Holy Guacamole 4TB "Leven" 4TB nvme $189 on amazon

Anybody know the lowdown on Leven? They've barnstormed seemingly out of nowhere over the past year or so. A spinoff of somebody else or something?

I know Solidigm is Hynix's new branding for the Intel operation they bought.
 
Centauri said:
Anybody know the lowdown on Leven? They've barnstormed seemingly out of nowhere over the past year or so. A spinoff of somebody else or something?

I know Solidigm is Hynix's new branding for the Intel operation they bought.
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It's a PC company that says they design "CPU's" based out of Monterrey, Mexico. Likely, Chinese memory chips rebranded for an upstart company that might not be there in 3-6 months. That's just a cursory evaluation and not a deep dive.

4 TB for 199 is pretty (amazing) good. Many of the comments state that the drive nosedives in performance after it's only 20% full. No details on durability and data speeds are low. It could be QLC, in which case you're just wasting you money buying it. It will be dead short order.
 
This is from their product page on amazon
""Leven" is a brand established by J&A Information Corporation in Taipei, Taiwan in 1996 to produce memory modules. With over 20 years of experience in the memory storage industry, we manufacture all of our products in Taiwan with strict quality control standards as a range of affordable and high-quality products. As a professional manufacturer, we aim to provide good-quality products and sincerely look forward to building a win-win business with you."
 
RecentlyAdded said:
This is from their product page on amazon
""Leven" is a brand established by J&A Information Corporation in Taipei, Taiwan in 1996 to produce memory modules. With over 20 years of experience in the memory storage industry, we manufacture all of our products in Taiwan with strict quality control standards as a range of affordable and high-quality products. As a professional manufacturer, we aim to provide good-quality products and sincerely look forward to building a win-win business with you."
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Nice Find. A deeper dive than me to be certain.
 
0 issues with at least 8 or more (didn't count) leven ssds used for upgrades for laptops and currently running a 1 TB in my X670 pro as a placeholder until express 5 Nvme drives aren't stupid expensive. No user complaints on any of the systems they were used in over the past year and a half.
 
learners permit said:
0 issues with at least 8 or more (didn't count) leven ssds used for upgrades for laptops and currently running a 1 TB in my X670 pro as a placeholder until express 5 Nvme drives aren't stupid expensive. No user complaints on any of the systems they were used in over the past year and a half.
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Actually usage history versus typical negative comments. Big thumbs up on this response.
 
OFaceSIG said:
I doubt it. If anything the HP is a rebranded Leven. HP assembles machines with parts they spec out. They defiantly don't manufacture components. I ran datacenters for a huge dating website for 7 years using HP servers exclusively. "HP" memory was just Samsung, Kingston, SK Hynix with an HP sticker on the other side of the DIMM.
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EX950 is manufactured by BIWIN Inc. (China) and drivers are from Multipointe.
I'd assume the EX900 is the same.
An Amazon Q&A also says it is rebranded EX900. Either way the same drive as the EX900.
 
trikat said:
EX950 is manufactured by BIWIN Inc. (China) and drivers are from Multipointe.
I'd assume the EX900 is the same.
An Amazon Q&A also says it is rebranded EX900. Either way the same drive as the EX900.
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RecentlyAdded said:
This is from their product page on amazon
""Leven" is a brand established by J&A Information Corporation in Taipei, Taiwan in 1996 to produce memory modules. With over 20 years of experience in the memory storage industry, we manufacture all of our products in Taiwan with strict quality control standards as a range of affordable and high-quality products. As a professional manufacturer, we aim to provide good-quality products and sincerely look forward to building a win-win business with you."
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So someone is lying or stole ip from china who stole it from the usa. This game of whack a mole keep getting harder...
 
SamirD said:
So someone is lying or stole ip from china who stole it from the usa. This game of whack a mole keep getting harder...
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It's possible the user comments about rebadge is wrong and Leven manufactured an identical NVME.
At one point Adata SX8200 Pro and S11 Pro were identical to the EX950 except for drivers / firmware.
 
trikat said:
It's possible the user comments about rebadge is wrong and Leven manufactured an identical NVME.
At one point Adata SX8200 Pro and S11 Pro were identical to the EX950 except for drivers / firmware.
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The nuances of the manufacturing, OEM relationships, and post-review component switcheroo shenanigans on offbrand, DRAM-less, QLC dogfood don't matter to the target market, because their performance bar seems to only be "I've had it a year and it still works okay".

In other news Target sells clothes to people that don't care about clothes.
 
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Perfect to hold DCS which is doing very random reads. Well except it is too small :D
 
I wouldn't trust this I only have Samsung waiting on Samsungs 4TB whenever that comes out no idea why they never made one.
 
Comixbooks said:
I wouldn't trust this I only have Samsung waiting on Samsungs 4TB whenever that comes out no idea why they never made one.
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Bro, I think you're missing out. WD, Sabrent, Solidygym (former Intel), Crucial all make great drives. I've used SSDs from so many brands now, it's crazy. I will say that Samsung makes it very easy on the consumer side by not having 100 SKUs, but as far as reliability and performance, they are definitely not alone anymore.
 
Comixbooks said:
I wouldn't trust this I only have Samsung waiting on Samsungs 4TB whenever that comes out no idea why they never made one.
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While Samsung was the "best" NVME, recent Samsungs have reliability issues. Kicked off months ago with bad blocks / 0E issues from users in China.
Then it affected their NVMEs going forward with rapid health degradation, sudden deaths, read only, etc.
Even the 990 Pro is affected and Samsung says a fix is on the way.
And Puget System is moving away from Samsung.
See below for an in-depth analysis / timeline:
https://nascompares.com/2023/02/02/...reporting-failures-everything-we-know-so-far/
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...sds-after-users-report-abnormal-health-drops/

For now I wouldn't buy a Samsung NVME until they fix the problem and is given time to show it works.
Also, Samsung has mediocre customer support mostly with ignoring their customers - not addressing concerns / complaints.
 
You all do realize this is only 5% off from the normal price ($210), correct? While certainly an eye-opening price, I cannot imagine this drive being valued much above its "regular" price.
 
I own one and it's a good game drive. I actually own some Leven (J&A) 2666mhz DDR4 RAM. Even can run 3200mhz if I loosen the timings a little. The only thing is theres no temperature sensor. It's stuck at 48c all the time. I put some of there Sata SSDs in other builds and they all seem to work just fine.
 
I almost sunk my hands into a crucial 4TB but canceled at the last second really would like my entire Steam directory to be on one drive now I have it on X2 2TB drives.
I see Crucial makes drives in Mexico now =) Unless they been doing that for a while.
 
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trikat said:
While Samsung was the "best" NVME, recent Samsungs have reliability issues. Kicked off months ago with bad blocks / 0E issues from users in China.
Then it affected their NVMEs going forward with rapid health degradation, sudden deaths, read only, etc.
Even the 990 Pro is affected and Samsung says a fix is on the way.
And Puget System is moving away from Samsung.
See below for an in-depth analysis / timeline:
https://nascompares.com/2023/02/02/...reporting-failures-everything-we-know-so-far/
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...sds-after-users-report-abnormal-health-drops/

For now I wouldn't buy a Samsung NVME until they fix the problem and is given time to show it works.
Also, Samsung has mediocre customer support mostly with ignoring their customers - not addressing concerns / complaints.
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So basically without Samsung's performance and reliability they are basically now just like everyone else?
 
Comixbooks said:
I see Crucial makes drives in Mexico now =) Unless they been doing that for a while.
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A lot of people have been moving away from china for manufacturing (and for good reason). A theory on the recent samsung issues may be related to them trying to pull out from china as that would be a big loss to china.

I'll happily deal with some qa issues as companies get their new manufacturing bases set up away from china. After a few generations of product, quality will be near what it was pre-china. And it would be really good to see manufacturing return to the US. It would not only be a big boost for the domestic economy, but would also help severing ties with our enemies which right are sucking us dry.
 
SamirD said:
A lot of people have been moving away from china for manufacturing (and for good reason). A theory on the recent samsung issues may be related to them trying to pull out from china as that would be a big loss to china.

I'll happily deal with some qa issues as companies get their new manufacturing bases set up away from china. After a few generations of product, quality will be near what it was pre-china. And it would be really good to see manufacturing return to the US. It would not only be a big boost for the domestic economy, but would also help severing ties with our enemies which right are sucking us dry.
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If they are soldering those together in Mexico they'll need other SMD for the finished product. Those too will begin getting made in North America. Probably in the US or Canada. Big win for the whole region. **** China.
 
Multiple people have had reliability issues or quick failures with these drives. Just because a few o of you have had no problem does not mean that problems don't exist--keep that in mind.
There's a reason why these drives are so cheap.
 
Falkentyne said:
Multiple people have had reliability issues or quick failures with these drives. Just because a few o of you have had no problem does not mean that problems don't exist--keep that in mind.
There's a reason why these drives are so cheap.
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Got a link to this? I am curious was thinking of picking one up.
 
Falkentyne said:
Multiple people have had reliability issues or quick failures with these drives. Just because a few o of you have had no problem does not mean that problems don't exist--keep that in mind.
There's a reason why these drives are so cheap.
Click to expand...

The Amazon reviews have a few with early failure, but the ratio look quite normal to me.
 
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