SSD Fetish

Jump to latest Follow Reply
continuum

continuum

Ars Legatus Legionis
94,897
Moderator
  • #8,441
    www.techpowerup.com

    Team Group Z540 2 TB Review

    Team Group's Z540 PCI-Express Gen 5 SSD achieves incredible speeds, reaching up to 12 GB/s. Thanks to its well-designed cooling system, heat is effectively dissipated. Unlike competing Gen 5 SSDs that run their coolers at constant maximum speed, the Z540 lets you adjust fan speed through your...
    www.techpowerup.com www.techpowerup.com

    If you want a heatpipe/fan cooled Phison E26 (aka first-gen PCI-e 5.0) SSD. I'm waiting for 2nd gen PCI-e 5.0 controllers myself...
     
    continuum

    continuum

    Ars Legatus Legionis
    94,897
    Moderator
  • #8,442
    www.anandtech.com

    Crucial T500 Gen4 NVMe SSD: New Flagship Melds Micron 232L 3D TLC and Phison E25

    www.anandtech.com www.anandtech.com

    www.tweaktown.com

    Crucial T500 Gen4 SSD 2TB Review - When 4-channels beats 8-channels

    Crucial's T500 Gen4 SSD is the world's best-performing 4-channel SSD, capable of vastly outperforming almost every 8-channel Gen4 SSD ever made.
    www.tweaktown.com www.tweaktown.com

    First Phison E25 PCI-e 4.0 based drives are now showing up. Doesn't look like they move the needle on performance (nor would we expect them to) but considering they are a 4-channel drive instead of 8-channels, that's still solid.
     
    Nevarre

    Nevarre

    Ars Legatus Legionis
    24,110
  • #8,443
    Not really a "What should I buy" post, but WD is spinning off their flash division (effectively the SanDisk stuff they acquired in 2016) and will form two publicly traded companies. This was in part due to problems with an attempted merger with Kioxia.

    www.reuters.com

    Western Digital to split flash memory unit, refinance debt

    Western Digital said on Monday it would spin off its flash memory business that has been grappling with a supply glut after talks of merging the unit with Japan's Kioxia stalled, and also announced a fresh capital raise to refinance some of its debt.
    www.reuters.com www.reuters.com

    Ironically perhaps, in the short term their spinning platter business might be the healthier of the two. Despite making great flash products, the market is pretty saturated right now.
     
    T

    teubbist

    Ars Scholae Palatinae
    823
  • #8,444
    www.storagereview.com

    Crucial T500 SSD Review

    The Crucial T500 SSD claims to be a versatile storage solution aimed at gamers,…
    www.storagereview.com www.storagereview.com

    StorageReview is a little less positive on the T500, even if their tests are a little unfair on consumer drives. It looks like it's heavily read optimised, but write loads lean completely on the SLC cache and crash pretty hard outside of that.

    Unless the T500 comes down in price I'd be inclined to spend the extra($8 on 2TB models) for the FireCuda 530 as a better well rounded drive.
     
    continuum

    continuum

    Ars Legatus Legionis
    94,897
    Moderator
  • #8,445
    www.tomshardware.com

    Crucial 2TB T500 SSD Review: The All-Around Gen 4 SSD

    A Strong Successor to the P5 Plus
    www.tomshardware.com www.tomshardware.com

    Tom's Hardware review is up too, and like SR they show serious concerns when pseudo-SLC writes are exhausted and it has to transition to writing directly to the NAND. Agreed that for a pittance more I'd rather have a more well-rounded drive, but moving forward with Micron 232-layer (B58R) flash and a 4-channel controller I suspect we'll see more of the T500 and its brethen off the Phison E25 as supplies of older Micron 176-layer (B47R) flash and Phison E18 (and similar generation from Innogrit and whatnot) start to see end of life.

    Crucial has designed the T500 to have a cache equal to about 20% of the user capacity, which varies from 12 to 28 percent depending on the capacity of the SKU. This means that over 80% of the TLC might be set to pSLC mode in some cases. We expected a more conservative cache design for this drive with better TLC steady state performance, as we know this flash can do much better. However, we find the inconsistency in the folding mode to be more concerning than the average transfer rate, even if the intention was to have an SN770- or SN580-like aggressive cache.
    Click to expand...
     
    T

    teubbist

    Ars Scholae Palatinae
    823
  • #8,446
    Guess we'll see, but currently I don't see the value proposition. QLC drives will continue to eat the bottom end of the market and the midrange is still competitive enough that the T500 would have to drop price wise quite a bit to make sense.

    And for some reason the UK pricing is silly, with the T500 costing more than the Samsung 990, 980, WD SN850X, etc.

    On B58R I'm actually hoping it makes 4 and 8TB drives more practical as high capacity NVMe M.2 in the consumer market is still a bit pricey.
     
    continuum

    continuum

    Ars Legatus Legionis
    94,897
    Moderator
  • #8,448
    www.techpowerup.com

    Team Group MP44S 1 TB Review

    The Team Group MP44S SSD is a storage solution designed specifically for the Valve Steam Deck and other similar handheld devices. Offering capacities of up to 2 TB, it provides ample space for expanding gaming storage. Our in-depth review covers performance, thermals, power consumption and more.
    www.techpowerup.com www.techpowerup.com

    www.techpowerup.com

    Team Group MP44L 1 TB Review

    The TeamGroup MP44L is a value-oriented M.2 NVMe SSD that comes at a super attractive price point of just $43 for the 1 TB version. Thanks to its TLC-based design, performance is much better than the various QLC drives out there. Our review confirms that the MP44L can even beat the Samsung 980.
    www.techpowerup.com www.techpowerup.com

    Teamgroup SSDs, broadly speaking, are just fine. IIRC their MP34 model a while back was popular.

    www.techpowerup.com

    Silicon Power UD90 1 TB M.2 NVMe SSD Review

    Priced at $110, the Silicon Power UD90 is an affordable PCI-Express 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSD, offering transfer rates of up to 4.8 GB/s. Under the hood, the UD90 uses the new Phison E21 controller and Micron's 176-layer 3D TLC NAND.
    www.techpowerup.com www.techpowerup.com

    Ditto for Silicon Power, although I have less direct experience with their SSD than Teamgroup. IIRC a while back their P34A80 model was also popular.

    Can't speak as to the rest of your question, nor is this the thread to answer the other aspects of your question.
     
    Last edited:
    steelghost

    steelghost

    Ars Praefectus
    4,975
    Subscriptor++
  • #8,449
    hinduclient said:
    Any suggestions or observations about Silicon Power or TEAMGROUP ssd's or other memory products in general? They're a lot cheaper than Samsung - especially the micro SDXCs
    Click to expand...
    It's a sample size of one, buy my Silicon Power A80 has been Just Fine. It was basically a version of the Phison E18 controller reference design (as was the Corsair MP510, the HP920, and probably a number of other drives).
     
    continuum

    continuum

    Ars Legatus Legionis
    94,897
    Moderator
  • #8,450
    www.techpowerup.com

    WD Black SN770M 2 TB Review - Fast TLC Storage for the Valve Steam Deck

    Designed with the Valve Steam Deck and similar handheld devices in mind, the WD Black SN770M 2 TB SSD provides generous storage for expanding gaming libraries. Under the hood we found TLC NAND flash, which is much faster than the QLC offered by the competition.
    www.techpowerup.com www.techpowerup.com

    WD Black SN770M, aka another m.2 2230 SSD for the Steam Deck and other systems that can take only a 30mm long SSD. Performance looks unchanged vs. the normal SN770 (or even a hair better), which is is excellent for a DRAMless SSD and still very good even without that context.
     
    Kyuu

    Kyuu

    Ars Tribunus Militum
    2,441
    Subscriptor
  • #8,451
    Nevarre said:
    Not really a "What should I buy" post, but WD is spinning off their flash division (effectively the SanDisk stuff they acquired in 2016) and will form two publicly traded companies. This was in part due to problems with an attempted merger with Kioxia.

    www.reuters.com

    Western Digital to split flash memory unit, refinance debt

    Western Digital said on Monday it would spin off its flash memory business that has been grappling with a supply glut after talks of merging the unit with Japan's Kioxia stalled, and also announced a fresh capital raise to refinance some of its debt.
    www.reuters.com www.reuters.com

    Ironically perhaps, in the short term their spinning platter business might be the healthier of the two. Despite making great flash products, the market is pretty saturated right now.
    Click to expand...
    Might also have something to do with the reputation hit the SanDisk brand took after the disaster of SanDisk Extreme portable SSD data-loss fiasco. This popped back into my consciousness after I saw an article on Tom's Hardware suggesting that this was a hardware problem caused by what looks like bad design and/or manufacturing: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/sandisk-extreme-pro-failures-are-due-to-design-flaw
     
    • Like
    Reactions: barich
    Nevarre

    Nevarre

    Ars Legatus Legionis
    24,110
  • #8,452
    I'm not sure who is going to hold the liability on that one, but it's only magnitude of the problem (probably most models of those drives + a few WD external drives) but it's not the only case where large numbers of components were faulty. Usually it's not cost-cutting on the PCB assembly, but sometimes...

    Point being the excellent WD Black NVMe drives wouldn't have happened without SanDisk.
     
    continuum

    continuum

    Ars Legatus Legionis
    94,897
    Moderator
  • #8,456
    I thought that was fixed, that's a 9 month old issue........... is it still not fixed?

    Wow, I really should stock up on a few of these deals.
    Click to expand...
    Only if you need them. I stocked up on a few last Black Friday and have regretted it, best-case I didn't save any money vs. future sales between Black Friday 2022 and today with all the various sales in-between.

    OTOH I also don't track NAND spot market pricing as closely, but previous expectations of price flattening (let alone recovery) right now (aka 2023 Q4) don't seem to have happened...
     
    • Like
    Reactions: barich
    jarablue

    jarablue

    Ars Praefectus
    4,069
    Subscriptor
  • #8,459
    AndrewZ said:
    Samsung 990 has a serious quality issue. Avoid at all costs. Avoid 990
    Click to expand...

    This has been completely resolved in the later firmwares. The 990 pro is the fastest gen4 drive you can buy with 1,600,000 random read iops and 1,550,000 random write iops.

    I just bought the 990 Pro 4TB version and it works like a charm. Fast as hell. Like I said the drive health issue no longer exists with the latest firmwares and works great. The 4TB version specs puts it at the top.

    Buy the 990 Pro.
     
    • Like
    Reactions: owdi
    T

    tb12939

    Ars Tribunus Militum
    1,797
  • #8,467
    MrElbbiw said:
    Nimbus Data will sell you a 100TB drive in a 3.5 inch package. It's a weird thing - it has a SATA port - and feels like a leftover from some TLA's custom order.
    Click to expand...
    Kinda surprised it doesn't have SAS, but otherwise it makes sense - most 3.5" storage servers only offer SAS/SATA to the bays, since there's little point in doing NVMe to traditional HDDs. This is positioned a bigger faster alternative to HDDs, rather than a performance optimized SSD.

    Would be crazy to see what a full set of these could do in one of those 90 bay top-loaders though, with ~9 PB raw capacity and about 10M IOPS in 4U. Absolutely magic for a massive read-mostly DB.
     
    continuum

    continuum

    Ars Legatus Legionis
    94,897
    Moderator
  • #8,468
    • Like
    Reactions: Baenwort
    Saikaici

    Saikaici

    Ars Praefectus
    3,357
  • #8,469
    I'm in the market for a 2.5in SSD, not decided on 500GB or 1TB yet. Mostly used as games storage for demanding games(EFT, not Stardew Valley). Relative to my typical purchases, price sensitive. This isn't planned as being used for a boot drive.

    What's the best way to tell what drives are a step up from QLC? QLC/MLC seem very muddied for marketing reasons.

    By default I was thinking about going for the Crucial MX500: https://www.newegg.com/crucial-mx500-1tb/p/N82E16820156174
    Either that or a cheap Mushkin Element (they're an american company and based in my region, i'm biased towards the brand, OK):
    View: https://www.amazon.com/Mushkin-Element-Internal-Vertical-MKNSSDEL1TB/dp/B0B7Y5RLWT/
     
    Saikaici

    Saikaici

    Ars Praefectus
    3,357
  • #8,473
    Technically a free slot, yes. However it would be right in front of the GPU fans.

    I didn't really realize that PCIe to M.2 existed. That's probably ideal, not because I want to get a M.2 SSD, but because I can round up an M.2 SSD that will be a decent size upgrade, and then that card can make cloning the existing (small) M.2 over to a new drive much easier.

    There's a billion brands for PCIe adapters, but I think this would do it, it's really only needed for the disc clone.

    View: https://www.amazon.com/M-2-Adapter-Aluminum-Heatsink-Solution/dp/B07JJTVGZM/
     
    • Like
    Reactions: steelghost
    N

    N00balicious

    Smack-Fu Master, in training
    76
  • #8,475
    What Gen M.2 SSD do you intend to use? Most of the adapters are M.2 Gen 4/3 for PCIe 4.

    As an aside, I have not seen any of the PCIe to M.2 adapters for PCIe 5. yet. Although, most of the new PCIe 5 motherboards are coming out with one Gen 5 M.2 (Blazing) and one or two Gen 4 (Hyper) M.2 slots. PCIe Gen 5 M.2 is backward compatible at Gen 4 speed.
     
    Saikaici

    Saikaici

    Ars Praefectus
    3,357
  • #8,476
    N00balicious said:
    What Gen M.2 SSD do you intend to use? Most of the adapters are M.2 Gen 4/3 for PCIe 4.

    As an aside, I have not seen any of the PCIe to M.2 adapters for PCIe 5. yet. Although, most of the new PCIe 5 motherboards are coming out with one Gen 5 M.2 (Blazing) and one or two Gen 4 (Hyper) M.2 slots. PCIe Gen 5 M.2 is backward compatible at Gen 4 speed.
    Click to expand...

    Doesn't really matter, it's already purchased and the mobo is already purchased. Mobo is DDR4 era, SSD probably won't be terribly old either. As long as the adapter I buy allows for OK speed transfer rates, it'll be good.
     
    • Like
    Reactions: continuum
    grommit!

    grommit!

    Ars Legatus Legionis
    19,295
    Subscriptor++
  • #8,477
    New, cooler running, Phison Gen 5 controller incoming:
    www.techpowerup.com

    Phison Embraces 7 Nanometer: Cooler PCIe Gen 5 SSDs Incoming With New Controller

    The current crop of PCIe Gen 5 based M.2 NVMe SSDs run scorching hot to deliver sequential transfer speeds of 10 GB/s, requiring some massive cooling solutions with tiny fans. All this might change, as Phison, a leading SSD controller manufacturer, unveiled three new controllers at the 2024...
    www.techpowerup.com www.techpowerup.com
    One of these that stands out, is the PS5031-E31T, which is built on the 7 nm node, and could power the first Gen 5 SSDs delivering 10 GB/s without elaborate cooling solutions. This is a big upgrade from the 12 nm node used by their first Gen 5 controllers. The PS5031-E31T is a DRAMless controller meant for mainstream Gen 5 SSDs. This controller has a 4-channel flash interface (16 CE), a PCI-Express 5.0 x4 host interface, supports capacities of up to 8 TB, and is claimed by Phison to offer sequential transfer rates of up to 10.8 GB/s, and up to 1500K IOPS random access; exceeding the fastest Gen 4 SSDs.
    Click to expand...
     
    P

    Papageno

    Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
    8,834
    Subscriptor
  • #8,480
    What's a safe, go-to m.2 NVMe drive these days to use as a boot drive in a Windows machine? I'm thinking at least 2 TB, but if the price isn't too crazy I could go for 4 TB. Doesn't have to be a screamer speed-wise but I don't want a slowpoke either. Any brands/models to avoid?

    BTW I'm hearing horror stories re: ordering these things from Amazon these days, like the package showing up empty and Amazon being all difficult about refunds. Any recent experiences in that regard?
     
    You must log in or register to reply here.
    Jump to latest Follow Reply
    Jump to latest Follow Reply