[REQUEST] Are there any good quality, low cost SSD's?

[River Valley Computer]

We have used probably 50-60 Hyundai SSDs, mainly the 240s and 480s. No problems yet and 3 year warranty. $28.99 on Amazon.

 

[Your PCMD]

models have better capacities than other budget drives: 256GB and 512GB

While true, it is also false.

The 240/480 GB drives have the same storage size as the 256/512 GB drives. The difference is that the lower capacity drives withhold the extra GB's in order to shift data from bad cells to good cells when needed, allowing the drive to last or appear to last longer - in theory. The "bigger" drives just give all the space at once. When a cell dies, its gone, and so is the data that may have been stored on it.

 

[fencepost]

When provisioning an SSD it's not a terrible idea to "underprovision" it by leaving 10-15% unallocated. The drive can then more easily use that space for wear leveling, and even if the partitions are nearly full it'll still be able to write without major slowdowns.
On Samsung drives I believe their Magician software will actually configure this for you.

 

[fincoder]

the lower capacity drives withhold the extra GB's in order to shift data from bad cells to good cells when needed, allowing the drive to last or appear to last longer - in theory. The "bigger" drives just give all the space at once. When a cell dies, its gone, and so is the data that may have been stored on it.

What about more expensive drives that are full capacity of 256GB or 512GB? I'm thinking Samsung 860 Pro or every OEM drive in factory-built computers. These have long warranties, or onsite NBD warranties that cost the manufacturer's a packet to respond to, but they don't need to reserve capacity for dead cells.

Maybe the cheaper drives are usually 240GB/480GB because the NAND is lower quality and they need lots of spare cells to survive the 3 year warranty period. The Team GX2 256GB/512GB also have 3 year warranty and are a couple of dollars more than the cheapest 240GB/480GB drives such as Kingston A400. I suppose time will tell on their endurance, but I assume they will easily last more than 3 years for general home use.

I also offer Samsung 860 Evo (250GB/500GB) and Samsung 860 QVO (1TB/2TB). I mention warranty periods (3 or 5 years) and estimated speeds (400MB/s for the budget ones, 500MB/s for the premium SATA ones) and customers decide for themselves.

 

[BO Terry]

I use WD Blue SSDs, the 500gb is what? $70? How cheap do you want it? Use a good brand with a warranty on it.

I was just looking at this one today on Amazon. $60.03, 500GB, 5 year warranty.

 

[Your PCMD]

Sabrent has NVMe's now and at a good price. Once you register the drive at their website you get a 5-year warranty period. I just bought an Inland 1TB NVMe for my new media center and so far it's doing great, though it has a 3 year warranty. No, I would never put those in a business machine, but for residential, not an issue.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Under provisioning will grant you extra life, but bear in mind two things...

1.) Two generation old SSDs already had DOUBLE their rated capacity, they are literally already simply cut in half.
2.) Current generation SSDs have warranty periods long enough to be considered a full machine life cycle.

So the only time I intentionally under provision an SSD anymore is for database or other write intense workloads. You can get a consumer drive to tolerate things it otherwise wouldn't that way. But in general, these days, it's a waste of time. Consumer drives in consumer use cases will last two decades or so, you want three? Why?

 

[Tethu]

I reckon the ADATA SSD drives are pretty good and cheap. Work really well.