Best/least failure-prone SSD as of 2023?

[Rocketeer]

I have a Dell OptiPlex 9020 desktop computer (running Windows 10) with a 250 GB hard drive as the main C drive. I want to upgrade to either a 1 TB or 2 TB SSD and have a budget of about $150 (I'd prefer to pay less than $100 if possible for a 1 TB SSD or $150 or less for a 2 TB one - and am leaning toward keeping my costs down more toward $100 than $150 if possible), but am unsure which SSD I should buy. My main concern is reliability. I want a SSD that is unlikely to fail or wear out quickly. I make system image backups with Macrium Reflect, but I still don't want my main drive failing on me.

At first, it seemed like a 1 TB Samsung 870 EVO was the obvious choice, as most forums and articles presented it as the most reliable drive within an affordable price range, and the Crucial MX500 in particular had a large number of complaints. The Sandisk Ultra 3D doesn't seem very well-regarded either. But I have now started to find complaints about the 870 EVO failing as well, including here on this forum. I'm not very well-versed in the technical aspects of SSDs and am confused as to which (if any) currently available SSDs in my price range are most reliable.

What is my best option at this point in time?

 

[GerKNG]

They are all more or less the same.
I had two 870 QVOs several older evos (860 and 970/plus)
five MX500s, two P5 Plus.
Sandisk plus and ultra 3D.
Three super cheap intenso top drives.
And WD greens and 3 SN850X.

Every single one is fine except of two MX500s (day one drives, later ones are still fine) and one really cheap HP SSD.

Just buy the cheapest TLC drive and you should be fine.

 

[Rocketeer]

Just buy the cheapest TLC drive and you should be fine.

Is it true that some MX500s are QLC rather than TLC? There's a thread about that.

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/rumour-that-mx500-now-has-qlc-variants.302350/

 

[outpt]

sn770 1tb for about $69 at Amazon. This is a gen. 4 ssd with taxes included. Not the fastest but still good.

 

[GerKNG]

Is it true that some MX500s are QLC rather than TLC? There's a thread about that.

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/rumour-that-mx500-now-has-qlc-variants.302350/

So far i only heard that they just use a new controller but still TLC.

 

[tabascosauz]

I have a Dell OptiPlex 9020 desktop computer (running Windows 10) with a 250 GB hard drive as the main C drive. I want to upgrade to either a 1 TB or 2 TB SSD and have a budget of about $150 (I'd prefer to pay less than $100 if possible for a 1 TB SSD or $150 or less for a 2 TB one - and am leaning toward keeping my costs down more toward $100 than $150 if possible), but am unsure which SSD I should buy. My main concern is reliability. I want a SSD that is unlikely to fail or wear out quickly. I make system image backups with Macrium Reflect, but I still don't want my main drive failing on me.

At first, it seemed like a 1 TB Samsung 870 EVO was the obvious choice, as most forums and articles presented it as the most reliable drive within an affordable price range, and the Crucial MX500 in particular had a large number of complaints. The Sandisk Ultra 3D doesn't seem very well-regarded either. But I have now started to find complaints about the 870 EVO failing as well, including here on this forum. I'm not very well-versed in the technical aspects of SSDs and am confused as to which (if any) currently available SSDs in my price range are most reliable.

What is my best option at this point in time?

You will never find an SSD with 0 failing samples or complaints, ever.

If the 870 EVO is on sale, just make sure you buy from somewhere with a good return policy, and test the drive as described in the thread.

I'd go with either Crucial or WD if only for the reason that they're pretty responsive on support and fast on RMA turnaround times in North America. I've had nothing but headaches dealing with Samsung support over drives.

Just be mindful of component changes and "revisions". The MX500 and BX500 already mentioned, and WD is starting to phase out Blue 3D for the undesirable SA510, although the latter does come with a clear branding change.

 

[xrror]

just a note: I don't recall Optiplex 7020 having an M.2 slot, or if it can boot from PCIe even if you add an adapter card. So you're probably looking at 2.5in SATA options. Someone check me there though - i know the 7010 won't but can't remember when m.2 started showing up in optiplex line.

I'd avoid the samsung QVO and the micron/crucial BX drives just cause they're slow even for a SATA SSD. Yea they're way faster than any hard drive but considering this will probably be the drive this machine goes to the grave with, might as well try something with a little more pep in it's step =)

reliability wise honestly at my workplace we've had good luck with drives from AData, PNY, Silicon Power tiers which i know get a bad rep sometimes. Obviously no real issues with general bigger brands like samsung, micron/crucial, SanDisk/WD, toshiba/kioxia, etc. But that said not in the 2TB capacity.

Also lastly wow that you can get 2TB SSD for $85 is kinda nuts - i hadn't looked at this space i awhile and that's pretty cool =D

Just be mindful of component changes and "revisions".

Yea this is a huge PITA. I still boycott Kingston because they really embraced\legitimized this first back with the the SSDNow V300 and when Anandtech called them out on it they basically flipped Anandtech the bird... Anandtech: update to kingston ssdnow v300

Yea i know Kingston sold most of it's product lines to HP now but still. AData is kinda bad with this but they at least will tell you or give some sort of indication.

 

[Assimilator]

At first, it seemed like a 1 TB Samsung 870 EVO was the obvious choice, as most forums and articles presented it as the most reliable drive within an affordable price range, and the Crucial MX500 in particular had a large number of complaints. The Sandisk Ultra 3D doesn't seem very well-regarded either. But I have now started to find complaints about the 870 EVO failing as well, including here on this forum.

The reason you see a lot of complaints about the cheaper drives is that more people buy them because they're cheaper, thus the number of reported failures is proportionately larger.

Buy whatever is cheapest and well-reviewed, with a decent warranty and local customer support. I would prefer TLC models and avoid anything Samsung out of principle (overpriced, bad firmware on multiple models, failure to inform customers of the same), but realistically... even the worst possible SSD you can find will be light-years ahead of the HDD you're currently using.

Is it true that some MX500s are QLC rather than TLC? There's a thread about that.

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/rumour-that-mx500-now-has-qlc-variants.302350/

The only MX500s confirmed to ship with QLC are from AliExpress, and AliExpress being what it is, I remain unconvinced that those aren't fakes.

 

[nomdeplume]

Inland is a good example of generic branded SSD that can sometimes be a high value to performance proposition.
Sometimes you get a rebranded "Name Brand X" drive and sometimes it's just thrown together for resale out of unused materials.
Buy direct or from a decent retailer and if you get a bad drive it will get replaced the same as with any of the larger brands.
I'm seeing $59.99 or less for a 2.5" 1TB.

Your desktop is probably not going to see the full potential of latest and greatest SSD. A solidly performing drive with good firmware and controller will give you the best experience.

 

[Rocketeer]

sn770 1tb for about $69 at Amazon. This is a gen. 4 ssd with taxes included. Not the fastest but still good.

That's a NVMe drive. My computer requires SATA.

If the 870 EVO is on sale, just make sure you buy from somewhere with a good return policy, and test the drive as described in the thread.

Do you have a link to the instructions on how to test it? And does it need to be tested before cloning the operating system to it?

I'd go with either Crucial or WD if only for the reason that they're pretty responsive on support and fast on RMA turnaround times in North America. I've had nothing but headaches dealing with Samsung support over drives.

Just be mindful of component changes and "revisions". The MX500 and BX500 already mentioned, and WD is starting to phase out Blue 3D for the undesirable SA510, although the latter does come with a clear branding change.

Are you in the USA or Canada? I've heard that Samsung's support in Canada is apparently not as good as their support in the USA.

How well does the SanDisk Ultra 3D (which is currently on clearance on the Western Digital website for $59.99 for 1 TB and $119.99 for 2 TB) tend to stack up, quality-wise? Also how does the WD Blue 3D compare to it? I assume that buying either one directly from the Western Digital website would result in the best chance of high-quality support if something went wrong (I have bought hard drives directly from Western Digital before, but have never needed to contact support).

And are these the older Blue 3D or the replacement? It seems like the Western Digital website only has 2 TB and 4 TB versions of it in stock, although Amazon has the 1 TB model.

https://www.amazon.com/WD-Blue-Internal-Solid-State/dp/B0792LL46V

https://www.westerndigital.com/products/internal-drives/wd-blue-sata-2-5-ssd#WDS200T2B0A

just a note: I don't recall Optiplex 7020 having an M.2 slot, or if it can boot from PCIe even if you add an adapter card. So you're probably looking at 2.5in SATA options. Someone check me there though - i know the 7010 won't but can't remember when m.2 started showing up in optiplex line.

The OptiPlex 9020 has to have SATA drives.

reliability wise honestly at my workplace we've had good luck with drives from AData, PNY, Silicon Power tiers which i know get a bad rep sometimes. Obviously no real issues with general bigger brands like samsung, micron/crucial, SanDisk/WD, toshiba/kioxia, etc. But that said not in the 2TB capacity.

Do 2 TB SSDs tend to be lower-quality or less durable than 1 TB ones? It seems that a large percentage of the recent complaints about the Samsung EVO 870 and the Crucial MX500 have been about 2 TB ones. And I read in the thread here that the MX500 in particular seems to have bad batches of their 2 TB ones.

Buy whatever is cheapest and well-reviewed, with a decent warranty and local customer support. I would prefer TLC models and avoid anything Samsung out of principle (overpriced, bad firmware on multiple models, failure to inform customers of the same), but realistically... even the worst possible SSD you can find will be light-years ahead of the HDD you're currently using.

How well do Western Digital and Crucial compare in terms of warranties and support?

 

[Anoniem]

Everything can, and will fail. Make sure to have backups just in case. Even the multi thousand dollar enterprise SSD's fail, they're just a bit less likely to do so. There are no guarantees.

 

[ThrashZone]

Yea i know Kingston sold most of it's product lines to HP now but still. AData is kinda bad with this but they at least will tell you or give some sort of indication

Hi,
Really and where do they do that sure isn't a reversion number that anyone has ever seen
Adata is the most well known bait and switch ssd sellers

Good ones sent for reviews only the rest after that are different parts and all adata support will eventually say, if you contact them is they're within spec's when reality speeds are very different !
After you say speeds are different they will come back and be more interested in user damages and warranty does not cover that blah...

So yeah I had three 8200 pro's 2-512gb and 1-1tb I returned to amazon because the speeds were all over the place in three rigs and none hit near the max speeds.
So yeah never again adata anything for myself.

Got a 970 evo and a evo plus and both exceeded max speeds so go figure

 

[KrazyT]

What about brands like Patriot, Team Group, Mushkin etc ... ?
It's seems their reputation are good on RAM, how good are they with SSD ?

 

[WhiteNoise]

Anything by Intel. They might not make the fastest but they sure as hell make them dependable.

 

[AnotherReader]

Crucial's MX500 is available for $57 and $103 at the 1TB and 2TB capacities respectively. The warranty, according to Newegg, is 5 years. I've the older MX300 and it's still going strong after 5 years.

 

[nomdeplume]

What about brands like Patriot, Team Group, Mushkin etc ... ?
It's seems their reputation are good on RAM, how good are they with SSD ?

Inconsistent?

Not to make too much of running manufacturing changes as directly negative. It is a fact of all manufacturing that enters into the equation we value slightly more at the lower priced sub-brand level. Meaning there is less hesitance to substitute in parts that have matching qualities instead of known and fully tested ones from a list of acceptable changes. Again, don't make too much of this. The margin for error can be very hard to define as Samsung is currently experiencing.

It pays to do research on the exact model from companies you listed. Greater variance exists within their often larger product line which may not be overly apparent. A very low end model intended to check a box on corporate data entry machines won't be great for gaming or high daily incursions into the TBW figure. This won't necessarily be spelled out in plain language within the marketing blurb.

The really important thing to keep in mind is a very good implementation of low end controller and slower memory betters a poorly established one across the full spectrum of drives. You don't want low data integrity or any other disruptive behaviors impeding use no matter how great any short periods of amazing are.

 

[tabascosauz]

Are you in the USA or Canada? I've heard that Samsung's support in Canada is apparently not as good as their support in the USA.

How well does the SanDisk Ultra 3D (which is currently on clearance on the Western Digital website for $59.99 for 1 TB and $119.99 for 2 TB) tend to stack up, quality-wise? Also how does the WD Blue 3D compare to it? I assume that buying either one directly from the Western Digital website would result in the best chance of high-quality support if something went wrong (I have bought hard drives directly from Western Digital before, but have never needed to contact support).

And are these the older Blue 3D or the replacement? It seems like the Western Digital website only has 2 TB and 4 TB versions of it in stock, although Amazon has the 1 TB model.

https://www.amazon.com/WD-Blue-Internal-Solid-State/dp/B0792LL46V

https://www.westerndigital.com/products/internal-drives/sandisk-ultra-3d-sata-iii-ssd

The Amazon listing is a third party seller. Officially only the 2TB and 4TB Blue 3D remain, though you may still find clearance stock of the smaller capacities for a short time. SA510 took over the lower capacities.

I don't know why you would assume there is a difference to how they treat drives bought off WD Store. Warranty goes the same way regardless of where you bought it.

Ultra 3D is the Blue 3D's twin, hardware-wise identical. They are the same company now basically, but the RMA process looks like it's not exactly the same for Sandisk that still uses a different email. Probably ships out the same warehouse though.

 

[Denver]

Not sure, but my "good and cheap" recommendation would be the Kingston NV2

 

[Assimilator]

Anything by Intel. They might not make the fastest but they sure as hell make them dependable.

Not sure where you've been the last three years, but Intel hasn't made SSDs for a while.

 

[sLowEnd]

At first, it seemed like a 1 TB Samsung 870 EVO was the obvious choice, as most forums and articles presented it as the most reliable drive within an affordable price range, and the Crucial MX500 in particular had a large number of complaints. The Sandisk Ultra 3D doesn't seem very well-regarded either. But I have now started to find complaints about the 870 EVO failing as well, including here on this forum. I'm not very well-versed in the technical aspects of SSDs and am confused as to which (if any) currently available SSDs in my price range are most reliable.

None of those have any widespread failure as far as I know. I've heard some people might experience an issue with the MX500 causing the drive life to drop unexpectedly fast, but anecdotally mine is dying at about the expected rate. Maaaybe slightly higher. The 500GB MX500 is rated for 180TBW, and my 3 year old drive is reporting 87% life after 19.2TB written. Operationally it hasn't given me any problems.

 

[revin]

Anything by Intel. They might not make the fastest but they sure as hell make them dependable.

Agreed, My old Intel 545s has 7900+ hours, and 41232+Gb writes 18491 total NAND writes and still about 90% life
I still remember when PCPer went to the Intel SSD Labs, and how shocked they was of just how "hateful" to SSD's
1 thing that caught them off guard was how they actually Nuke them to try and make "soft errors" and how many they pull from each 100 lot to torture

Also the place I retired from had over 200 Intel SSD's and he said they have yet to have 1 fail, and they was getting them many years ago
The IT guy was an Intel fanatic, But I don't recall him ever saying there was a "hardware" failure from Intel products, and some was in Very Nasty conditions

 

[mechtech]

Anything by Intel. They might not make the fastest but they sure as hell make them dependable.

I thought Intel's ssd line was sold off to Solidigm (aka Hynix?)

 

[xrror]

Really and where do they do that sure isn't a reversion number that anyone has ever seen
Adata is the most well known bait and switch ssd sellers

Well cr*p.. yea you're right - they don't really tell you anything. For some reason I was thinking they did but obvs nothing in their site or specs.

I think also at my workplace we deal a lot with SATA drives vs. what's in the nvme space, since we're always putting in 2.5in SATA SSD's into older machines to make them ususable vs. surplusing them. And thankfully anything new enough now to be ordered new already has nvme drives as the base model, so the bean counters can't keep overriding our computer orders and saddling us with HDD boot drives anymore to save $5

 

[R-T-B]

I thought Intel's ssd line was sold off to Solidigm (aka Hynix?)

It was.

 

[Rocketeer]

The Amazon listing is a third party seller. Officially only the 2TB and 4TB Blue 3D remain, though you may still find clearance stock of the smaller capacities for a short time. SA510 took over the lower capacities.

Does the lower quality only extend to the new SA510 lower capacity models, or to the Sandisk Ultra 3D lower capacity models as well?

I don't know why you would assume there is a difference to how they treat drives bought off WD Store. Warranty goes the same way regardless of where you bought it.

I guess it's because I've seen people leave a bad review on the Western Digital website and get a prompt response from Western Digital or Sandisk (depending on which the drive was branded as). They probably do respond to all customer support requests more or less the same, though.

Ultra 3D is the Blue 3D's twin, hardware-wise identical. They are the same company now basically, but the RMA process looks like it's not exactly the same for Sandisk that still uses a different email. Probably ships out the same warehouse though.

The 2 TB models of both the Sandisk Ultra 3D is the WD Blue 3D are currently on sale for $119 (and I can get an additional 10 percent off of that with a coupon code). Both also come with 5-year limited warranties. Considering the identical price, is there any "tie breaker" that makes one a better buy than the other?

In other news, I just found a thread in which some people claimed that there are some performance issues with recent WD Blues.

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/wd-blue-2tb-sata-ssd-vs-crucial-mx500-2tb-ssd.2609316/