WD Red SSD vs Samsung 860 EVO

I was having a discussion with someone where I was insisting that the WD RED SSD is comparable to the 860 EVO since it is merely a WD BLUE (same internals) that is warrantied higher (but warranty aside the real endurance of the blue should be similar to the red), both being essentially consumer drives with similar TBWs: 1300 (RED) vs 1200 TBW (EVO) for 1TB. However the other person claims that you can't compare "NAS specific endurance specifications with consumer grade endurance specifications". WD chat (lvl1, not sure how useful) and a contact of mine in the enterprise field say they don't rate warrantied endurance differently based on consumer/enterprise use.

As far as I was aware things like eTLC/eMLC, greater inherent OP and at times physical flash reserve, Power Loss Capacitors; these factors not always but usually differentiated Enterprise vs Consumer drives, on top of giving warranty for more writes even for the same flash/controller pairings.

However this was the first time I heard the warrantied TBW numbers can't be compared across consumer and enterprise segments even if similar on spec sheets...I was wondering is anyone has come across any such explanations about endurance being rated/calculated differently...

 

You can always find a reason to dispute claims between people if you look hard enough.

Evaluating things through the data you acquire through your own research is the best bet though. For my NVME drives I use BPX Pro and PNY XLR8 which on paper are the same drive but, since recently acquiring the XLR8 I found it to perform a bit faster than the BPX Pro. Why? Who knows... from the controller / chip standpoint they're identical when you flash the 12.3 firmware to them. Silicon lottery? Could be.

The biggest factor I can see from your post though would be which company is going to be easier to RMA a drive when it fails?

I haven't had a drive fail before being pulled or replaced for another reason than failure in probably ~15 years and that was a samsung spinner. RMA process was alright and they sent a new drive fairly quickly.

TBW is a bit subjective but more importantly is how well you treat your drives. The TBW and other warranty factors are based on worst case scenarios of usage. If you keep things clean and cooled properly your other hardware will probably die before the drive does. Of course picking a 250GB drive with 300TBW vs 1TB with 1700+ TBW it just makes more sense to get 5-6x more longevity / warranty for not much more money spent for the piece of mind.

I used to buy into the Samsung over every other option but, in my book for my money it's not worth the premium they are charging when other vendors offer the same for often 50% less in price. Which goes back to which one will replace it easier when it does die?