gb ssd last year. Still works fine.
    Reply
  • drtweak
    TechieTwo said:
    More than likely with their walk in store policy they are starting to feel the loss of customers with the economic recession just like Best Buy who is laying off workers and shifting to more online sales.
    the one here in Tustin CA is ALWAYS packed. But they they are the only one in CA as well lol
    Reply