Need SSD opinions

I don't know that much about m.2 SSD and PCIe NVMe SSD. (I've never had an SSD in a laptop.) I'm trying to figure out which of these PCIe NVMe is worth the extra cost or if I won't notice much of a difference and should stick with an m.2 SSD. Here's what I'm looking at:

250GB SATA III 6Gb/s M.2 SSD
250GB Samsung 850 EVO SATA III 6Gb/s M.2 SSD
256GB WD Black NVMe PCIe SSD
256GB Samsung SM951 PCIe SSD
250GB Samsung 960 EVO PCIe NVMe SSD

Of course, the m.2 are cheaper but I'm willing to spend a little extra if the PCIe NVMe are a noticeable difference. I've tried to read benchmarks on each, and it seems that the WD Black aren't really that great. (Although, it's cheaper than the Samsung SM951 and 960.)

I don't really understand the difference between Samsung EVO and Samsung Pro either.

 

I'll just say all SSDs are fast, but where NVMe is going shine when you use applications that put a heavy load on the controller. Typical notebook usage like Office, Internet and Media does not do this, so the benefits won't be very tangible, but your next laptop is likely have a NVMe controller. Perhaps it's worth spending the money since you'll be able to move it over.

 

@Chowda289 bigger quality m.2 SATA SSD e.g. Crucial MX300 525GB would be a much better choice than any 256GB drive, be it SATA or NVME.

 

I don't recommend puny SSD drives (just like I didn't with HDD's back when...). At least a ~500GB SSD is required (don't forget about OP'ing too - if you want to keep it fast...).

SSD's are not all the same. Some perform more like a mechanical drive than a solid state device. Especially the smaller ones. Why? Because they will have less nand 'channels' per controller port and therefore lower oomph. Think of it as the nand being in a raid configuration within the SSD...

If you don't have an option to install an 2.5" SATA III SSD in your system, then I would pick the newest and biggest capacity NVMe drive you can afford/save up for. The 2.5" SSD is highly preferred if you don't want the storage subsystem to throttle and you don't want the rest of your components to throttle too from excess heat from your NVMe/M.2 connected SSD.

Forget the benchmarks - they're meaningless (search on the forums here for posts on how NVMe feels identical to a 2.5" SATA III SSD's...).

Tell us what your workflows/workloads are, what you expect from your storage subsystem and the complete spec's of your platform. Asking for the 'better' SSD is like asking if vanilla is better than chocolate. It depends - on your usage.

Good luck.

 

My 90GB Agility III failed in 2014. I wanted to get a 120GB drive as I only use the drive for the OS, but everyone told me to get the 256gb drive as it was much faster. I spent the extra $50 and got the 256GB drive, but honestly, I could not discern much of a difference between the larger drive and the Agility III. Maybe it booted slightly faster or Photoshop opened a bit faster, but that wasn't worth $50 to me. I say unless you're putting a heavy load on the controller, there's probably not much of a practical difference.

 

I really like the Crucial MX300 drives as well. I have the 275GB version. Also with the "Momentum Cache" feature that Crucial offers on these drives via their software, they reach incredible speeds, even faster than some NVMe drives (at least in benchmarks). This speed boost comes at the expense of a portion of your system RAM and with the risk of data corruption/loss in case of an abrupt power outage (but on a laptop with a working battery, that risk is diminished).

http://techblog.danielpellarini.com/desktop/crucials-momentum-cache-the-true-performance-results/

https://www.micron.com/~/media/docu...solid-state-storage/tnfd32_momentum_cache.pdf

 

I'd say if you use it as an OS drive, always go for an MLC type drive and not TLC. 850 pro, 950 pro, 960 pro...

 

Zaz, that is a fair point you make; some people just don't notice differences like this (or; $50 extra is 'too much' more...).

On the other hand, I have upgraded many 128/256GB SSD's for clients and the best example of what they noticed? A 3.0, 64GB USB key filled with ~32GB of their digital lives would copy to their SSD in around 25 minutes on the smaller and/or TLC drives - where on the larger, MLC, SSD (512GB/1TB) that same copy on the otherwise identical machine would copy in a tic over 5 minutes.

You may still argue that a 5x improvement on a 'one time' operation still doesn't justify a higher cost - and for many, you would be correct.

My argument is that those improvements (even if not always 5x...) are always present on a larger drive - whether they are noticed by the owner/user or not. Especially when that larger drive is OP'd as I recommend (33% is still the sweet spot).

A few clients that did not notice the improvements by simply using the upgraded system were pleasantly surprised when they (okay; 'I'...) made them compare to another otherwise identical system I hadn't upgraded for them yet.

Those small milliseconds add up over the day to something worth more than $50 or double or even 10x that difference. It really depends on your workflow.

Another point to consider is that a 2014 256GB SSD was much closer to a 120GB SSD's performance than a current 128/256GB SSD's performance is to anything 512GB and larger (yeah; the performance spread is that much).

 

@tilleroftheearth: OPing?

Wow, lots of information. I feel a little overwhelmed now.

Well...first and foremost, I'm going to be using it for work (which I do online and with many spreadsheets and documents and internet tabs open at a time.) I'll be using it with media and programs as well. I haven't gotten to game in several years, so I want to get back into that. I really like MMORPGs, but I have no idea what I would play. Oh, it will be an OS drive too.

I can't really afford anything higher than around 250GB right now. Initially, I was looking at 128GB drives...so I'm pushing my budget. Basically, I'm trying to figure out what to get in the laptop I'm going to purchase (and it'll help me decide where to purchase from too.) I should have the option to put in a 2.5" SSD, if I want...the model has space for one or a mechanical drive. I thought it was better to have an m.2 SSD or NVMe rather than a traditional 2.5" SSD...am I wrong?

As far as space goes, I'm not too concerned. I have several portable hard drives that I can use. If anything, I can always buy another drive during Black Friday or the holidays. My plan is to buy more RAM on BF or CM.

 

Lot's of reading for you.

Your platform needs to be at least an current i7 QC or better ('u' processors need not apply - unless you're looking at 8th gen platforms...), 16GB+ RAM system with Win10x64Pro to make the most of the storage subsystem. CPU+RAM=Work Done. Compromise there and any ancillary components below won't make much difference in the end.

If you really can't afford more than an ~250GB SSD today? Keep saving. Yeah; that's how important the size of an SSD is.

If you want anywhere close to their famed performance promises. (They're still far short of what the marketing claims...).

I'd rather buy an 1TB/2TB HDD instead of an small SSD (a nd short stroke it to ~100-150GB for the C:\).

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/why-over-provision.760922/#post-9766709

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/why-over-provision.760922/#post-9767845

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/which-ssd-for-my-os-and-games.797667/#post-10375989

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/which-ssd-for-my-os-and-games.797667/#post-10376834

Do note that I've increased my recommendation to 33% OP'ing (i.e. use just 67% of the formatted, actual capacity the drive offers...) and not 30 like those older links show.

With your workflow, a larger than 512GB, OP'd drive is exactly what you need to have what SSD's promise; faster than HDD performance. Especially if you also use Acrobat and/or view or create PDF files - a properly sized and setup SSD is worth 10x it's $$$ in time saved and offering a flow to your workloads that doesn't interfere with your (thinking) process...

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ing-programs-and-winrar.787721/#post-10193062

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ograms-and-winrar.787721/page-2#post-10202719

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ograms-and-winrar.787721/page-2#post-10203225

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/m2-or-2-5-ssd.785293/#post-10157604

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/nvme-ssds-not-all-theyre-cracked-up-to-be.788103/

 

My ProBook came with the Seagate 2TB, but also has a M.2 slot for a SSD where I added a 128GB Mushkin SSD. The Mushkin is way faster running Windows 10.

 

I'm unsure whether to inject my 2c - tilleroftheearth gives good advise but on this occasion my own experience doesn't 100% match up to it. I've found even the lowliest ~128GB SSD's, to be better than HDD, even in the scenarios given in the last post. In fact, so long as the drives remain with some free space, the performance is still better, even without overprovisioning - although if you can spare the space, overprovisioning is sensible, IMO.

I'll grant that my use-case for most of my systems may not be as intense as many other posters on here. I've also stuck with 2.5 SATA SSD drives so far - so perhaps this accounts for differing experiences. Systems are mainly business class, and the components all stay cool - this may be a factor. Also, I have a secondary HDD drive in most systems for archive/old/whydoIstillevenhavethis data, so the primary disks always retain a portion of free space. Faster OS start-up, shutdown and opening of programs and moving of work files is the primary benefit I seek from SSD and even mediocre SSD drives of 120GB provide a big improvement. With this said, the 120GB drives usually sit with about 20-30GB of free space, except on rare occurances when I'm working on a bigger projects and prefer the data to be on the SSD and not the secondary drive. I'm not sure I'd personally see much appreciable performance in my own use-case by jumping to >250GB SSD drives but I'll also readily grant that my own case isn't representative of many users.

 

'tillerofheeart' has some ok advice, but reality, and other people's needs are different when contrasted to the fact you need to spend money (and sometimes quite a lot of it) to acquire technology and even continue using it, not to mention that people's usage habits are different than his.

I made due with a 128GB SSD drive in my 9 years old laptop (though I only upgraded to that SSD back in 2015). It was the best thing I could do to gain noticeable improvements in opening software, working with it, etc. Much better than a HDD. I always made sure I had about 30GB or more of empty space available as I don't like filling drives to the full anyway.

I just got a new Asus laptop with all AMD hardware and it came with 256GB M.2. SSD, and 1 TB HDD (5400 RPM).
Asus could have done better and installed a 1TB 7200 RPM hdd instead of that 5400 rpm, but oh well.

I gained double amount of space on the SSD compared to my older laptop.
All my programs (and some games) are on the SSD and I still have about 150 GB left.
Speeds are at least in line with what I experienced on my old laptop's SSD, but Windows and programs in general do open faster - which can probably be credited to the fact I also have much more powerful hardware in general (desktop grade actually) that contributes to data transfer, etc.

So, as far an upgrade to an SSD is concerned, get what you can afford, but know that if you get 128GB SSD, you will need to ration the space on it more than you would on say 256GB SSD or 512GB one.
As for speed differences between SSD types... outside of specific workloads you probably won't notice the difference (my software [3d studio Max, Photoshop, Blender, Adobe Premierre and After effects] largely uses my CPU and GPU when it comes to workload... so at least for me, even a regular higher capacity SSD works just fine when it comes to using such productivity software and some games).

An SSD upgrade of practically any kind (provided you don't go too low on the capacity - and 120GB could be considered a 'usable minimum' these days when you take into account the size of software - which again depends on the types of software a person uses) would definitely be a worthy upgrade over a HDD and should result in much better experience.

 

My personal ranking list when it comes to SSDs:
1. Reliability
2. Endurance
3. Features
4. Speed

Based on that, I usually end up buying Crucial/Micron drives because they are at an excellent price point, typically are feature rich (especially the Micron drives), and have excellent endurance. For most end users, a SATA III SSD will be fast enough (web browsing, word/spreadsheet/powerpoints, gaming). If you are doing some really heavy disk IO stuff, get a PCIe SSD.

Also keep in mind, pretty much everybody is going TLC these days, including Crucial/Micron. I think Samsung PRO drives are the last remaining MLC memory remaining in consumer drives, and they charge a nice premium for it too.... MLC will far outlive TLC drives.

 

Zaz, agreed. But your workload/workflows is an unknown to us at this time.

My point; if you have an small SSD that you'll fill up and your current budget doesn't allow you to consider something bigger - then the biggest HDD (short stroked) that you can get is preferred until you save the funds for the proper sized SSD.

Of course the small SSD will still be faster than the HDD. But depending on how you use the system; it may not remain faster than the HDD in the short/medium future. (And certainly not worth the extra $$$ to get even a puny SSD over a HDD's cost for the 'performance' you'll get out of it.

​

 

All the 'excepts' you list I've already accounted for. I'm not basing my recommendation on my highest/heaviest use case(s).

I'm taking what the poster has provided and tailored my response to match their own use case. As I've mentioned many times; I see many clients systems (and do work on them) - my 'experience' in total is far beyond what my workload/workflows are for my hardest working platforms.

The key words I see in your post below is 'you made due with a 128GB SSD'.

Chowda289 is still free to also 'make due' with a tiny SSD. My posts/links provide a more complete answer of what he/she can expect from the decisions they make for their storage subsystem.

I'm assuming 'making due' isn't what people come here for - but I understand if that is what reality makes them do for awhile...

 

There is very little research that backs up quality TLC drives as being unreliable, in consumer settings.

Stop bringing up that boogie man, without dragging the science along with it.

 

nobody said it wasn't reliable, but it certainly won't last as long in terms of write cycle endurance. that's science, not opinion

 

There is no such thing as a 'quality' TLC drive. They're all compromises... And now QLC is sneaking into supply chains...

Where they're unreliable is when you want the performance of an SSD - in any 'consumer' workload you may throw at it.

I consider copying ~50GB to ~100GB in 'consumer-land' usage. Yet; most TLC drives will fail miserably with only 1/4 or less written to them (by fail; HDD's are faster...).

See:
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme...nces-new-96-layer-nand-4-bit-qlc-breakthrough

See:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/samsung-flash-memory-summit,35180.html

See:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/10/10/samsung_qlc_flash/

Lol... 'death knell for HDD'... (link above)....

 

Like most people - Office, Internet and Media. I don't think I'm an outlier.

 

For daily tasks I'd say buy Crucial MX/BX series SSDs or Samsung 850 EVO with 256GB or more. If you use apps that can benefit from PCIe NVMe then 960 EVO sounds good.

 

Okay, so I went and reread everyone's posts. Again, I'd like to emphasize that I cannot afford anything higher than around 250GB. I'm really trying to watch the price. ( @Mobius 1 And considering the Samsung PRO seem to be $250+, I don't think I can do that.)

I still don't quite understand if a 2.5" SSD is better than a m.2 or NVMe. Again, I WILL be putting an OS on the drive.

I can afford to get a 2.5" SSD (250GB Samsung 850 EVO Series Solid State Drive 2.5" to be exact), if that is the better choice.

Since I'll be customizing my laptop, my options are either the 2.5" SSD that I just mentioned or the options in my first post. @Starlight5 @kosti @Raidriar I'd be interested in getting a Crucial SSD, but that's not offered as an option.

I plan on getting an i7-7700hq. (I can't afford the i7-7820hk.) I can only afford 8GB of RAM, right now...so that's why I plan to upgrade on Black Friday/during holiday sales. (I'm hoping to be able to afford to upgrade to 16GB RAM. Although 8GB will seem amazing to what I'm currently using -- 2GB.)

While I'd love to wait longer to make my purchase, I really can't wait anymore. (I've been putting it off since July.) I'm willing to wait until the beginning of November...but I don't think I'm going to hold out until Black Friday. It doesn't seem really worth it for Clevo/Sager, as far as I can tell from previous BF.

If I can buy an MLC SSD for around $100 and it's not difficult to install, then I'm willing to consider it.

@tilleroftheearth I appreciate your perspective and the example that you gave in your second post. However, with the upgrade, aren't there too many factors to justify your argument as sound? You say you upgraded a 128GB SSD to 512GB and 256GB SSD to 1TB SSD. I'd think, with such a large size difference, you should see a significant performance boost. Not only that...but you upgraded to MLC SSD. While I agree with you that MLC is better than TLC, it would've been interesting to know the performance difference if you had just upgraded to larger TLC SSD.

@bennni @Deks Thanks for your 2 cents. I can say that I usually try to keep a good 30GB+ free on my drives. In considering an SSD, I really am looking for the speed factor (faster OS start-up, opening of programs, etc.) I just don't want to limit myself too much...that's why I decided to go up to 250GB of space. I really don't see why I would need more than that. (The majority of my important files, photos, etc. will be on portable hard drives.) And as I've stated before, I can always upgrade later or buy an additional drive in the future...if I really need too.

 

Chowda,

Would you like to go with a larger drive? If so, why not try a SSHD. I have had one in my dell for the past 11 months and it's flawless. I get about 85 percent of the speed of my intel SSD, plus I have 2tb of storage.

For a speed comparison, have a look at this video. I was all set on getting a 256gb SSD for my dell and using the 500gb that came in it as storage in a portable drive. But...Since i am not gaming 24/7, I decided to get the SSHD....Best choice ever. I got a great speed increase in my system, and tons of storage. They are no more prone to failure than any other drive either. Mine has been used extensively every day since install, been to florida, all over eastern Canada and no issues! I am installing one in my wifes dell too now! I got the drive and 16 gb of ram for less than the SSD I was looking at.

 

I'd wait for a few more weeks if I were you. An 8th gen i7-8550U or better will give you better battery life and possibly even more performance for your specific workloads than a 7th gen platform will. If you really needed a system from July, you would have bought one by now. The newer platform with a 3rd party SSD + RAM is the way to maximize your purchasing $$$$. Buy the lowliest 4GB RAM and HDD option possible and keep saving for 16GB+ RAM and the biggest SSD you can. If you're currently running 2GB RAM - even the 4GB's will feel great (at least initially...).

Like I've said; an 2.5" SSD is superior to an M.2 drive because it won't throttle (itself or the rest of the components) when used for long running work/play sessions.

An SSD is as easy to install as a HDD. Take out the HDD, install the SSD and do a clean Windows 10 x64 Pro install on it from a USB stick.

What is 'offered' from the notebook vendor is not the only options you have. Buy the most powerful base system you can and do the RAM and SSD upgrades later.

You've only waited 3 months for a new platform. Don't rush yourself now and get an effectively obsolete system just because you've become impatient.

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ion-of-the-7920hq.809953/page-2#post-10619960

quoting Silvr6:

 

Here is another video showing the differences in speed between the three. My firecuda drive is faster than the momentus too...

 

I'd say that's a good compromise for laptop HDD but an SSD will have very low turnaround time when a task relies heavily on disk IO.
I'm thinking of SSHD to replace my HDD on my laptop, is it compatible?

 

@Chowda289 I'd advise you to get Crucial SSDs since performance/$ is too high comparing other SSDs.

 

If you have 2.5" HDD which obviously you do now that I think of it...YEP. your good to go. I paid 119.00 for my 2 tb Seagate firecuda. Worth every penny. It' speeds things up NICELY! NOT SSD fast...but WAY faster than a regular HDD.

 

I'll keep an eye on seagate firecuda or barracuda.

 

barracuda is only an HDD....the Firecuda is the SSHD.

 

I am a Barracuda user so I don't know new naming scheme.

 

I can't recommend any SSHD drives from my personal experience. Albeit I must admit it has been a few years since I've tried them last. But every single one from back then has died on me or my clients. What is worse? The HDD spins up no problem; it was the flash (or controller) that died. In that case; they were supposed to continue to be usable as 'just' an HDD. None were.

With that experience above and the fact that an optimally selected and setup SSD is far, far superior; I would avoid them no matter how 'affordable' they seem.

The only option I would consider today is using Optane Memory to speed up even a 2TB HDD - that makes much more economic sense when true performance and long term availability is required (as it should be...).

See:
https://www.amazon.com/Intel-Optane-Memory-Module-MEMPEK1W032GAXT/dp/B06XSXX3NS

See:
https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/8157/intel-optane-memory-32gb-2-nvme-ssd-review/index.html

Don't write off the Optane Memory option too quickly. If you really need more time to save for a proper sized SSD; this is the option that will give you that buffer needed to wait as long as you need. Without compromising performance like a HDD or an SSHD does.


See:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-optane-3d-xpoint-memory,5032-4.html

 

I am going by my personal experience too. My firecuda is ROCK SOLID....so...

 

For me, Seagates performs better than WD.
@tilleroftheearth My friends at work tell me every time that WD never failed for them and seagate always dies early within 2-3 months. For me, majority of WD drives failed but Seagate's going strong. I don't know how.

 

Same here. I used WD, Seagate, Hitachi etc. The worst were the deathstars....next were the WD and the most reliable were seagates!

 

How many optane ready LAPTOPS are there?

Vasudev, I think they are a great performance boost without a huge outlay of coin. I would give one a try for sure.

 

I'm sure there is a lot. Pick your favorite manufacturer and search.

For example; MSI

See:
https://www.msi.com/news/detail/nO7...X3p-tXjidN2MypSxxYPpHyrWNILgIHsyesyCxaYxrAQ~~

 

How the tides change.

It's the opposite for me; the now older Hitachi Travelstars are the best followed by WD and Seagate being the absolute least reliable and performance oriented drives I could use back then.

 

I've got a few failed HDDs across brands from my past two years of laptop refurbishing, Hitachi, WD, Seagate, Toshiba, Samsung... you name it, and no particular brand stands out in the failed HDD count.

Also, my E5510 originally came with a 250GB Seagate HDD, already logged considerable hours of runtime and yet it still runs strong in one of my other laptops. Its built-in shock protection system probably helps a bit though.

 

Now you all have gotten me curious, so I did some browsing on Amazon. I found this eMLC with 2D NAND for $99: https://www.amazon.com/ADATA-Extrem-Performance-Gaming-ASX930SS3-240GM-C/dp/B012ASDEM0/ref=sr_1_3?rps=1&ie=UTF8&qid=1509144831&sr=8-3&keywords=eMLC+ssd&refinements=p_85:2470955011,p_76:2661625011,p_n_condition-type:6461716011

I can't afford the 3D card. Isn't eMLC slightly better than MLC?

I also saw this 3D MLC Crucial drive for $87.99: https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-BX300-240GB-Internal-Solid/dp/B0742BC3DQ/ref=sr_1_75?s=pc&rps=1&ie=UTF8&qid=1509145749&sr=1-75&keywords=MLC+ssd&refinements=p_85:2470955011,p_76:2661625011,p_n_condition-type:6461716011,p_n_feature_three_browse-bin:14027458011

and Mushkin $85.99: https://www.amazon.com/Mushkin-REAC...e=UTF8&qid=1509298259&sr=1-4&keywords=MLC+ssd
I read that m.2 and PCIe get hot. Is this as much of an issue with the 2.5" SATA 3 SSD? If the m.2 or PCIe has a heatsink on it, would that make a huge difference? I ask because of this: https://www.amazon.com/XPG-GAMMIX-Gen3x4-Solid-ASX7000NPC-128GT-C/dp/B07419BQPQ/ref=sr_1_5?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1509298408&sr=1-5&keywords=NVME+MLC+ssd&th=1
Oh, I found a Samsung 850 Pro for $126: https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-850-PRO-2-5-Inch-MZ-7KE256BW/dp/B00LMXBOP4/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&rps=1&ie=UTF8&qid=1509299416&sr=1-1&keywords=samsung+pro&refinements=p_85:2470955011,p_76:1249137011

Although, it might make more sense to buy a Samsung 960 Pro on BF. While I'd like to wait until Intel's 8th gen come out, I can't wait until 2018 (especially when we don't know exactly when they will be released in 2018)...and even then, I'd end up wanting to wait longer just to see what the reviews have to say.

 

Seagate has been the leader in 2.5" drive capacity for a long time - and still is. If one wants the largest laptop/portable drive, there simply aren't any alternatives.

 

Capacity doesn't mean too much without reliability factored in.

See:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/backblaze-hdd-report-enterprise-premium,35825.html


Yeah; I understand how backblaze calculates their 'scores'; but just look at that ~3% to ~31% annualized failure rates for those 4TB Seagates...

That is the type of experience I've had with Seagate/Maxtors (which Seagate purchased, of course)...

 

For me, WD drives had experienced more failures than Seagate.

 

Same here Vasudev. I have built over 200 computers starting off using WD. They failed ALOT. I switched to Seagate for my builds and upgrades and have had only one single external drive fail. NONE of my internal drives crapped the bucket. I tried a few hitachi drives, again, had 3 out of 7 go bad. Back to Seagate. I am staying put with them now. I have had one intel 320 120gb SSD and an OCZ 120gb SSD. both have been very reliable.

 

Even Hitachi especially HGST was better performing for a little premium on laptop HDD, I might switch to new SSHD from Seagate if prices are little low.

 

2 x 250GB Samsung Evo SSD, a bit faster than Toshiba but expensive, all nothing but hype.

1 x 250GB Toshiba SSD, works fine but it runs hot (53C - 57C), I even put a thermal pads above it but no effect.

8 x 1TB Hitachi/HGST HDD died for a span of 1 and a half year or 2 years if I'm lucky + 1TB failing atm. I'm not going to buy this brand again. No wonder they are the cheapest branded HDD.

3 x 500GB WD Blue HDD currently dying, I'm not going to touch those until I find some external storage. It just failed for no reason, not going to buy from this brand again.

2 x 1TB HDD Seagate Baracuda, still going strong for 3 years now. I'm surprised since I used it mainly for my productivity and gaming.

1 x 2TB SSHD Seagate Firecuda, 1 year and a half now, for gaming only. Still in excellent condition.

Note: 2 - 3 of the Hitachi/HGST HDD got accidentally dropped but 5 or 6 died for no reason. WD HDD's also failing for no reaso and no warning, I must be doing something wrong? I don't think so. :/

You can call me Samsung/Seagate fan boy but I'll be laughing because those brands are easy to find than others in a local mall where I live. Surprisingly they last very long.

 

I have Samsung Evos in pretty much everything, and I love them. Came from working RMA, they were by far the least problematic drive in terms of systems returned for repair due to drive issues.

 

SATA or PCIe drives?

 

@kojack I've heard mixed things about SSHD, but I'll keep it in mind. I'd really like to just get an SSD, though.

@Vasudev Crucial is a brand I would consider. I've read a lot of positive reviews for them. They are one of the options I listed in my previous post.

Has anyone tried an ADATA drive?

I noticed more comments mentioning Samsung EVO rather than Samsung PRO. Aren't PROs supposed to be the better drives? I know they are more expensive... I guess I'm trying to understand if it makes more sense to buy an 850 PRO or a 960 EVO. Wait a minute...the 960 only come as m.2 SSD? I can't get it as a 2.5" SSD? But 850 come in 2.5"?

Oh, and do 2.5" SSD run as hot as the m.2 SSD?

On a side note, I read (elsewhere) that apps and games don't really load faster with m.2 SSD...so I think you've convinced me that it's better to get a 2.5" SSD...especially if I'm putting an OS on it. As I understand it...m.2 were made to give an SSD option to laptops that had limited space and needed a physically smaller option; if you're laptop can have a 2.5" SSD, put that in. (Have I got it? Yay or nay?)

 

No, they don't.

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/need-ssd-opinions.810060/#post-10620266

Even if they do; they're usually placed further than a M/B mounted M.2 SSD is and comparatively well away from other heat generating and throttle sensitive components like the cpu/gpu too.

The only reason to chose an M.2 is if you want bragging rights for bm 'scores' that last for mere seconds - or; you're putting it into a system where you can direct large airflow over it continuously (like on a DT).

If you actually want to use your new platform as fully as possible; an 2.5" SSD is the way to go.

And the 1TB or 2TB 850 Pro is highly preferred over almost any capacity EVO in almost any real world workflow (can't remember your workflow right now...).