[SOLVED] Which SSD would you recommend?

[alphacoyle]

I have an Asus Rog Strix B460 I Gaming Mobo that has M2 slots. Built this a year ago but went with Seagate Barracuda 2tb but probably should've put an SSD in there for the OS. Currently using 150gb so think that a 500gb SSD will be enough as I'll still use the Barracuda for storage etc.
There's supposedly a heatsink for the M2 SSD as well, haven't opened it up, do see a cover of some sort though.

 

[Lafong]

Not a lot of real world difference between the better models assuming they don't fail completely.

Samsung 970 EVO Plus

WD SN 750

For instance.

 

[USAFRet]

Samsung 970 EVO Plus.

 

[ErickParker]

I have always recommended not to use SSDs with a capacity greater than 500GB. The SSD by design is best suited for the OS and programs. It is not even reliable as a storage medium. For that, use HDDs that are bigger and cheaper, but prefer Toshiba or WD. If you decide on a 1TB or 2TB SSD, consider purchasing additional media of the same capacity to perform backups or create an image. I've tested some NVME and I really like the Corsair MP600 and MP510. They are fast, has a good price and MP600 comes with a great heatsink.

 

[USAFRet]

I have always recommended not to use SSDs with a capacity greater than 500GB. The SSD by design is best suited for the OS and programs.

See my sig line below, under Viper.

 

[Eximo]

I have always recommended not to use SSDs with a capacity greater than 500GB. The SSD by design is best suited for the OS and programs. It is not even reliable as a storage medium. For that, use HDDs that are bigger and cheaper, but prefer Toshiba or WD. If you decide on a 1TB or 2TB SSD, consider purchasing additional media of the same capacity to perform backups or create an image. I've tested some NVME and I really like the Corsair MP600 and MP510. They are fast, has a good price and MP600 comes with a great heatsink.

Ignoring my most recent failure (my boot SSD just died on me over the weekend). However it was 5 years of uninterrupted use being the only drive in the system. 1TB Samsung 960 Evo.

While you can separate out your boot drive and other files storage I can tell you that SSDs work just fine for a storage medium. My 11 year old 256GB OCZ Vertex 4 drives are still functional, admittedly MLC with far more endurance. Samsung 840 still ticking along in my laptop (at least 8 or 9 years), recently swapped out an old Kingston Hyper X 256GB (6 or 7 years) for a 500GB Samsung 860 Evo for space. Probably need to do a fresh install of Windows at some point, certainly my longest running OS. Windows 7 > 8 -> 8.1 -> 10, at least 8 years old through three drives (original disk was a 1.5TB Seagate). Kingston is still working, just don't really have a use for it at the moment.

I've been considering replacing the 3TB disk in my general use computer with a 4TB SSD for a while, though this recent immediate purchase of a new M.2 drive will set those plans back a bit.

1.5TB Seagate is my backup drive for the main system. Now I am going to have to buy something to back up the new 2TB main disk (though it will be a while before I need something that large) Though the age of that 1.5TB is a little concerning (doesn't actually have a date code that I can readily read, but it has to be at least 9 or 10 years old.

 

[logainofhades]

Samsung 970 is a great drive. Crucial P5 is nice. If you live near a microcenter, some of their Inland drives are good deals too.

 

[geofelt]

I suggest a samsung ssd of whatever variety you want.
Performance will be similar.
A 1tb 970 evo + or 980 is a good choice with a 5 year warranty.
2tb if you can and relegate the HDD to backup duty.
Use the simple samsung ssd migration app to move your C drive to the new ssd.
Here is a link to the app and user instructions.

Tool & Software Download | Samsung Semiconductor Global

Download various software related to your product, including Samsung Magician, designed for use with Samsung's memory products, and find related information.

www.samsung.com

This is a C drive mover, not a clone.
The target ssd needs to only be large enough to hold the used portion of the source hdd.

 

[alphacoyle]

I suggest a samsung ssd of whatever variety you want.
Performance will be similar.
A 1tb 970 evo + or 980 is a good choice with a 5 year warranty.
2tb if you can and relegate the HDD to backup duty.
Use the simple samsung ssd migration app to move your C drive to the new ssd.
Here is a link to the app and user instructions.

Tool & Software Download | Samsung Semiconductor Global

Download various software related to your product, including Samsung Magician, designed for use with Samsung's memory products, and find related information.

www.samsung.com

This is a C drive mover, not a clone.
The target ssd needs to only be large enough to hold the used portion of the source hdd.

If between the Samsung 970 EVO PLUS or the 980 which one would you recommend? I don't do anything intensive, Seemingly my Mobo has a heatsink for the M2 SSD. Durability is my #1 concern.

 

[Lafong]

Those 2 may use different types of chips and may have different TBW (total writes allowed during the warranty period).

If you didn't know which one of the two you had, it's very unlikely you could tell the difference.

Durability? Unknown. Any can go bad for any reason at any moment.

 

[geofelt]

If between the Samsung 970 EVO PLUS or the 980 which one would you recommend? I don't do anything intensive, Seemingly my Mobo has a heatsink for the M2 SSD. Durability is my #1 concern.

Durability is no longer the issue it was way back when.
Either drive will be long obsolete even in a heavy server type of operation before you can use it up.

Don't worry about a heatsink either; a ssd only heats up under sustained sequential operations. It takes perhaps 30 seconds or more. And, even then, it just slows down a bit. SSD heat sinks are more marketing than anything else.

You could pick either safely and not notice any difference.
I might pick the 970 evo plus on the basis that updates are a bit quicker.

 

[USAFRet]

Durability is no longer the issue it was way back when.
Either drive will be long obsolete even in a heavy server type of operation before you can use it up.

Be careful...there are those around here who will tell you that SSDs are still experimental, will die early, and are not to be used for regular data storage.



As you might imagine, I wholeheartedly disagree with those sentiments.

 

[King_V]

A buddy of mine has been in IT for school systems longer than I've known him, at, at this point, I've known him for a little over a dozen years.

Lots of machines . . in the hands of students . . who come up with lots if interesting/creative/surreal ways to abuse them.

SSD failures? He says "it's not terribly common." Sometimes there's a bad batch, or ones that are used excessively - typically those that aren't from a bad batch were both old and really cheap models.

This isn't to say that you shouldn't have a backup plan, but you should have that with HDDs as well. But "SSDs aren't reliable" is some weird myth that just won't die.

 

[geofelt]

Here are some actual statistics:

What is the most reliable hardware in our Puget Systems workstations?

Here at Puget Systems, our goal is not only to provide the fastest workstations possible, but the most reliable as well. As a part of our constant drive to offer only the highest quality components possible, we track and regularly review the failure rates for each part we carry. Today, we want...

www.pugetsystems.com

Note that the ssd devices that Puget uses are from Samsung.
Other ssd makers may not have the same quality.

 

[umeng2002_2]

I have always recommended not to use SSDs with a capacity greater than 500GB. The SSD by design is best suited for the OS and programs. It is not even reliable as a storage medium. For that, use HDDs that are bigger and cheaper, but prefer Toshiba or WD. If you decide on a 1TB or 2TB SSD, consider purchasing additional media of the same capacity to perform backups or create an image. I've tested some NVME and I really like the Corsair MP600 and MP510. They are fast, has a good price and MP600 comes with a great heatsink.

HDDs still have bit rot. I've lost a decent amount of videos and pictures from that. I wouldn't hesitate to use SSDs as active storage drives. It's only when you let SSDs sit with no power for over a year does the chance of losing data increase.

 

[Karadjgne]

First figure out the ports. You have a pcie3.0 x4 (nvme) m.2 port and a pcie 3.0 x4 / Sata 6G (nvme or Sata ssd) m.2 port.

Sata ssd is not the same as nvme ssd. If you purchase an nvme, it can go in either port, if you purchase a Sata ssd, it only goes in the one port. Your manual will say which is which.

Samsung 970 evo/plus is nvme. Samsung 860 evo is Sata.

For OS and some games, 500Gb is fine, but SSDs performance and longetivity is tied to size, unlike a hdd. With a ssd, there's no spinning disk getting written, so every little cell gets used at different times, so the bigger the drive, the more cells, the less each individual cell gets used and has more reserve cells usually 7% - 13%. 10% reserve of 500Gb is a lot less cells than 10% reserve of 2Tb.

Usable life expectancy for a decent 120Gb drive was @ 5-7 years. Life expectancy of a decent 1Tb drive today is closer to 15 years under average use.

Choose wisely, budget allowing, a decent nvme will outlast your pc by a good ways.