The cheap SSDs thread

[spdfreak]

Team 1TB for 81.00 is pretty good...

Are you a human?

www.newegg.com

 

[mikeford]

If you are like me, I try to limit what goes on my SSD, and make a backup from time to time, especially of the Win install, so it would be the least painful drive to have fail.

OTOH given the fairly low price I will stick with store brands or major brands.

 

[you2]

There are a few odd brands that have high reliabilty rates - vaguely i think munchwhatever is one of htem as they are basically rebranded crucial but yea i try to avoid ssd with 20% failure rates.

 

[mikeford]

We used to call them, write only memory.

 

[Hans Gruber]

I just got a Team Group MP33 SSD NVMe 1.3 Gen3 x4 256GB drive for $32.99 last week. This will go into an Asrock B250 with a Pentium 4560. The Read 1,800MB and the write 1,500MB. Will report back on the performance once installed.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I just got a Team Group MP33 SSD NVMe 1.3 Gen3 x4 256GB drive for $32.99 last week. This will go into an Asrock B250 with a Pentium 4560. The Read 1,800MB and the write 1,500MB. Will report back on the performance once installed.

I picked up a few of those as well. So far, seems OK in the build today, but Windows Update did sit at 74% on the Cumulative Update, for like 5-10 minutes, it felt like.

Edit: Oh yeah, G4560 represent!. Is this a budget gaming rig, or a basic desktop / browser box?

 

[UsandThem]

I picked up a few of those as well. So far, seems OK in the build today, but Windows Update did sit at 74% on the Cumulative Update, for like 5-10 minutes, it felt like.

That's more of a Windows/hardware thing.

I've had that happen on some of my desktops and laptops before. In fact, the latest update took a long time on my laptop. At first, I thought it might have been frozen, but it was fine and doing its thing (850 EVO SSD in it).

 

[Hans Gruber]

I picked up a few of those as well. So far, seems OK in the build today, but Windows Update did sit at 74% on the Cumulative Update, for like 5-10 minutes, it felt like.

Edit: Oh yeah, G4560 represent!. Is this a budget gaming rig, or a basic desktop / browser box?

I built two (B250) http://asrock.com/MB/Intel/B250 Pro4/index.asp for my parents in 2017. One has a 4560 and the other has a fairly rare 4620. Both use the integrated graphics. Both have 240GB SSD's. One will now have an M.2 drive. Eventually I will put in a graphics card in my dad's unit. The funny thing, both have Thermalright Ultra 120's from old builds of mine. Dual core CPU's with the original Ultra 120. I even have a Ultra 92mm somewhere in my garage. I found another Ultra 120 in my garage and a 212+ NIB. I have been organizing my garage recently.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Team Group GX1 480GB SATA 2.5" SSD $43.99. Cheapest yet for this model. Hopefully, they will go down to $40, and I can make them standard equipment in my builds (if I don't use NVMe).

Are you a human?

www.newegg.com

 

[VirtualLarry]

Mushkin Enhanced RAW Series 2.5" 960GB SATA III 3D TLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MKNSSDRW960GB $77.99

Are you a human?

www.newegg.com

A 1TB-class SATA SSD, finally under $80!

 

[jiffer]

Mushkin Enhanced RAW Series 2.5" 960GB SATA III 3D TLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MKNSSDRW960GB $77.99

Thanks for posting a Hot Deal!

I couldn't find any benchmarks for this drive, but 3D TLC flash has great performance capability. The Silicon Motion SM2259XT controller is DRAM-less but at this price, it's worth upgrading from a mechanical hard drive even if it's a bit slower in some tests than other SSDs. I was actually looking for an SSHD hybrid drive but this is even better.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I couldn't find any benchmarks for this drive, but 3D TLC flash has great performance capability. The Silicon Motion SM2259XT controller is DRAM-less but at this price, it's worth upgrading from a mechanical hard drive even if it's a bit slower in some tests than other SSDs. I was actually looking for an SSHD hybrid drive but this is even better.

If you look at the pricing for WD Black HDDs, if these 1TB TLC SSDs drop any lower, WD is going to have to cancel the entire model line, IMHO. Or drop prices in line with "normal" drives. Since WD seems to believe that 7200RPM drives deserve a 200% price premium over 5400RPM HDDs. (Seagate and Toshiba do not think that way, you can get 1-2-3TB 7200RPM drives from both companies for "normal" HDD prices.)

But the writing's on the wall.

 

[Ranulf]

If you look at the pricing for WD Black HDDs, if these 1TB TLC SSDs drop any lower, WD is going to have to cancel the entire model line, IMHO. Or drop prices in line with "normal" drives. Since WD seems to believe that 7200RPM drives deserve a 200% price premium over 5400RPM HDDs. (Seagate and Toshiba do not think that way, you can get 1-2-3TB 7200RPM drives from both companies for "normal" HDD prices.)

But the writing's on the wall.

You're paying for the WD Black's 5 year warranty at this point. Which pricing wise really should be around $60-65 tops. That or drop it down to $50 with a two year warranty. Seagate has them beat with the $50-60 for a 2TB 7200rpm drive.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Team Group EX2 2.5" 512GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) T253E2512G0C101 $52.99

Are you a human?

www.newegg.com

New model? Curious about it, it says "Elite" on it, hehe.

 

[MisterE]

You're paying for the WD Black's 5 year warranty at this point. Which pricing wise really should be around $60-65 tops. That or drop it down to $50 with a two year warranty. Seagate has them beat with the $50-60 for a 2TB 7200rpm drive.

The main drive in my PC is a Western Digital Black 640GB that has 93967 (10.7 years) power on hours!

 

[you2]

Point? Yea 10 years ago WD made fantastic hard-drives but that isn't true today. 10 years ago seagate made sucky drives but some of their models are actually extremely good today. Things change - past events by brands is not a predictor for todays products. After the latest nas screw up by WD - i'm avoiding them for good.

The main drive in my PC is a Western Digital Black 640GB that has 93967 (10.7 years) power on hours!

 

[Steltek]

Kingston 480GB A400 SATA 3 2.5" Internal SSD SA400S37/480G - $48.99 free shipping w/Prime at Amazon.com

 

[Ranulf]

Kingston 480GB A400 SATA 3 2.5" Internal SSD SA400S37/480G - $48.99 free shipping w/Prime at Amazon.com

Not bad, and I see SP A55 512GB is the same price and the 1TB version is down to $86.99.

 

[Ranulf]

Team Group EX2 2.5" 512GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) T253E2512G0C101 $52.99

Are you a human?

www.newegg.com

New model? Curious about it, it says "Elite" on it, hehe.

New model, via NewMaxx's reddit:

TEAMGROUP Releases EX Series 2.5" SATA SSD

The TEAMGROUP EX Series 2.5" Solid State Drive is a must-have upgrade for top of the line PCs. The powerful sequential transfer speed of reading up to 550 MB/s and writing to 520 MB/s, even small and fragmented files can be operated with high efficiency. It also features the SLC Caching...

www.techpowerup.com

 

[Steltek]

PNY CS900 240GB 2.5” SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - (SSD7CS900-240-RB) - $28.99 w/free shipping for Amazon Prime.

They also have the 250GB model for $29.99, 480GB model for $49.99, 500GB model for $54.99, 960GB model for $89.99, and 1TB model for $92.99 on the same webpage.

 

[you2]

I would think the 480GB model is a different technology than the 500GB model...

PNY CS900 240GB 2.5” SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - (SSD7CS900-240-RB) - $28.99 w/free shipping for Amazon Prime.

They also have the 250GB model for $29.99, 480GB model for $49.99, 500GB model for $54.99, 960GB model for $89.99, and 1TB model for $92.99 on the same webpage.

 

[Steltek]

I would think the 480GB model is a different technology than the 500GB model...

I suspect that the 250/500GB/1TB/2TB models (which are newer drives) probably have a controller revision over the Phison S11 that was used in the older 120/240/480/960 models.

I do know it is still a Phison controller (the PNY website does tell that much), but there doesn't appear to be any information I've seen anywhere detailing the actual difference in the drives.

These drives are only suitable for light data storage anyway, as opposed to use as an OS drive (DRAMless drives with minimal cache generally suck beyond the telling when used as OS drives, in my experience).

 

[Eug]

I have a new old (14 year-old in fact) original Mac Pro that I'm sprucing up just for fun. I don't actually plan on using it for much, but I do want to get it to more functional status.

Just how bad are the DRAM-less SSDs, in terms of basic business desktop performance? I don't care about wear since I won't putting a lot of hours on it, and I don't need much storage space either. (It seems a lot of the better DRAM-endowed ones only start at 240 GB too, and I only need 120 GB.)

This is a dual 2.66 GHz Xeon 5150 system (total quad cores), so not a fast machine in the first place.

Sorry, I haven't gone through the entire thread.

EDIT:

Some pricing on Amazon Canada:

Kingston A400 120 GB - CAD$34.99 / US$$26.19
Crucial BX500 120 GB - CAD$29.99 / US$22.45
Silicon Power A58 128 GB - CAD$27.99 / US$20.95
Torous 128 GB - CAD$24.99 / US$18.70

Crucial MX500 only starts at 250 GB, so it's $60.99 / US$45.65.

I'm thinking I should just get the BX500.

 

[jiffer]

I have a new old (14 year-old in fact) original Mac Pro that I'm sprucing up just for fun...

Just how bad are the DRAM-less SSDs, in terms of basic business desktop performance? I don't care about wear since I won't putting a lot of hours on it, and I don't need much storage space either...

Western Digital was running a promotional sale at their online store last week. I bought a Western Digital Green 240GB SSD for $28.99 plus tax. It's an entry level drive. To keep the cost low, it is equipped with TLC flash and a DRAM-less controller. I haven't received it yet so I haven't tested it myself. I checked a site that has benchmarks posted by thousands of SSD owners and their conclusion is that it's slow compared to other SSDs but it's very consistent across all of the benchmarks. In other words, it is relatively slow in all of the tests but on the positive side it doesn't suck in any of them. Most SSDs have inconsistent performance, so I attribute its excellent consistency to good firmware. I'm going to take a wild guess and say that similar drives (same TLC, same DRAM-less controller) are probably in the same league (for example, the Mushkin Enhanced Raw drives made exclusively for NewEgg that have been on sale recently). In any case, I'd stick with a good brand. For comparison, the Crucial MX500 is a much better drive and I could have gotten one for about $15 more. For a few dollars more than that, I could spend $49.99 plus tax and get the "best", a Samsung 860 EVO 250GB. Choices, choices. It really comes down to, how much do you want to spend?

I don't know if I can objectively answer your question, "How bad are they?" But here's my advice. If you want to save money, get a nice entry level drive and it will blow away any hard drive you compare it against. If you're going to fret over performance, then spend the extra $20 and get a better drive that will make you happy. Every old PC you try to upgrade ends up being a money pit but the satisfaction is worth it.

I wonder if you could replace those Xeon 5150s with a couple of quad core Xeon L5430s? Surprisingly, their TDP is lower.

 

[Eug]

I don't know if I can objectively answer your question, "How bad are they?" But here's my advice. If you want to save money, get a nice entry level drive and it will blow away any hard drive you compare it against. If you're going to fret over performance, then spend the extra $20 and get a better drive that will make you happy. Every old PC you try to upgrade ends up being a money pit but the satisfaction is worth it.

OK, maybe I'll just order the BX500 or something similar, just as a test. What better way to test than on a real-life machine?

I wonder if you could replace those Xeon 5150s with a couple of quad core Xeon L5430s? Surprisingly, their TDP is lower.

Yeah, if you update the firmware, you can put in new quad-core Xeons, to make an 8-core machine. I was looking online at the 2.33 GHz Xeon E5345 and it turns out you can get these 80W chips for just US$20 shipped, for TWO of them, so just ten bucks each. I figure 80 W would be a good compromise.

However, I won't bother since I don't feel like completely disassembling this machine, as I won't actually be using it much. It's mostly just going to be displayed on my wall of old Macs.



What I'm doing is cleaning it up, updating the storage, replacing RAM (see here), updating the video card (already installed an OEM Radeon 5770 I found cheap on Kijiji), putting in a WiFi card (only about $5 from eBay), and updating the OS, all easy stuff.

The thing is, the dual 5150 setup is already OK for basic surfing. It's certainly not fast, but it's not painfully slow either. Geekbench 5 scores are in the 1250 multi-core range, which is roughly what a 2.66 GHz Core 2 Quad Q9400 gets.

EDIT:

120 GB Crucial BX500 ordered, CAD$29.99 or a little over US$22. If it sucks, I'll let you know.