[SOLVED] what is your favorite 2nd tier SSD brand?

[Pextaxmx]

Among (1) SiliconPower (2) Sabrent (3) Inland which one would you prefer and why? Those Phison E18 PCIE4 drives look really good. I am in market for a 2Tb.

 

[USAFRet]

For me, its all about company reputation and reliability.
Within generations, performance is the same until you get to the really crappy ones.

SATA III si SATA III is SATA III
Gen 3 is Gen 3 is Gen 3
Etc.

Any drive can die, at any time.
But how much hassle do I need to go through for a replacement? That is the key.

Dec 2018, my then 3 year old 960GB SanDisk SATA III drive died suddenly. Instantly dead dead dead.
33 days past the 3 year warranty.
I knew it was over, SanDisk knew it was over...they gave me a replacement with zero pushback. Still using it today.
How many other companies would have done that?

Bonus point for SanDisk.

 

[tennis2]

Who is considered the first tier?

I think the actual SSD model needs to be included in this discussion. Every manufacturer makes a range of products of varying performance and price points.

I don't care much about brand. If it performs, it's good for me. Obviously none of those companies are making the controller or the NAND anyway.

 

[logainofhades]

I like Inland, as it is Microcenter's house brand, and if something goes wrong, warranty exchange is easy, for me. I am using this one, in my main rig.

https://www.microcenter.com/product...d-tlc-nand-pcie-gen-4-x4-nvme-m2-internal-ssd

 

[Eximo]

Samsung is usually considered top tier since they have the highest level of vertical integration.

On their high end stuff Sabrent is offering a 5 year warranty, that is what convinced me after my 5 year old Samsung died on me. It was also slightly cheaper.

I have some older Kingston and various other Samsung 2.5" drives that are still going. My oldest drives are still good, but you can't exactly get OCZ anymore.

 

[tennis2]

you can't exactly get OCZ anymore.

Was wondering if this would get brought up.
(my) unpopular opinion: I know OCZ as a whole doesn't/didn't have a glowing record. But for SSDs, OCZ got unfairly drug through the mud on an issue that was ultimately Sandforce's fault. IIRC, OCZ was the first to release Sandforce bug fixes. That was some wild west times, and OCZ was our dark knight.

 

[logainofhades]

Samsung is usually considered top tier since they have the highest level of vertical integration.

On their high end stuff Sabrent is offering a 5 year warranty, that is what convinced me after my 5 year old Samsung died on me. It was also slightly cheaper.

I have some older Kingston and various other Samsung 2.5" drives that are still going. My oldest drives are still good, but you can't exactly get OCZ anymore.

Yea my inland has a 6yr warranty. That also factored into my decision.

 

[Eximo]

Vertex 4, they had the indilinx controllers in them, one of the reasons I bought them.

 

[Pextaxmx]

I like Inland, as it is Microcenter's house brand, and if something goes wrong, warranty exchange is easy,

This is really good point. I live near one too. 6 yr warranty is nice as well.

 

[logainofhades]

Yea, in a 2tb, I would choose this one, if you are planning on NVME.
https://www.microcenter.com/product...speed-up-to-3200-mbps-and-2900-mbps,-3200-tbw

If planning on a 2.5" SATA drive, MX500 all day.
https://www.microcenter.com/product...-sata-iii-6gb-s-25-internal-solid-state-drive

 

[USAFRet]

If I lived near a Microcenter, I'd have no issue buying an Inland.

 

[dwd999]

Among (1) SiliconPower (2) Sabrent (3) Inland which one would you prefer and why? Those Phison E18 PCIE4 drives look really good. I am in market for a 2Tb.

Of the 3 Sabrent seems to be the most mainstream since its reviewed the most along with the other top tier m.2s. I would go with that or any other Phison E18 m.2 which uses B47R memory chips like the Kingston KC3000 or Seagate Firecuda 530 or Corsair MP600 Pro XT. And yes you will need a 2 TB to get the full benefit of those drives.

 

[mdd1963]

Tom's just did an article on some of Silicon Power's latest NVME releases; darn good prices!!

 

[Pextaxmx]

thanks to those Micron 176 layer TLC NAND chips. 1500Mbps of direct TLC write is just amazing. If any manufacturer sells a PCIE3 drive with Micron 176 without SLC cache for cheaper price, I will be all over it.. All those SLC cache business sound too complicated and very error prone to me. Robustness is the best virtue of storage devices. I'll take 1500Mbps over 7000Mbps for robustness.

 

[Zerk2012]

The bad thing about any SSD is they can change the parts used to lower quality and never tell anybody.

 

[USAFRet]

The bad thing about any SSD is they can change the parts used to make them to lower quality and never tell anybody.

Hence Kingston and ADATA being on my NoBuy List.

 

[Karadjgne]

The bad thing about any SSD is they can change the parts used to lower quality and never tell anybody.

That works both ways. Just read a post about a Dell branded Samsung 970 Evo Plus, that's actually got the controller and nand from a 980Pro. Didn't cut the Gen4 mustard, but I'd assume to be on the top end of whatever Gen3 can offer.

 

[Zerk2012]

That works both ways. Just read a post about a Dell branded Samsung 970 Evo Plus, that's actually got the controller and nand from a 980Pro. Didn't cut the Gen4 mustard, but I'd assume to be on the top end of whatever Gen3 can offer.

All the newer 970 EVO plus drives are updated to the Elpis controllers not just the dell branded.
I think they had problems with the old one my brother had one for about 6 months till it melted down.

 

[Karadjgne]

Huh, OK, that's news. Cool.