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It's another moon phase tonight, which means the moon will look around half full (or, half gone?). But what phase is it, and what does it mean? Let's find out.

As of Monday, Oct. 13, the moon phase is Third Quarter. Tonight, only 53% will be lit up, according to NASA's Daily Moon Observation.

Third Quarter is also known as the Last Quarter. This occurs when then there is half a moon, but the left side is lit. First Quarter occurs when the right side is lit.

There's plenty to see on the moon's surface tonight, even with half of the moon in darkness. With just your naked eye, enjoy a glimpse of the Mare Imbrium, Aristarchus Plateau, and the Kepler Crater. If you want to take your moon gazing a bit more seriously, take out a pair of binoculars. With these, you'll see even more, including the Clavius and Alphonsus Craters and the Mare Humorum. And if you're lucky enough to have a telescope, you'll see all this plus the Apollo 14 and 15 landing spots, and the Reiner Gamma, a lunar swirl on the moon's surface.

The next full moon will be on Nov. 5.

Moon phases are a cycle that occur every 29.5 days, as the moon travels around Earth. The changes happen because the Sun, Earth, and Moon are always moving relative to each other. From here on Earth, the Moon can look full, partly lit, or even completely dark, but we always see the same side. What’s different each night is how much sunlight is hitting it.

The eight main moon phases are:

New Moon - The moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

Here's a pro top for gamers: Success is all about small margins. Whether you are looking to invest in a new gaming mouse, keyboard, or monitor, the objective is the same. Hardware is made to improve your overall experience and therefore gain a competitive edge over other players. No matter how small the variables, you've got to be in it to win it.

The same goes for SSDs. Sure, they're little, but these devices can have a significant impact on your gaming system. And it's never not a good time for an upgrade. SSDs (solid state drives) have become the standard memory hardware for a reason and the technology moves — like the very best SSDs — at blazing speeds.

That's all very well, but it you don't know your SSDs from your RPGs, it's not easy to select the right model for you and your computer. That's why we're here to help. Keep reading for some useful information on solid state drives and a selection of the best SSDs available for gaming right now.

A solid-state drives is an all-electronic, non-volatile random access storage device. SSDs are used as the internal storage in smartphones, tablets, and laptops, and are increasingly often found instead of hard drives in desktop computers. This is because they work faster, meaning a device's operating system will boot up faster, programs will load quicker, and files can be saved almost instantly.

The short answer is "no, not necessarily". If you are already equipped with decent CPU, RAM, GPU, and storage, you should have no issue with your gaming system. However, if you are really looking to squeeze everything you can out of your experience, you could benefit from investing in a gaming-friendly SSD. Adding an SSD will result in faster game load times, improved game boot times, and smoother general gameplay. And what gamer doesn't want that? It's a no brainer.

In this case, we say "yes, absolutely". The PS5 comes equipped with just 667GB of usable internal storage. Not only will that fill up in no time, but we're just really just scratching the surface of PS5 gaming. That means there's still a whole lot of games, campaigns, and data to come that you'll need extra storage to enjoy.

Unlike a hard disc 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 that all sounds confusing, here's a quick guide to some of the jargon:

• Endurance — This refers to the maximum data that can be written onto an SSD, generally measured by DWPD (drive writes per day).

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

• Heatsink — A heatsink transfers heat from your SSD. A heatsink may be built into your SSD, or can be bought separately.

• Read/write speeds — This is how fast the SSD takes to open a file on your device (i.e. read) and how fast it saves data on 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 manufacturer.

• SATA — Serial ATA is an interface that connects the SSD to your computer. It has typically been the standard connecting technology. SATA SSDs have max speeds of around 600 MB/s.

• PCIe — PCI Express is an alternative, faster interface used on later gen SSDs with speeds of 3,000 MB/s or more.

• NVMe — This is a high-speed transfer protocol. NVMe SSDs usually use PCIe, so SSDs are generally defined as either SATA or NVMe.

We know that's a lot to take in, but we promise it's not that complicated. Keep these points in mind when considering the options out there.

You have plenty of options when it comes to SSDs. There are a lot of recognised brands that produce high-quality devices that can significantly improve your gaming experience. To help you find the best option for your system, we have lined up a selection of the best SSDs for gaming.

These are the best gaming SSDs in 2025.