Which SSD is better?

[Lei]

You haven't given us the most important information: price. How much is each one of these options? Moreover, where are you getting the Micron 3400? It's an OEM drive so warranty might be tricky.

No I'm not getting Micron 3400. Poll result doesn't determine my decision

To put in simple terms. Gen3 3500MB/s costs X. Gen4 7000MB/s costs 1.8X and gen4 5000MB/s costs 1.3X

 

[AnotherReader]

No I'm not getting Micron 3400. Poll result doesn't determine my decision

To put in simple terms. Gen3 3500MB/s costs X. Gen4 7000MB/s costs 1.8X and gen4 5000MB/s costs 1.3X

This differential depends upon your location which I'm not privy to. Here, among the 2 TB drives, the Kingston NV2 is the cheapest at $154.5 or 115 USD. However, it's QLC; the cheapest TLC offering is the Crucial P5 Plus at $200.5 or 150 USD. I would opt for the Western Digital SN850X which is only $25 more, but is among the fastest consumer drives available.

 

[80251]

As of right now TLC provides higher speed and endurance. QLC is still slower and has lower endurance. QLC drives rely heavily on cache as direct writes to the QLC are extremely slow (52 MB/s for example on the 870 QVO).

Which 870 QVO are you referring to? The 1 TiB is the slowest of the bunch and my 4 TiB 870 QVO has NEVER dropped that low even under sustained writes (i.e. copying > 1 TiB of data off an HDD). According to Anandtech, the 2 TiB and/or 4 TiB QVO never dropped below 163.9 MB/s when doing sustained writes (i.e. when the SLC cache is exhausted). Samsung's own datasheet for the QVO series states the same thing for the 2 TiB/4 TiB models.

Even w1zzard's test indicated the sustained write speed can drop as low as 116MB/s but this was only for the 1 TiB QVO 870.

 

[Lei]

Ahh, the thing is I always bought 2nd hand stuff in the past and was very happy. But there are too many SSD with prices that are too good to be true. I wish I could find one that was like <100tb used and ~20% under the brand new price.
But I find many that are almost half the price and brand new. It's weird, because customers bought them and left comments with pictures and tests.

Of course there should be good ones that don't have the new price and are still with good quality. But it's too hard to trust with so many

I have this weird feeling that my next sdd is the first time I get scammed in used market.
I prefer a seller that sold 20 items in a year, not selling 2 items per day. I don't know.

What I'm doing now is to see the most common price, and filter that out. I think when so many sellers are selling at the same too good of a price, they probably are all right or all wrong.

 

[evernessince]

Which 870 QVO are you referring to? The 1 TiB is the slowest of the bunch and my 4 TiB 870 QVO has NEVER dropped that low even under sustained writes (i.e. copying > 1 TiB of data off an HDD). According to Anandtech, the 2 TiB and/or 4 TiB QVO never dropped below 163.9 MB/s when doing sustained writes (i.e. when the SLC cache is exhausted). Samsung's own datasheet for the QVO series states the same thing for the 2 TiB/4 TiB models.

Even w1zzard's test indicated the sustained write speed can drop as low as 116MB/s but this was only for the 1 TiB QVO 870.

All of Samsung 870 QVOs will drop to that speed when writing directly to the NAND. I get it with the 8TB 870 QVO after about 200 GB written. The larger drives do have larger caches so it takes longer to run into.

If you want I can snap a screenshot of my 8TB 870 QVO getting that speed.

 

[80251]

I'd like to see a screenshot of your 870 QVO dropping to 52 MiB/s on sustained writes -- because I've never seen this with my 4 TiB. Your findings also directly contradict what w1zzard and anandtech found out.

 

[Lei]

@AnotherReader
I may end up with WD SN850, because in second hand market it's more trustworthy. I found many brand new boxless Aorus gen4 at 57% of original price. So I think even if I pick an Aorus that costs more, it could be a counterfeit (someone bought the fake and is selling with profit after using it)
So I concluded that Aorus is only ok if bought from official store with the price tag it holds.


So I look for WD/Samsung on used market with under 20tb written and power-on-hours that is long enough to prove it was used by a household (I don't like 100tb written in 60 hours)
And I keep an eye on Aorus from verified official retailer, because I think Aorus endurance is good for Unreal Projects or any workflow that I may need to save files frequently and write a lot.

hmm, say a used SN850 costs 25% less than a brand new Aorus. a fake Aorus costs 37% less than a used WD. a new WD costs 15% more than a new Aorus.
There might be used Aoruses that are not fake, but sorry it's hard to verify which one is which.

@evernessince you have many ssds. Could you tell me, running photoshop from an ssd and os from another ssd, does that have perf benefits. intuitively I think two busy SSDs work better than one


For example this one, judging by POH and TBW, seems like it was not used for normal purposes. mining -farming to be exact- may be?! endurance is 3600, so still has a good chance of selling, but I suspect it was a fake one and now is put on sale higher than it was purchased. The seller sent me voice messages, he said he bought 5000 and is now losing money. (I think he meant 5000 yuan, not that he bought five thousand SSDs). He wasn't persuasive about selling it, he genuinely sounded his feeling r fxxked up

This down there went through 672gigs per hours write history.
I think a home user would have more power-on-count/hours and less bytes written.
why would you write 376tb during three weeks (559 hours) and now u want to sell it?
brining a 3600tbw endurance card to 90% health after 23 days of use. now I can't trust an Aorus on 2nd hand market. even if this down there is on sale 31% more expensive that a brand new fake.
I blurred the Serial No. myself @evernessince d u know how can I check Gigabyte website for serial numbers?

 

[evernessince]

you have many ssds. Could you tell me, running photoshop from an ssd and os from another ssd, does that have perf benefits. intuitively I think two busy SSDs work better than one

There is a performance benefit to storing photoshop on a different drive but it is very small. SSDs are at the point where they are so performant, OS overhead is not that big anymore. The benefit was a lot bigger in the HDD days.

For example this one, judging by POH and TBW, seems like it was not used for normal purposes. mining -farming to be exact- may be?! endurance is 3600, so still has a good chance of selling, but I suspect it was a fake one and now is put on sale higher than it was purchased. The seller sent me voice messages, he said he bought 5000 and is now losing money. (I think he meant 5000 yuan, not that he bought five thousand SSDs). He wasn't persuasive about selling it, he genuinely sounded his feeling r fxxked up

This down there went through 672gigs per hours write history.
I think a home user would have more power-on-count/hours and less bytes written.
why would you write 376tb during three weeks (559 hours) and now u want to sell it?
brining a 3600tbw endurance card to 90% health after 23 days of use. now I can't trust an Aorus on 2nd hand market. even if this down there is on sale 31% more expensive that a brand new fake.
I blurred the Serial No. myself @evernessince d u know how can I check Gigabyte website for serial numbers?

Yeah, those write numbers are very high. Either it's from mining or a very heavily used production system. There isn't much that can write that much in such a short period of time.

Gigabyte doesn't have a SN checking tool online but you can call their customer support and they can ensure if it's legitimate or not.

 

[Tropick]

This differential depends upon your location which I'm not privy to. Here, among the 2 TB drives, the Kingston NV2 is the cheapest at $154.5 or 115 USD. However, it's QLC; the cheapest TLC offering is the Crucial P5 Plus at $200.5 or 150 USD. I would opt for the Western Digital SN850X which is only $25 more, but is among the fastest consumer drives available.

Can speak for the 2TB SN850X's ludicrous speed. Love the thing, blisteringly fast access times.

 

[80251]

WD's SN850x series has something called Game Mode 2.0:
'Game Mode 2.0 works differently with a three-pronged approach: predictive loading, adaptive thermal management, and overhead balancing. Predictive loading is an algorithm designed to detect upcoming low queue depth, sequential workloads - particularly the read workloads prevalent in many games. Adaptive thermal management works to improve average and sustained throughput via smoother throttling. Finally, overhead balancing seeks to improve read latency while gaming through I/O prioritization.'

Tomshardware's tests indicated the game mode seemed to inhibit performance:
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/wd-black-sn850x-ssd-review-back-in-black/2

It looks like Samsung doesn't take the performance crown in SSD's anymore (sk hynix has that honor!).

 

[Tropick]

WD's SN850x series has something called Game Mode 2.0:
'Game Mode 2.0 works differently with a three-pronged approach: predictive loading, adaptive thermal management, and overhead balancing. Predictive loading is an algorithm designed to detect upcoming low queue depth, sequential workloads - particularly the read workloads prevalent in many games. Adaptive thermal management works to improve average and sustained throughput via smoother throttling. Finally, overhead balancing seeks to improve read latency while gaming through I/O prioritization.'

Tomshardware's tests indicated the game mode seemed to inhibit performance:
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/wd-black-sn850x-ssd-review-back-in-black/2

It looks like Samsung doesn't take the performance crown in SSD's anymore (sk hynix has that honor!).

I wouldn't bother with Game Mode 2.0.

I tested it on vs off with the 3DMark storage bench and I saw a miniscule performance increase, but having some weird driver tweak messing with my drive I/O combined with the fact that the performance increase wasn't actually tangible convinced me to disable it.

Just leave it off, the drive is already faster than most users need.

 

[evernessince]

WD's SN850x series has something called Game Mode 2.0:
'Game Mode 2.0 works differently with a three-pronged approach: predictive loading, adaptive thermal management, and overhead balancing. Predictive loading is an algorithm designed to detect upcoming low queue depth, sequential workloads - particularly the read workloads prevalent in many games. Adaptive thermal management works to improve average and sustained throughput via smoother throttling. Finally, overhead balancing seeks to improve read latency while gaming through I/O prioritization.'

Tomshardware's tests indicated the game mode seemed to inhibit performance:
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/wd-black-sn850x-ssd-review-back-in-black/2

It looks like Samsung doesn't take the performance crown in SSD's anymore (sk hynix has that honor!).

Well TBF samsung hasn't had the performance crown in awhile, the 980 pro has been bested by many other drives.

That said, the 990 Pro that samsung recently released is questionably the best along with the SK Hynix P41 platinum. It's also vastly more expensive though, especially given the P41 platinum 2TB was $170 on black friday.

 

[Vario]

Keep an eye for sales on Samsung 980 2TB Pros and buy one of those. Very low hassle reliable fast drive with great warranty support.

 

[chrcoluk]

wow hynix p41 is expensive, and almost doesnt exist here, £400 for 2tb with no smaller sizes available.

 

[Lei]

Keep an eye for sales on Samsung 980 2TB Pros and buy one of those. Very low hassle reliable fast drive with great warranty support.

I will get SN850 from 2nd hand market, later (6 months/one year) a new Aorus gen4/Corsair Force MP600 or Msi Spatium M470 for their endurance.

 

[Solid State Soul ( SSS )]

Wow, such huge differences, how can i sleep at night knowing my drive could be 2% slower than the other

Just buy whatever is cheaper

 

[Lei]

I bought this. Sorry I slotted it in before taking pics.
It was bought in Amazon Germany. temp during installing Spider-man Miles Morales went 40° while the OS ssd was 32° and hdd was 31°

2nd had, about 8tbw used before:

temps:

 

[AnotherReader]

I bought this. Sorry I slotted it in before taking pics.
It was bought in Amazon Germany. temp during installing Spider-man Miles Morales went 40° while the OS ssd was 32° and hdd was 31°

Those temperature are pretty good. How're you cooling it?