Best 500GB M2 SATA 2280 format SSD?

Hi - I was thinking of buying an MSI GS60 laptop, but am now considering the 2015 Razer Blade. As there is a large premium for buying the 512 Gb SSD model, was thinking of maybe buying the 128GB model, but then replacing the SSD with a larger one myself.

What's the best 500Gb (or thereabouts) M2 SATA 2280 format SSD currently? Is there anything better than the Crucial MX200?

 

While I can't really answer your question in a meaningful manner, I'd like to ask the following:

Must you have an M.2 SSD? For the money that you're likely to spend on that Crucial, there are many 2.5" SSDs that would fit the bill...

 

Yeah, search for a couple of recent threads on the weaknesses of current M.2 implementations.

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/crucial-m550-512gb-m-2-temps.770697/

Is one of them.


An non-TLC and probably non-Samsung period SSD in 2.5" format is your best bet.

SanDisk Extreme Pro 480GB or larger highly recommended. And the MX200 wouldn't hold a candle to it.

 

Because I'm thinking of getting the 2015 Razer Blade and the only slot is has for storage is an M2 one

 

I can't find an M2 2280 version of the SanDisk drive, though

 

I don't think the issue is what brand of M.2 you can find.

The issue is the M.2 format itself...

 

I have an M2 SATA drive in my Macbook Air, which I've had for 3 years and have experienced zero problems with it, can't be that bad, surely!

 

I haven't been following Macs in that respect all that well but they were known for using a lot of proprietary drives...

 

This person's experience might prove helpful:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...14-hd-backups-m-2-perf-comparison-etc.771316/

 

This is an old thread, so I assume it has been long answered. Nevertheless, for new people who come here, the current top-of-the-line NVMe drive is the Samsung 950 Pro. Also, more new notebooks are coming with M.2 slots, including the recently released Lenovo ThinkPads P50 and P70.

 

It is a very old thread but the op.o is asking for a sata drive.

The best 512 gb sata m2 drive is probably the crucial mx200
Similar micron m600
The largest One is the sandisk x400

There Is actually a new 512 gb m2 drive coming out built for longevity made by transcend that was introduced at ces

 

Adding to that, the crucial and micron are MLC, whereas the sandisk is TLC nand. Generally go with MLC if you can, as TLC has less endurance.

 

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9882/transcend-announces-supermlc-pseudoslc-ssds-for-industrial-market


This one is kind of announcing a 1 tb m2 mlc drive this year if you read it carefully.
And the top 512 gb drive.

 

Yeah; effectively 50% OP'ing.

Welcome to 'tiller's world...

Note that the effective P/E cycles of 30K is still much lower than true SLC SSD's, but having 4x the (seq) write speed is a good trade off.


This is what you get when you optimize the channels, the interleaving, the nand and the controller. Hope this also translates to real world higher write speeds and not just 'scores' to drool over.

 

This is great news I've been waiting for a 1tb MLC m.2 sata drive for a while. Hoping to utilize that slot in my laptop without sacrificing the speed of the pci-e slot.

 

well it doesnt announce it
but it says that the process of making a 512 gb super mlc nand is to start with a 1tb mlc nand.

so they will have in the works both for sale this year. no date explained. Not even this year although they did make an announcement for 2016 ces.

 

i dont believe your laptop works that way actually

it either has 2 x sata or 1x pcie x4

its not a pcie x 5 unless it is extremely sophisticated,

but ask the owners.

 

Already asked and researched this The two m.2 slots share lanes. But that applies only if using PCI-e SSDs. So I can have 2 PCI-e SSDs at x2 speed, or 1 PCI-e SSD at x4 speed and 1 m2.sata SSD that wont use up any lanes at all.

Now if I'm understanding the article correctly, the SuperMLC they are planning will effective half the physical capacity of the drive, right? So a 1TB will only be 512GBs of usable space, with the other 512 used for SLC caching?

 

For the super Mic drive

The non super mlc drive will be 1 tb. Not explained in the same ad but implied.

The two will likely be made at the same time.

 

Internally, yes that is what is effectively happening. But it won't be marketed like that.

If they issue a 512GB (nominal) drive, it will still have:

512 x 1000 x 1000 x 1000 = 512,000,000,000 bytes

512,000,000,000,000 / 1024 / 1024 / 1024 = ~476.8GB of actual usable capacity (x 2 for a 1TB model).

But if it is the SuperMLC as they state, it will need to have double the actual nand chips to make up the actual 1TB or 2TB (internally) to be able to do pseudo SLC for the entire (marketed) capacity of the drive.

 

Now that I've actually owned a mx200 and a 850 m2 500gb drive I'd like to point out that the mx200 wafer is entirely full.
It is the end of the line for this concept.
The mx200 is not it will be 1 tb and above. So while I was waiting to see if there was a 1 tb ssd on the horizon like this I can see with my own eyes there won't be.

And I used tillers really flawed logic that anything with tlc in its name is somehownlike what Samsung used in the 840 when it completely is not.

The best 500 gb m2 ssd is totally the Samsung 850.
From the software side crucial executive is often nice though

 

and if when the samsung 850 1 tb comes out, i think its a better choice than the sandisk x400 based on the slc buffer size

 

Please don't state my logic is flawed when it is your reading comprehension that is lacking.

If you have any questions I can answer, I'll be glad to.

But don't reorder the words I've said and come up with stupid remarks that you attribute to me like:

"...anything with tlc in its name is somehownlike what Samsung used in the 840 when it completely is not."

The best 500GB M.2 SSD is still far below the best 2.5" SATAIII SSD (with two to four times the capacity) in real word workflows.

If M.2 is the format you're stuck with (and I don't know many notebook chassis' are...), that is another problem.

But the capacity of M.2 drives offered and the performance of such drives, is still not worth trying this stillborn technology vs. 2.5" SATAIII offerings if you have the choice.

(And who cares if the MX200 will top out at 500MB? The MX300 or whatever label it will have will get us there... with probably the same limitations of current M.2 drives today).

 

My number one advice to anyone in this forum is don't even read what this guy says he's ranting about strange things that have nothing to do with figuring out the best hardware to buy. You can look through his posts going back months and years and it's all weird and worthless

 

The mlc 15 nm will never shrink to 8nm and full an m2 drive with 1 tb.

The next crucial m2 ssd will be using 3d tlc nand just like the 850.

 

Sigh...

Ignoring my posts isn't getting you any points...

People will decide on their own if my posts are worthwhile. And they'll do the same for yours too...