2TB WD SN770 NVME for £99 - what am i missing?

[wheresmycar]

I could bet my house the WD SN770 @ 2TB was going for around £150 a month back or so. Currently going for around £99-£115. Amazons got it listed for £99

What am i missing... its the same TLC, 1200 TBW, 5 yr warranty and PCIE 4.0 ssd right? No newer batch gimped specs or any other thing to look out for?

 

[brave]

The prices is going down every month.
Is better WD Black SN850X 2TB for a 130 Pounds on Ebay.co.uk, i see many times on auction.
I buyed a WD Black SN850X 1TB for a 65 Pounds from Ebay.co.uk, is a so cheap.

 

[Sithhy™]

Currently going for around £99-£115

Seems like the right price for such a drive

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

The prices is going down every month.
Is better WD Black SN850X 2TB for a 130 Pounds on Ebay.co.uk, i see many times on auction.
I buyed a WD Black SN850X 1TB for a 65 Pounds from Ebay.co.uk, is a so cheap.

So why not buy new with a warranty, I bought a 2TB samy 980 pro HS ps5 compat for 149 a month ago so yeah great price.
Unless someone knows a tech fu it should be a good buy.

As far as it goes pciec5 drives have started to arrive pushing prices down plus while ok it is not the fastest in its class, I do trust WD though, quality.

 

[wheresmycar]

Seems like the right price for such a drive

i agree! Its fantastic seeing these TLC 4.0 SSDs dropping in price and matching 3.0 less durable QLC prices (well they were going for around £100 a month back or couple of months)

Even better, for the gaming build, i had my eyes set on the PCIe 3.0 SN570 for sometime which is plenty perf for the use-case. Now only £15 more for the SN770, i'm all in!!

 

[iameatingjam]

Oh yeah its on sale here too. $150 CAD which is only 90 pounds. but doesn't that drive lack dram cache? I know this one is supposed to perform pretty good but I promised myself I'd never buy another dramless drive after getting screwed by so many ssds that seemed to go fast at first, only to find its an illusion and once you fill up the slc cache or whatever they start dragging their feet hard and transfers drop down to usb 2.0 thumbstick speed.

 

[freeagent]

It seems like a pretty good deal.. or about 50 bucks more for a 2TB SN850X.

I am going to buy one today, I don't know which one though..

 

[Kapone33]

All prices for most SSDs are coming down, especially the budget ones. You can buy the Kingston NV2 4TB for 279.99 CAD. I bought 2 Patriot Burst 2 TB drives for $100 each. Just a year ago 1 TB was $99. Now you can get 1 TB for under $40 in some cases.

 

[freeagent]

Sweet!

I have an Asus Hyper M.2 Gen 4 card that is getting dusty

 

[Kapone33]

Sweet!

I have an Asus Hyper M.2 Gen 4 card that is getting dusty

I still have 2 of those from my Threadripper days.

 

[bug]

The thing is, whoever needed a 1-2TB SSD has already found a good deal at one point. What I'm waiting for now is good deals for 4TB drives (i.e., ~$200). SATA/AHCI is good enough for me, my main storage is now spread between a 1 TB and a 2 TB one, I could do with a single drive instead of two.

 

[SPDIF]

Keep in mind that this SSD is so cheap because it is an DRAM-less NVMe SSD.
The SSD's internal DRAM stores metadata, buffers write data, coalesces short writes into longer ones and buffers data that moves around internally to the SSD for garbage collection.

A DRAM-less SSD has a lower bill of materials (BOM) cost to manufacture. The SSD itself will consume less power than an SSD with an internal DRAM.
These SSDs replaced the internal DRAM with a portion of the host computer's RAM, which is now called the Host Memory Buffer (HMB).

So keep in mind that this SSD uses your internal RAM memory to speed up things. This can go up to 1GB of buffer memory in your PC.

 

[Kapone33]

The thing is, whoever needed a 1-2TB SSD has already found a good deal at one point. What I'm waiting for now is good deals for 4TB drives (i.e., ~$200). SATA/AHCI is good enough for me, my main storage is now spread between a 1 TB and a 2 TB one, I could do with a single drive instead of two.

That is what I created for a client build with 2 2TB SSDs for $100 each..

 

[bug]

Keep in mind that this SSD is so cheap because it is an DRAM-less NVMe SSD.
The SSD's internal DRAM stores metadata, buffers write data, coalesces short writes into longer ones and buffers data that moves around internally to the SSD for garbage collection.

A DRAM-less SSD has a lower bill of materials (BOM) cost to manufacture. The SSD itself will consume less power than an SSD with an internal DRAM.
These SSDs replaced the internal DRAM with a portion of the host computer's RAM, which is now called the Host Memory Buffer (HMB).

So keep in mind that this SSD uses your internal RAM memory to speed up things. This can go up to 1GB of buffer memory in your PC.

Tbh, the whole HMB concept seems pretty sketchy. So you read/generate some files in RAM, send that to the SSD's controller, the controller sends it back to RAM to optimize writes and then it reads it again to do the actual write. It's probably better than no HMB, but it just seems very convoluted.
It's also a NVMe feature, you won't find it on AHCI drives.

 

[SPDIF]

The Samsung 980 Without the PRO is the same DRAM-less design. Yup it is better then nothing, it goes over your PCIE lanes to RAM.
It is also MUCH slower then an SSD with build-in DRAM.

A good solution purely for storage i think.

If you don't like this idea, then you are better off to buy a SN850X, with is available now for 77 dollars, 1TB!

 

[bug]

The Samsung 980 Without the PRO is the same DRAM-less design. Yup it is better then nothing, it goes over your PCIE lanes to RAM.
It is also MUCH slower then an SSD with build-in DRAM.

A good solution purely for storage i think.

If you don't like this idea, then you are better off to buy a SN850X, with is available now for 77 dollars, 1TB!

Fwiw, I have nothing against it. I just prefer the simpler solution usually.
You need a fast drive, you don't go DRAM-less. You need a storage drive, HMB won't make a difference, you're not going to stress it enough. At the same time, if you can get HMB for free (which you probably can, since it's now part of the NVMe spec), why not?

 

[Kapone33]

Tbh, the whole HMB concept seems pretty sketchy. So you read/generate some files in RAM, send that to the SSD's controller, the controller sends it back to RAM to optimize writes and then it reads it again to do the actual write. It's probably better than no HMB, but it just seems very convoluted.
It's also a NVMe feature, you won't find it on AHCI drives.

This is an excellent theory. Now that we are at DDR5 that could mean that the NVME without DRAM could be faster as most NVME drives with DRAM are DDR4.

 

[wheresmycar]

The Samsung 980 Without the PRO is the same DRAM-less design. Yup it is better then nothing, it goes over your PCIE lanes to RAM.
It is also MUCH slower then an SSD with build-in DRAM.

A good solution purely for storage i think.

If you don't like this idea, then you are better off to buy a SN850X, with is available now for 77 dollars, 1TB!

570/770/850X.... its more to do with the use-case.

For gaming and general-use, the 570(3.0)/770(4.0) are simply plenty and more than sufficient for a system drive. For anyone transferring large chunks of data/files on the regular or immersed in higher IOPS workstation-class workloads, the dram-based 850X definitely makes sense.

I'm absolutely terrible when it comes to pulling the trigger on well-thought out reasonable buys - the buy-best-impulse usually kicks in and occasionally I see myself buying into larger than life components for a heftier cost with less price/perf reward to fall back on. Eg. 960 evo's were costing a bomb 5/6 years ago and i replaced a perfectly performance-savvy mediocre SSD only to find the performance difference was too small to warrant the spend. No regrets though, factoring in "endurance/reliability"... 6-years-on the 960 evo is still going perfy strong with '91% drive remaining life'

The thing is, whoever needed a 1-2TB SSD has already found a good deal at one point. What I'm waiting for now is good deals for 4TB drives (i.e., ~$200). SATA/AHCI is good enough for me, my main storage is now spread between a 1 TB and a 2 TB one, I could do with a single drive instead of two.

I'm a complete mess. I've got several machines and number of active SSDs 500GBs/1TBs and a few none-active used 250GBs/500GBs and a few shelved used/old larger capacity 2-3TB HDs. In all frankness, plenty of cost-effective storage possibilities for the up-n-coming system upgrade and yet i'm fancying larger capacity + "brand spanking new" solutions opposed to multiple installations. Actually when it comes to storage and system upgrades, if a fresh windows installation is affirmative i just end up craving something new and better.

Essentially considering:

- SYSTEM DRIVE: 2TB SN770 - general work/personal use + 3 currently active games + future titles. I know, overkill capacity but we'll get there eventually.

- SECONDARY: 4TB Crucial P3 PLUS - older games library, personal media, system drive backups, etc. I know QLC sucks... i think i ran a thread on TPU for recommendations and the general thoughts were for a secondary drive and the use-case it's decent unit for the price (~£200)

this will be my first system upgrade without carrying a spinner - yay!

 

[mb194dc]

Demand is folding. Not missing anything.

 

[SPDIF]

For a normal user there's so much to choose from, it can sometimes be a little difficult. I also have an Samsung 980 without DRAM installed in my system, it does it's job! Nothing to complain, still lightning faster then an HDD. Still, an SN770 1TB for 50 dollars, you can't complain i guess.

 

[freeagent]

OK!

So I didnt buy the 2TB one.. yet.

But, the 1TB drives are only like 69 bucks..

I have 3 in my cart.. cost would be 220 bucks.. just for games.. think they would be ok?

Right now I have an SN850 1TB as my boot drive, and an SN750 1TB for my games, and some Intel SSDs for my stuff.

But I would run all five NVMe drives in this system..

The only real caveat being they would be plugged into a Gen 3 slot. Should I pass on the SN770 in that case?

 

[bug]

OK!

So I didnt buy the 2TB one.. yet.

But, the 1TB drives are only like 69 bucks..

I have 3 in my cart.. cost would be 220 bucks.. just for games.. think they would be ok?

Right now I have an SN850 1TB as my boot drive, and an SN750 1TB for my games, and some Intel SSDs for my stuff.

But I would run all five NVMe drives in this system..

The only real caveat being they would be plugged into a Gen 3 slot. Should I pass on the SN770 in that case?

Just be mindful that if you fill all M.2 slots on your motherboard, you won't be able to upgrade easily. You'll need to remove one drive, put the new one in, copy over the data, remove the drive you want to replace and put back the drive you took out first. A bit of a hassle, but can't be avoided with the limited number of M.2 slots

 

[Shrek]

I promised myself I'd never buy another dramless drive after getting screwed by so many ssds that seemed to go fast at first, only to find its an illusion and once you fill up the slc cache or whatever they start dragging their feet hard and transfers drop down to usb 2.0 thumbstick speed.

But without RAM isn't the drive safer from corruption in the case of a power cut?

 

[bug]

But without RAM isn't the drive safer from corruption in the case of a power cut?

It isn't. DRAM is not holding your data, it's just holding a mapping of which "sector" is where. SSDs will shift "sectors" around to spread the wear, so it pays to have this data/ledger readily accessible.

 

[Bomby569]

isn't it natural for drive capacity to become cheaper with time?
people are so used to the price gouging in other tech products they are losing their minds over ssd's. No point in buying all of it or any of it if you don't need it.

Could ssd's start asking 1000$ in the future for 1TB or whatever is equivalent then? idk but for now it's working fine so no need to spend more then what you need.