Cheap, but reliable SSDs?

I want to upgrade some of my older machines with some new, high(er) capacity SSDs (SATA and nvme). I don’t need super high speeds, just something in the TB range in terms of storage.

Problem is, there’s so much garbage out there, I can’t really tell, which SSD is inexpensive and reliable and which is just utter garbage.

I thought about buying new, but last gen Samsung/WD SSDs.

Intenso and Fanxiang both seem to have been around for a few years, but reviews seem to be mixed.

kurcatovium, (edited )

We have hundreds of Samsung 860/870 EVOs in operation at my work now. All of them are working reliably in both windows and linux machines running 24/7 for years. Some more heavily used (local postgres db) are probably not in the best condition, but still working. Speaking of mostly 250 GB ones.

We used to buy OCZ brand. First OCZs (Vertex 3) were amazing, some of them are still in work for 10+ years. Vertex 460 still great, again, some are still in use. But ever since Toshiba came in and old models were replaced with Trion models, it went to shit. Some of those models in the same environment started to fail (and I mean critical failures, like no OS after reboot or missing data etc.) after less than a year. Some of them still run in less critical PCs with light use, but do I trust the brand? Hell no.

I just checked one 250 GB OCZ Vertex 3 running for ~10 years with Crystaldisk. It has over 220 TB written, 300 TB read, and crystaldisk still shows roughly 40% lifetime left. It ran in badly wented, really dusty Dell Optiplex with Windows XP.

Edit: Personally I also have good experience with Crucial/Micron too, but that’s just based on home use for storing music, documents, steam games and not much else.

stalfoss,

220TB in 10 years on a 250GB disk means you are doing the equivalent of rewriting the entire disk every 4 days or so for 10 years

kurcatovium,

Well, I remembered it wrong, it’s only 100 TB written. Still quite a lot IMO. Reads are 300 TB+ though.

i.ibb.co/YRxM11Z/ocz.png

kurcatovium,

Yep, it’s a lot, but it should be right. Hope I did not misread the numbers. It runs quite write-heavy warehouse and cash register store database, running 24/7. I don’t have the drive by me now, but I’ll try to remember and post pic on Monday when I’m back to work.

Boomkop3,

I’ve got a couple machines running Kingston A400’s well over their rated spec, those are decently fast and start at about 30 euros

norambna,
@norambna@programming.dev avatar

Kingston A400s and Crucial BXs have been very good as cheap SSDs in my experience.

beastlykings,

I used to like the a400, had a few of them in service, but a few years ago I tried another one and it was terrible. Just… Slow… like an HDD. I did some research and apparently they changed something with the nand somewhere along the line. Did a bait and switch. I don’t remember the details but it annoyed me.

I actually needed to buy a budget SSD just today, and I got a BX500. We’ll see how it goes. I know not to expect much from a drive without DRAM, but at least I know that going in.

norambna,
@norambna@programming.dev avatar

I was lucky then with the 4 A400 I’m still using. I also have 3 BX500 that have been very reliable.

ladicius,

You mean “cheap or reliable”. And even with the better brands it’s always the question not if but when a device will fail.

LunarLoony,
@LunarLoony@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

By that logic, nothing is reliable…? Because you could say that about literally anything

ladicius,

That’s in fact the point I was making, in this case about SSDs. Low prices don’t help with reliability as producers use the worse part of a production run for the cheaper brands (friend of mine works for a European based manufacturer of silicon chips, and he can tell stories about the finicky processes around that tiny stuff and how they try to make the most of it).

agressivelyPassive,

Honestly, that is the typical self-righteous stackoverflow response that is helping no one.

You know exactly what I mean, you know exactly how to treat the question, but you chose to play captain obvious of the second arrogance division and posted this.

Of course devices will fail at some point, what are you even trying to add here?

Kangy,

It’s exactly those kind of responses that makes me scared to ask questions when I need help in the Linux community…

It adds absolutely nothing to anything

Edit: I’ve got a WD Green and a Crucial NVMe drive in my current gaming rig and those have been solid

ladicius,

Don’t be scared. Just don’t fall for posts which try to get the impossible. It’s not that difficult.

ladicius,

I commented on the title of your post - nobody with some knowledge in that field (as you claim to have) would phrase that question that way.

Be offended, I can’t change that - but pointing out the obvious may help others to not make the mistake of hoping that there’s cheap good.

There isn’t.

agressivelyPassive,

Oh, I’m terribly sorry that I didn’t use the exact wording that the semantic overlord required for his incantations.

Let’s recap, you only read the title, which by definition does not contain all the information, you wrote an extremely arrogant and absolutely not helpful comment, if challenged you answer with even more arrogance, and your only defense is nitpicky semantics, which even if taken at face value, do not change the value of your comment at all.

You are not helping anyone. No, not even others.

ladicius,

Your reading comprehension is a bit off - I didn’t write that I only read the title, I wrote that I commented on the title.

The rest of your rant is up to you.

agressivelyPassive,

See, again, nitpicky details, even though we both know exactly what was meant.

possiblylinux127,

CALM DOWN!!!

Just kidding I don’t care I just though it would be fun to respond with a nonsensical comment

David_Eight,

If you live by a Micro Center, their house brand is pretty good.

agressivelyPassive,

The closest one is about a trip over the Atlantic away.

wreckedcarzz,
@wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world avatar

“honeyyyy, I figured out our vacation plans!”

possiblylinux127,

Seems reasonable. I know a guy with a fishing boat (that’s a joke, I live no where near the ocean)

just_another_person,

Just stick with known vendors, and find a good price. Make sure you have a solid warranty and backups, and you’ll be fine.

henfredemars, (edited )

Price to published write endurance might get you started, but I’m curious what answers you get because this is a difficult question IMHO. Actual reliability depends heavily on firmware which is a vendor-specific secret sauce.

agressivelyPassive,

It’s absolutely opaque to me, especially the non-big-name brands barely get any reliable reviews and especially given the silicon lottery, I can’t tell if every chip is like the reviewed ones.

If I just happen to get the bad module that craps out after 6 months, the positive reviews are not that helpful.

MalReynolds,
@MalReynolds@slrpnk.net avatar

If I just happen to get the bad module that craps out after 6 months, the positive reviews are not that helpful.

That’s what RAID(5) is for, if a drive craps out you just shrug and get a new one (or warranty), no data loss. Easy enough to cobble together with a PCIe card and 4ish smaller drives, faster too…

wreckedcarzz,
@wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world avatar

Well, except when a second drive dies 36 hours later and suddenly you are panicking…

MalReynolds,
@MalReynolds@slrpnk.net avatar

Yep, as can happen easily if you buy in a batch. Just like ransom (related, no?), non-sequential serial numbers please.

Jumuta,

pretty sure the sn570/550 used to be a pretty good deal

iirc they don’t sell it much anymore, maybe the sn580 is still a good deal?

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