Question Recommendations for an inexpensive but reliable 500GB NVMe SSD

[Pimpom]

I'm looking for an NVMe 500GB SSD to replace the defective HDD in my daughter's i3 laptop. The HDD is 1TB but 500GB is quite enough for the purpose. Low cost and reliability take priority over extreme performance. The laptop is used for browsing, word processing, playing movies and mp3s, video conferencing. There's no regular transfer of huge files.

At the equivalent of about US$57, Kingston's NV1 is one of the cheapest drives available in my region . Their A2000 is priced at ~$64 - about the same as a WD SN550. Samsung 980 is listed for $80 which is really above budget.

I heard somewhere that Kingston's A400 drives are prone to early failure. What about their NV1 and A2000 series? ADATA? Crucial? I understand that it's impossible to predict how long a particular specimen will last, but common product lines build up reputations, good or bad, over time. Recommendations will be greatly appreciated.

 

[kanewolf]

I'm looking for an NVMe 500GB SSD to replace the defective HDD in my daughter's i3 laptop. The HDD is 1TB but 500GB is quite enough for the purpose. Low cost and reliability take priority over extreme performance. The laptop is used for browsing, word processing, playing movies and mp3s, video conferencing. There's no regular transfer of huge files.

At the equivalent of about US$57, Kingston's NV1 is one of the cheapest drives available in my region . Their A2000 is priced at ~$64 - about the same as a WD SN550. Samsung 980 is listed for $80 which is really above budget.

I heard somewhere that Kingston's A400 drives are prone to early failure. What about their NV1 and A2000 series? ADATA? Crucial? I understand that it's impossible to predict how long a particular specimen will last, but common product lines build up reputations, good or bad, over time. Recommendations will be greatly appreciated.

Have you verified that the laptop has an NVMe port? An M.2 port can be SATA or NVMe. A SATA drive will be cheaper and since reliability is the priority, I would go that route. Get a high quality SATA SSD rather than a cost constrained lower quality NVMe. Crucial MX500 would be a recommendation.

 

[Pimpom]

Yes, I've tested with a Samsung 860 EVO SATA and a 980 NVMe drive. They both work. It's been my impression that there's minimal price difference between SATA and PCIe models from the same vendor. The MX500 costs almost the same as a Samsung 980 here.

 

[Zerk2012]

Yes, I've tested with a Samsung 860 EVO SATA and a 980 NVMe drive. They both work. It's been my impression that there's minimal price difference between SATA and PCIe models from the same vendor. The MX500 costs almost the same as a Samsung 980 here.

Where is here?

 

[Pextaxmx]

I once installed SN720 500GB NVME drive in my HP elitebook 820 g4 and had so many occasions of throttled performance while moving lots of small files at once (which I do frequently.) The throttle was really bad.. sometimes it goes zero transfer speed and stays there until the drive cools down.

I won a off-commissioned PM883 480 GB for 32USD from ebay auction (15 TBW already when purchased) and replaced the NVME. Now no throttling what so ever. Stable as rock. Temperature never exceeds 50C. Lessons learned: always use 2.5 inch SSD in laptops.

 

[Pimpom]

I took the plunge and ordered a Kingston A2000 500GB a few days ago. I live in a remote place and online orders take a week or more to arrive. I'll report my experience when I've had a chance to play with it for a few days.

 

[Pimpom]

The SSD arrived a few days ago. Here's a screenshot of a test with CrystalDiskMark. It's not the fastest SSD but it's TLC with DRAM at the same price as a QLC WD Blue without DRAM and significantly cheaper than an MX500 or a Samsung 980. I installed Windows 10 on it and it's very responsive.

The sequential R/W speeds correspond quite well to the manufacturer's rating of "up to" 2200/2000 MB/s. It's rated for 350 TBW and carries a 5-year warranty. Only time will tell how durable it actually is.

 

[Bob.B]

The SSD arrived a few days ago. Here's a screenshot of a test with CrystalDiskMark. It's not the fastest SSD but it's TLC with DRAM at the same price as a QLC WD Blue without DRAM and significantly cheaper than an MX500 or a Samsung 980. I installed Windows 10 on it and it's very responsive.

The sequential R/W speeds correspond quite well to the manufacturer's rating of "up to" 2200/2000 MB/s. It's rated for 350 TBW and carries a 5-year warranty. Only time will tell how durable it actually is.

How is it w10 is only using 10GB of space?
Have you chopped the ssd into pieces/partitions?

 

[Pimpom]

A fresh installation of Win10 before updates, drivers and other programs takes up only about 10 GB of space - something like 10.4GB IIRC. That includes pagefile. I disabled hibernation as always.

Right now, with all necessary programs installed, the amount of used space is 44.9GB, out of which temporary Windows backup takes up 28.2GB. Most of that is supposed to be automatically deleted after 10 days, leaving less than 20GB used. I expect any subsequent updates to take up less space.

I divided the disk into 100GB for OS and the rest into two other partitions for data. The user (my daughter) doesn't need a big drive. This laptop is dedicated for her Ph.D. work. She has a desktop and an older laptop too.

 

[Bob.B]

A fresh installation of Win10 before updates, drivers and other programs takes up only about 10 GB of space - something like 10.4GB IIRC. That includes pagefile. I disabled hibernation as always.

Right now, with all necessary programs installed, the amount of used space is 44.9GB, out of which temporary Windows backup takes up 28.2GB. Most of that is supposed to be automatically deleted after 10 days, leaving less than 20GB used. I expect any subsequent updates to take up less space.

I divided the disk into 100GB for OS and the rest into two other partitions for data. The user (my daughter) doesn't need a big drive. This laptop is dedicated for her Ph.D. work. She has a desktop and an older laptop too.

After you get the proper bios/drivers/apps installed run the benchmark and see what you get.

 

[Pimpom]

I just did. Speeds are down by a few per cent, which is to be expected.

 

[Bob.B]

I just did. Speeds are down by a few per cent, which is to be expected.

OK......just to be sure that something that was installed after the OS did not muckup things.