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    Samsung 860 vs crucial mx500?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by dasachmo, Jun 18, 2018.

  1. dasachmo

    dasachmo Notebook Consultant

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    Hi everyone.
    I've got a nvme pcie boot drive but looking to expand for storage. (250gb)

    For my budget there's 3 options.
    Samsung 860
    Crucial mx500
    Or...
    I could get the older 2016/7 western digital black nvme drive but that's slightly over budget.

    My questions are
    1. Which is best? Both max out at 550/560 read /write because of the sata port. But which is a better brand. I think for storage this should be fine.

    And most importantly...
    2. What's the difference between 3d nand tlc (crucial) and mlc (Samsung).
    I read the actual physical differences but in real world... The crucial is newer and newer tech but aren't Samsung meant to be the best?
     
  2. senso

    senso Notebook Deity

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    As you said, both can saturate the SATA interface, get the one with the best price/GB ratio..

    I'm running MX200, BX300 and MX300 Crucial SSD's, no problem with them, and as said, they all max SATA interfaces, and they are usually cheaper than Samsungs and a bit bigger, why pay 100€ for a 240GB SSD, when I can(could) pay 75€ for a 275GB one?

    At most, you can use the larger warranty on the Samsungs as a reason to justify the price, but Crucial also offers 3 years warranty, so..

    But, you talk about NVMe and then talk about SATA port. Explain.
     
  3. dasachmo

    dasachmo Notebook Consultant

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    Aah sorry about the confusion! My nomenclature isn't great.
    The Samsung and crucial ones use the sata port and yes... Theyre limited. Both have a 5 year warranty.
    I guess the main difference is mlc vs 3d nand tlc
    ... And which is more reliable / better.
    The western digital black one is a m.2 nvme pcie.
    It's £18 more and has a read write of 2000/7-800mb/s.

    But not sure it's worth it.
     
  4. senso

    senso Notebook Deity

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    Do you have a spare m.2 port with NVMe support?

    I would preffer having 500GB of SATA SSD than having 250GB of NVMe SSD if you already have an NVMe SSD as your boot drive.

    Unless you are running production DB's on your SSD, it will outlast you hardware, be it Samsung or Crucial.
     
  5. dasachmo

    dasachmo Notebook Consultant

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    Yup. Have a spare m.2
    Its a alienware laptop (15r4) and only one slot used for a 256gb ssd boot.
    I guess I only need another 250 for downloading (mainly high res images for work and some spreadsheets... Approx 1-2gb a day) and games.
    I could go for 500gb but rather keep the cost low as I'm likely to only use about 60-100gb on that drive as storage.
    With over provisioning that should be fine right?
     
  6. WhatsThePoint

    WhatsThePoint Notebook Virtuoso

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    On a Father's Day special at newegg I bought a 1TB Samsung 860EVO to use as a storage drive but after seeing the benchmark read scores I may change it's duty to a boot drive.

    I don't have any data on it yet
     

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