My first SSD (update)

Susquehannock

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Time for me to finally jump on the SSD train. Plan to migrate Win10 and a few favorite games from my spinner.

What is good in the 500gb range?

Thanks

-

P.S. -- cannot do M.2 with my current system.
 
That was one of my top choices so far. EVO 860 vs Crucial MX 500.

Honestly, both are good choices, but my preference would be the Samsung. I have 5 Samsung SSDs, 3 PROs, 2 EVOs. I also have a Crucial M4. I have had most of them for several years. All have performed very well for me and no issues with any of them so far.
 
Either of the above, or the WD Black/Sandisk Extreme Pro (they're the same drive). There have been some really good deals on the Evo popping up lately.

SATA is fine, there's nothing a typical desktop/laptop does that makes NVMe worth the additional cost.
 
I'm all about crucial, they have been top performers (aside from BX200 but the BX300 made up for it) with consistently good prices. I use an 850 Evo without trouble at work nor have any problems with Samsung SSDs in other machines they have been used in. Can't really lose with any of them. Even the 750 Evo is good if you can find one for cheap.
 
MX500 has more SLC (dynamic) cache, about 40GB, against 22GB (18GB of which dynamic) for 860 EVO. WHen the drive is half or so full, I guess both reduce slc cache to comparable levels.
Overall tests give the 860 evo a small advantage which... is highly unlikely anyone could notice. Still, I went for the 860 evo myself too :) . If the price difference was larger, I'd go with the crucial though.
I doubt there is anything in the SATA segment that is worth having in mind other than these two, at least in the 250 and 500GB range. There are many that are cheaper but not by much and they offer lower IOPS and overall reliability.
 
Everything depends on the budget that you have. I would suggest you to look at Samsung 860 Evo and Pro, WD Blue 3D NAND, Toshiba Q300, and Crucial MX500. IMHO, the best choice would be Samsung 860 Pro.
 
Time for me to finally jump on the SSD train. Plan to migrate Win10 and a few favorite games from my spinner.

What is good in the 500gb range?

Thanks

-

P.S. -- cannot do M.2 with my current system.


When I installed SSDs to my T3500 I was worried about SATA II slowing them down. Maybe it does. But,still, the speed increase over spinners is just amazing.
 
Just about any known brand will be a huge jump as a first SSD. I have lots, and run Sammy, Crucial/Micron and SanDisk in my personal stuff. I used to be all about sammy as they benched the best, and honestly in the early days they were, because back then there were all sorts of controller and crappy NAND issues. That however is not the case anymore. My Pfsense box has the super cheap SanDisk, so does my media server along with a M500, my gaming rig has a 1TB EVO and 1TB Crucial, my laptop has a 1TB EVO and 2TB Micron. They all feel the same in day to day use, even though on paper the EVO should kill everything else, funny enough, my server that boots off of the budget SanDisk boots faster than my gaming rig with the EVO boot drive.

Unless you are doing something, very often that makes use of the drives upper end ability, they are all more or less going to feel the same day to day and gaming.
 
$168 for a 1TB 860 EVO is pretty sweet. About 10 months ago I spent $85 for a 250GB 850 EVO, and I was pretty damned happy with the price! I have a 120GB SSD and a 250GB SSD, and a 1TB Spinner. It's amazing how fast the SSDs fill up. Hopefully the prices keep falling.
 
The prices are spot on right now, 1tb or 500+ cannot go wrong with the EVO.
 
If you are migrating, the Samsung migration tool makes everything painless.
 
Waiting for the "You should not consider anything less than a dual RAID0 Optane 900p!" suggestion...
 
(update)

Got the Samsung 860 EVO installed. Have no idea how SATA II in this Dell affects speed, but as expected, the system is more snappy now. Games and programs open much faster.

Just for fun here is the 1tb WD spinner vs 1tb EVO directly before & after Win10 migration. No surprises here either. SSD kick ass in the random read/write department.


cdm.2.jpg
 
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(update)

Have no idea how SATA II in this Dell affects speed
View attachment 106780

In straight up writes/reads you will be limited. SATA 3 speeds should be showing high 400-550MB/s for both read and write.

For daily use, unless you copy large files regularly, you won't notice much difference. I have some machines running SATA2 and SSDs and they generally feel as snappy as those with SATA3.
 
In straight up writes/reads you will be limited. SATA 3 speeds should be showing high 400-550MB/s for both read and write.

For daily use, unless you copy large files regularly, you won't notice much difference. I have some machines running SATA2 and SSDs and they generally feel as snappy as those with SATA3.
Agreed. Right after my last post I got the idea to go look at others' Crystal numbers. Found just as you said. Scores in the 550s.
 
Yeah they look perfect for SATAII.

It's all in the latency/response, not so much the raw MBps for day to day use.
 
Yeah boi careful though after a while of using SSDs you become spoiled and working with systems running solely on mechanical drives, particularly 5400 RPM variety, becomes quite painful (usually feel it in the temples)!
 
Yeah boi careful though after a while of using SSDs you become spoiled and working with systems running solely on mechanical drives, particularly 5400 RPM variety, becomes quite painful (usually feel it in the temples)!
Yes :D

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the first system I bought with my own cash, a Compaq, came with one of those a 4.3 I think. good god are they slow! it was replaced quite quickly. and then added ram and oc'd the k6-2 and then a video card etc etc. early [H] days...
 
Yeah boi careful though after a while of using SSDs you become spoiled and working with systems running solely on mechanical drives, particularly 5400 RPM variety, becomes quite painful (usually feel it in the temples)!

I had to work on sorting out 6 laptops last week with 5400rpm drives in them. It was a really stressful time. I cannot understand how people manage to live with them. I was going insane.

"CMON CMONNNN DOOO SOMETHINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!"

"HURRY UPPPPPPPPP FFS!!!!"

"I AM WASTING MY LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!"
 
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