Question What is the most reliable M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD (that comes with a heatsink)?

[klavs]

What is the most reliable M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD that degrades the slowest over time?

Please note:

• My motherboard does not provide a heat sink for the M.2 PCIe 4.0 slot. The SSD must come with a heatsink attached.
• I read that the new Samsung PCIe 4.0 SSD's have problems with reliability.
• If I want reliability, would it be better to get a previous generation PCIe 3.0 SSD?
• I don't care about pricing.
• The SSD will be used for both data science and gaming.
• It would be nice if the SSD is also compatible with as many motherboards as possible.

 

[Lutfij]

My motherboard does not provide a heat sink for the M.2 PCIe 4.0 slot.
Make and model of the motherboard? Processor that you've paired with said motherboard?

Where are you located and what is your use case scenario for the SSD?

It would be nice if the SSD is also compatible with as many motherboards as possible.
That would actually depend on the motherboard more than the drive.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

PCPartPicker Part List

Storage: Samsung 980 Pro w/Heatsink 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($109.99 @ Adorama)
Total: $109.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-03-01 18:12 EST-0500

 

[klavs]

Thank you for your swift reply.

Make and model of the motherboard/Processor? Where are you located? It relies on the motherboard.

I want to focus on the most reliable long lived SSD with a heatsink, as stated in the title of the post. If the replies to the post implies that other hardware components are needed, I might change my other components (cpu, motherboard, etc). If the replies imply that PCIe 3.0 disks are more reliable, I will go for PCIe 3.0 disks. If I need to buy the component far from where I am located, I will do that.

 

[hotaru.hino]

The problem with trying to fulfill your request is very few, if anyone, has any sort of reliability report. So there's no confident way of say X drive is the most reliable one. There are some companies that do a reliability report. Puget Systems does one sometimes (the last one being for 2021) and Backblaze has something more recent for 2022 (but these are SATA drives).

Another thing to note that NVMe SSDs don't need a heat sink for normal usage. Unless you're performing an operation on them constantly, the thing's going to idle most of the time. And even then, you can always just buy your own heat sink for the thing.

Otherwise nothing about an SSD spec wise factors in how reliable it is, if by reliable you mean it fails to work before some specified amount of time. Besides, any hardware component can last a week or it can last 20 years.

 

[klavs]

Storage: Samsung 980 Pro w/Heatsink 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive

If this is the most reliable drive, why do these sites (and that's just a couple of the ones I found) report otherwise?

Failing Samsung 990 Pro and 980 Pro SSDs UPDATED - Official Response, Replacements & More

Samsung 990 Pro and 980 Pro SSD Failure Issue - Latest Update The news of Samsung SSDs reporting declining health that was covered in our previous post HERE continues to roll on and in the two weeks since our initial article and video on this, several new updates have emerged on this, some good, so

nascompares.com

• This update does not reverse the effects of drives that have already had the declined health [and if you build a new system you can't install the new drivers until you have already installed the OS].
• When raising this with Samsung, his RMA for the Samsung 990 Pro was declined.

Samsung Pro SSD reliability questioned as longtime partner shifts to Sabrent

Custom PC-builder Puget says it’s had issues with the Pro line since the last gen.

arstechnica.com

• Authorized returns of the devices reportedly resulted in Samsung factory-resetting the SSDs and saying they weren't defective.

Search for "Samsung 980 Pro problems" to see plenty more of these articles.

Here it is reported on tomshardware who's initial articles claimed the drive was top notch:

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/samsung-980-pro-ssd-failures-firmware-update

 

[USAFRet]

Yes, there have been issues reported with the 980 Pro.
Samsung will almost certainly "fix it".

I have a 1TB 980 Pro, with zero issues.

There are few or no actual make/models with no issues ever.
And certainly none with no fails in use.

For every single make/model, you can find reports of someone having one die early.

The thing you look to is the manufacturers reputation over time.
Will they stand behind the device?
Samsung, Crucial, SanDisk, WD....yes.

 

[klavs]

Thank you for your well articulated reply.

The problem with trying to fulfill your request is very few, if anyone, has any sort of reliability report.

So what I have to do is select some SSD models and brands and try to search for problems with said models and brands, and then compare them. That's going to be time consuming.

Backblaze has something more recent for 2022 (but these are SATA drives).

Thank you, very interesting. Although it is off-topic, the Seagate SATA ST6000DX000 6TB looks like the perfect backup disk or secondary disk, with regards to reliability. Source:

Hard Drive Reliability: A Look at HDD and SDD Failure Rates

We review the quarterly and lifetime failure rates for our 178,166 data drives and compare the failure rates of HDD and SSD boot drives.

www.backblaze.com

Backblaze Drive Stats for Q2 2022

Explore Backblaze's Q2 2022 drive monitoring report, detailing 215,424 data drives, failure rates, and insights from our extensive hard drive analysis.

www.backblaze.com