SSD Thread (Benchmarks, Brands, News, and Advice)

@Papusan The price difference is $55, but we're already pushing his budget. We're also getting a 500GB 2.5" Samsung 860 EVO.

@tilleroftheearth @Aivxtla Good to know. That was my concern...so it seems it's better to go with Samsung. Are there any lesser known brands with pretty great drives? Might be an option for a larger drive.

Edit: Sorry, I missed the Corsair comment.

 

Corsair MP510 is a good drive and pretty cheap, uses a Phison E12 controller and Toshiba NAND. No issues with power state switching and good performance. It’s like $200-250 for 2TB on Amazon (~$200 when on sale occasionally) and like $100-125 for 1 TB, $64 for 512 GB there are 128/256 versions as well. The HP EX950 is ok but it uses a Silicon Motion controller which is kinda weak, but for the average user it’s should also be fine.

 

Depending on the price, the 1TB Intel 660P (or 2TB! ), may be the best option for very good performance with very low power draw.

 

And the Sabrent Rocket 1TB which I talked about in recent posts, also based on Phison E12 controller and Toshiba NAND - I've got that one and performance is good, haven't measured any power draw with it though, it's in a desktop.

 

HP Warns That Some SSD Drives Will Fail at 32,768 Hours of Use bleepingcomputer.com | Now 26, 2019
HP released firmware updates for a number of its Serial-Attached SCSI solid-state drives to prevent their failure at exactly 32,768 hours of operation time.

According to the advisory, the failure is unavoidable unless the new firmware is installed, and SSDs installed at the same time are likely to fail "nearly simultaneously."

 

Fortunately those level of users will be aware of such potential issues and be able to service their hardware as part of their normal maintenance.

As part of most storage frames are the tray and individual drive firmware updates, and those all get rolled up into regular storage farm updates run on a regular basis.

It's a silly error, and I hope no one slips through the cracks - don't forget to keep running backups just in case - but it's bound to catch someone somewhere due to company changes or putting hardware offline due to project transitions - coming back to life later in the secondary market - that's where it could bite many - once the drives are taken out of the normal maintenance cycle.

Also, this doesn't really affect consumers directly - no laptops I know of have SAS drives, and only special server / workstation motherboards will support them OOTB.

Thanks for sharing the news.

Also, don't try to retrofit SAS 2.5" drives into laptops, SAS drives use 12v and laptops don't provide 12v, only 3.3v and 5v.

 

Some NVMe drivers expose themselves as SCSI protocol. Next, we might need FC SAN on laptops to get more performance out of the RAID drives.

 

Amazon UK, Deal of the Day, Has the "Samsung 860 EVO 1 TB SATA 2.5" Internal SSD " for £94.99 in the UK, Amazon`s in other countries may have the same deal.

John.

 

I know some of you have the Sabrent Rocket 1TB NVMe drive, well there was a Sabrent Control Panel utility launched just this month:
https://www.sabrent.com/download/rocket-control-panel/
Allows firmware upgrades, etc. It tripped the Virus warning on my Avira, but Malwarebytes didn't find anything on it...I added it to the ignore list of Avira but found that Avira needs to be disabled in order to run it sucessfully, even if on the ignore list. You might be able to use this Sabrent Control Panel to upgrade to the latest ECFM12.3 firmware. I upgraded using an unofficial tool a few months ago, ECFM12.3 provides more accurate temperature reporting I noticed, not really any performance difference that I can see.

 

I have the 4TB version - it's as fast or faster than the Samsung 970 Pro 1 TB...

Thanks for advising about the control panel - I'll try to download it.

 

Crucial pulls MX500 SSD firmwares from website due to issues guru3d.com |Today

If you are the owner of an MX500 SSD from Crucial, be aware and don't update your firmware just yet if you grabbed the latest build and did not flash just yet.

Never be a guinea pig!

 

Wanted to install it but forgot. Release notes suggested it's recommend for all system config.

 

So my main NVME (stock SAMSUNG MZVLB1T0HBLR-000H1) is overheating during gaming causing crashes, smart error and no bootable drive error. Goes back to normal after a reboot. It doesn't look like it throttles at all when it should and just crashes.

First time I saw this behavior was when I added the second NVME (Samsung 981a to match) so I removed the useless stock aluminum heat shield and replaced it with individual copper ones with gelid pads and it drastically lowered temps.

I recently updated to F33 BIOS and just started playing SW Squadrons and this started happening again. Anyone with this problem? Any ideas?

 

Could you run ATTO Disk Benchmark and Hwinfo simultaneous? Then post pict of the results included temp for ssd's. Run it two times in a row. The graph should be clean and nice if you don't see throttling or any other problems.

Same as the pict below


You could also take a screenshoot when you have passed 3/4 into the benchmark.

 

Updated to latest NVidia 456.71 driver and Samsung storage controller 3.3 driver

Ran ATTO 4x then played a few minutes SW Squadrons

 

I don't know if it matters but the drives have Bitlocker ON

There's a firmware update available from Lenovo for the same model MZVLB1T0HBLR-(000L7 in place of 000H1 for Lenovo instead of HP I guess)
Is there a way to apply it to my drives? Lenovo's update utility won't allow me to but I saw in the notes that there's a driver for this model of Samsung drive...

 

Could you also check PCH temp in Hwinfo while you run the ssd benchmarks? Some notebooks run into stability problems if the ssd's and PCH chips run too hot. Often around 90C


Your ssd's will benefit from an ssd copper heatsink (check amazon/ebay etc). Your ssd's run damn hot. I expect you may see the same also for the PCH chips.

Edit. Another way to test is with forced max fans. Check it out to see if you run into same problems. Max fans is meant too cool more than the Cpu and Gpu.

 

I run max fans, and already have 4mm tall finned copper/graphene heat sinks with gelid thermal pads (tallest that would fit in the laptop).

I cant seem to find any PCH reading in my HWinfo, there's HP 8603 (Intel PCH) but has no values.

This is what happens after not even 1 hr game time, game freezes, laptop unresponsive, blue screen, auto restart and this. When going to diagnostics both NVMe drives are over 80C but pass all tests, 0% wear, restart and all is fine.

 

Have you tried running it with the laptop base cover removed, to cool down the NVMe drives, to confirm if it is indeed a temperature related problem? (assuming the NVMe drives can run cooler with the base cover removed).

 

I tried on a laptop cooler pad and a fan blowing on it while gaming, it lasted much longer at better temps and slowly crept to 80-81C but didn't crash

 

any NVMe recommendations other than Samsung PM981a that run cooler or at least protect themselves better from heat preventing crashes??

would going to a single 2TB instead of 2x 1TB be better?

 

The Sabrent Rocket should be slightly cooler and the Sk Hynix P31 (limited to 1TB) is going to be even cooler. I have Samsung 960 PRO and 970 PRO drives and never had them get so hot in my laptops even under sustained transfers to the point of crashing. If I recall the PM981 is essentially an OEM version of the 970 EVO. Downside to the OEM version is your'e dependent on the laptop manufacture for firmware.

If heat is really the issue, a single drive may be better in your case rather than having two hot controllers (Especially in RAID).

Also one more thing to try, have you tried running without any Samsung nVME drivers, and just using default MS nvstore drivers? I ask because Samsung has had issues with their drivers in the past from random crashes to crashes in specific situations like Hyper-V (This one is even on their FAQ's lol). Personally I run without extra fluff like that and keep it simple to avoid issues. Samsung drivers in my experience never really gave any really noticeable benefits in my testing.

 

OK so I uninstalled the Samsung drivers and they are definitely throttling now! I ran ATTO while playing SW Squadrons to try to crash it, they still get toasty but haven't crashed... Will keep testing. Thanks!

 

Hello, I plan to upgrade the M.2 nvme on my dell xps 15 9560. I know there are also different sizes to the M.2 nvme ssd. What size should I specifically use for the laptop form factor?

 

2280 form factor.

 

So after reading about them I ordered a pair of 1TB Sk Hynix P31's to replace the 2 Samsungs PM981a. Hopeful to see better temps at similar performance.

 

I suppose you could swap out your NVMe's for SATA SSD's that don't get as hot & won't crash - there's not really a tangible difference when it comes to gaming, so that might be one way of getting round your problem.

 

well, my laptop has 2 NVMe and 1 SATAIII. WIndows is installed in the factory NVMe, the games are in the other NVMe. I could move all the games to the SATA but the one that overheats faster usually is the Windows NVMe, not the games one. I'm going to swap the PM981a's for Sk Hynix P31's and see how they behave. If what I've been reading is true they should solve my heat issues.

 

Looks like SK Hynix is buying Intel's NAND Flash business and IPs for $9 Billion. Only the Optane (which was co-developed with Micron) production will be maintained by Intel.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/SK-Hynix-buys-Intel-s-NAND-business-for-US-9-billion.498665.0.html

 

$7B 'now' and $2B in 5 years. I could swing that. Lol...

 

So I got 2x 1TB SK Hynix Gold P31 NVMe drives, cloned the PM981a's and now these stay in the low 70's C even under heavy use with the stock heat shield! Great drives!
I even went back to the stock thin aluminum heat shield from the 2x heavy copper ones I had on the Samsungs. No more errors or crashes so far.

 

What about SK Hynix P611, given that P31 has limited availability? I want a single-sided m.2 2280 1TB or more NVME SSD that runs as cool as possible. It will get heavy loads. My priorities are reliability, endurance, and low temps; don't care about speed, would gladly choose a SATA drive - but the machine only has NVME wired.

 

As I said before... A Golden award won't make the ssd fly. In all ways. Not all manufacurers is thrustworthy. And I always prefer to know what I pay for. I know many of you don't put all the eggs on the bench numbers but its valuable knowing what you'll get

"Adata is also swapping in different NAND flash in order to fulfill demand, but changing the flash on a shipping SSD has become a more common practice in the recent past. However, these changes also haven’t been disclosed to the public, meaning customers don’t know that they are buying potentially slower versions of the originally-shipping models that were sent to reviewers"

Adata Switches to Slower Controller, NAND on SX8200 Pro tomshardware.com

 

NEWS ANALYSIS
Why you may not be getting the SSD you paid for pcworld.com

SSD vendors may change a product during its lifespan, not always for the better.'

The SSD you’ve bought may not be exactly the SSD you think it is. That’s because of a common vendor practice of swapping out internal parts due to supply, pricing pressure, or other reasons.

Not-So-Solid State: SSD Makers Swap Parts Without Telling Us tomshardware.com |18 days ago

Buying SSD storage can be an uncalculated risk....
The slower performance is not just disappointing to see, but because of the pairing and firmware configurations, the newer revisions would not have likely made it onto our list of the best SSDs. Or if they landed there, they wouldn't have remained as long as the original model did. And for those buying the drive now based on our original review, there's no real way of knowing whether you're buying version one, v2, or v3.

And with other companies starting to pull similar tricks, it's tough to say for sure exactly what you're getting at all -- unless you opt for a company like Samsung, which makes its own flash and controllers, so doesn't have the same worries about component supply.

Yeah, see or re-read my post above regarding Golden award won't make the ssd fly

 

Thank you, brother @Papusan for bringing this to my attention again!

Yeah, saw this a couple of weeks ago. This is why amazon (etc.) reviews, BM's and all that crap means squat.

Buy, test, compare (against what you have now), keep/return depending on the $$$$ vs. the increased, real-world performance gains, if any.

Doing anything else is letting the marketing people brainwash you willingly.

 

This happened with the Sabrent Rocket NVMe 3.0, it came out and had a certain amount of DRAM and then they went and halved it, lol! I managed to get the 1GB DRAM version of the 1TB Sabrent Rocket, but now they've halved the DRAM to 512MB...I bought mine not long after the release during some kinda sale.

 

CRUCIAL MX500 SSD UPDATE 2 Firmware update suspended due to problem
Owners of the Crucial MX500 SSD series are currently unable to update the drive's firmware.

Update 12/21/2020 5:52 p.m.
It took a long time, but in the meantime Crucial has released a version of the Storage Executive software that enables the firmware upgrade from version M3CR032 to M3CR033. The new version of the tool is also available in the ComputerBase download archive and is linked after the message. Unfortunately, the editors cannot currently check whether updates from version 022 to version 023 are possible again.

 

Ahh, Crucial. What have you done? (Sleeping with Samsung again, huh? While visions of the 840 Pro debacles danced in your heads.)?

 

Intel Kills Off All Optane-Only SSDs for Consumers, No Replacements Planned TOMSHARDWARE.COM

In a surprising move with little fanfare, Intel announced that it is discontinuing all of its Optane-only SSDs for the consumer market. Surprisingly, the company says those drives aren't going to see Optane-only replacements, apparently marking the end of its enthusiast-geared Optane SSDs for desktop PCs.

Intel discontinued the Optane Memory M10, 800P, 900P, and 905P SSDs, representing the entirety of its Optane-only family for desktop PCs. Intel's 900P and 905P discontinuation notice states:

"Intel will not provide a new large capacity Optane Memory SSD as a transition product for the client market segment. Intel will focus on the new Optane Memory H20 with Solid State Storage for the client market segment."

Not what @ole!!! hoped for.

 

Although this change in direction might mean the same high performance drives (as pure Optane) for consumer workloads whilst being cheaper I'm thinking? So that would be good, I guess they'd use the Optane part of the drive as a smartcache of sorts.

 

Update 01/17/2021 5:00pm PT: Intel's discontinuation notices are quite clear that the company will no longer offer Optane-only drives for desktop PCs, but we followed up for further clarity. Intel responded to our question, 'Does that mean Intel has effectively ended its Optane-only product lines for consumers?'


"Your statement is technically correct, but consumers do benefit from Optane based-solutions like the Intel Optane Memory H20, since it is for mobile consumer." - Intel representative.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/i...ly-ssds-for-consumers-no-replacements-planned

Yeah, real Optane disks is gone for the consumers. Optane Memory H20 is for Jokebooks.

And the sad part. Intel never released a real Optane disk for nootebooks. Would be nice as a OS disk. But at least it will now be equal for both desktop and notebook owners

 

If anyone is thinking about the Sabrent rocket 4 Plus, get one it works great on a PCIe 4.0 System

 

i cant really stand TLC or QLC unless its for storage, actually even QLC has a huge problem in sustained write, even samsung seem to have issue trying to saturate SATA bandwidth lmao.

870 QVO or w/e its called writes at 500MB/s till the cache fills up then down to 100MB/s.. horrid!

p5800x too bad dont come in m.2 form just like the 905p did.

 

Sabent's QLC NVME drives work quite well for being QLC

 

quite well for general use i guess, for me not at all. crippled speed in a long sequential write is unacceptable for me as a storage enthusiast. they will need to bring in more channel controller which sabrient wont because it cost a lot more than a cheaper controller.

assuming Sean from Tomshardware already tested temp and its not throttling due to temp, then looking at the below graph, shows a 200MB/s write, that is literally worse than many sata drive out there. guess each to their own usage, QLC will be for storage for me so thats a no go.

 

looks like no more notebook for me! unless micron decides to release m.2 xpoint modules, its going to be a free market for them if they wish to step in, further more getting it work with AMD system will be another plus for micron.

theres still the p5800x enterprise solution but hella expensive, which is no different from 4800x vs 900p but looks like people are buying 900p instead of the enterprise solution so they decided to kill off consumer section all together. greed at its best!

edit: just checked 4800x and 4801x product brief and it shows they had m.2 375GB version, which is basically just 905p. so there still hope for p5800x to have m.2 form factor at 110m length that will fit into me laptop just fine!

 

Samsung Pro disk is still the way to go if you want go with Notebooks. But you wont get the huge drives as the Rocket drives. Oh'well. You can put in more than one of them as long you don't buy the thin and small Jokebooks. They haven't even proper cooling for the fastest ssd's for prolonged workflow.

 

Just wondering if you actually use NVME and Sata SSD's because NONE of the Sata SSD's I have in the real world come anywhere close to transferring data faster than my NVME drives, my 2TB QLC drive included.






Yes these are benchmarks but there isn't 1 area the QLC sabrent drive is falling behind in.



i've also never had my Sata SSD's transfer above 350MB/s All my NVME drives do

 

that is because you are using the wrong software to test the drive. your NVMe SSD that uses TLC or QLC flash have caching, meaning under a certain size all the write performance will show the cache speed, not the actual flash.

this is why you should use HD tune and not CDM to run this specific tests because crystal disk mark will only show peak speed. if you have two of these drives, try copy over 100GB for large file size (movies, sequential and incompressible files) and you will see the speed drop down just like the review image I linked (assuming your OS does not cache the entire thing into memory.)

edit: heres another drive that is also another model of sabrient rocket. this one is a bit better at 500 MB/s vs the other one at 200 MB/s https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/6eGKVLu7g7b2EfTmXHFsT3-1280-80.png

 

I don't think the majority of users transfer 100GB files day in and day out. QLC is fine for most users out there. If you're transferring TBs of data every day, you are a niche user and you probably need an MLC drive...