Hardware & Technical SSD

[Deleted member 110222]

Going to buy my first SSD in a few days. Any brands I should avoid, or conversely, any brands that are better?

Like I say, my first one.

 

[Zieman]

Samsung EVO series is usually highly regarded.

 

[Dural]

What he said re Samsung Evo. They are usually the fastest by a little bit, not that you'd notice that really unless you're benchmarking.

FWIW we have Samsung, Kingston, Crucial and Sandisk at work and none of them have ever gone wrong.

 

[the100thmonkey]

Cheaper SSDs generally have significantly slower write speeds than read speeds, but as you're not running a high-performance database it won't make any difference.

Most upgrades are incremental; the one that really makes an appreciable difference is moving from HDDs to SSDs. You'll be amazed how you tolerated the boot times on HDDs.

 

[Chris Simon]

I have good experiences with Kingston.

Basically any SSD will be a significant upgrade from HDD performance.

Looking at the prices of those things, now, how old is your motherboard? If it's something newer, it may actually have a M.2 slot. In that case you could buy an M.2 SSD instead of normal SATA. The speeds of M.2 are incredible and with pre-christmas sales, you could be able to find one around the same price as an SATA SSD.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Looking at the prices of those things, now, how old is your motherboard? If it's something newer, it may actually have a M.2 slot. In that case you could buy an M.2 SSD instead of normal SATA. The speeds of M.2 are incredible and with pre-christmas sales, you could be able to find one around the same price as an SATA SSD.

You shouldn't conflate M.2 with NVMe. A SATA M.2 stick has no speed advantage. Cooling can also be a bit tricky since many mainboard manufacturers put the sockets right between CPU and graphics card, or even below the graphics cooler. So brain, much wow

Even with NVMe, the speed advantage is mostly on paper for what consumers usually do.

 

[Deleted member 110222]

What he said re Samsung Evo. They are usually the fastest by a little bit, not that you'd notice that really unless you're benchmarking.

FWIW we have Samsung, Kingston, Crucial and Sandisk at work and none of them have ever gone wrong.

Glad to hear it, especially on Kingston. I can get their 120GB model for just under £22, which strikes me as a good deal. That said, only another £12 and I can get the 240GB model.

Thoughts?

 

[Dural]

NVMe is def snappier, I moved the main OS from SATA SSD to NVMe and do notice a difference. It's not a good value upgrade though at all but had other reasons for wanting to add storage to allow me to shuffle things about and money isn't just going to spend itself.

 

[Deleted member 110222]

NVMe is def snappier, I moved the main OS from SATA SSD to NVMe and do notice a difference. It's not a good value upgrade though at all but had other reasons for wanting to add storage to allow me to shuffle things about and money isn't just going to spend itself.

Yeah I'm just going for 2.5" SATA III here.

As the smoking chimpanzee above said, the biggest difference is simply getting onto any SSD, right?

 

[Ashnak]

Glad to hear it, especially on Kingston. I can get their 120GB model for just under £22, which strikes me as a good deal. That said, only another £12 and I can get the 240GB model.

Thoughts?

What are you building - a computer for ants?

You will usually run your OS from the SSD. With Win 10, that would mean that also all programs and the default user directory would like very much to reside on the same drive, that is your SSD (yes, there are workarounds, which will make trouble on other ends, so I try to avoid them). I have a 500 GB SSD running at the moment, which is sufficient - the 240 wouldn't be, although I am storing all the data heavy stuff (music, images, other documents) on a secondary HDD.
I'm currently tempted to replace that with a 1TB M.2 - at 1 TB, the price difference between the 2.5" and the M.2 in the Samsung 860 EVO series is negligible, either is ~180 €.

 

[Dural]

Glad to hear it, especially on Kingston. I can get their 120GB model for just under £22, which strikes me as a good deal. That said, only another £12 and I can get the 240GB model.

Thoughts?

That's a good price. Double the storage for another £12, be rude not to unless you're certain you'll never use the extra space.

I wouldn't have any reservations about buying Kingston components.

 

[Asp Explorer]

Glad to hear it, especially on Kingston. I can get their 120GB model for just under £22, which strikes me as a good deal. That said, only another £12 and I can get the 240GB model.

Thoughts?

120Gb might be a bit tight for a OS/game drive - 240Gb gives you a bit more breathing room, but that will of course depend on your use patterns.

SSD's have improved greatly in recent years, even some el cheapo efforts can saturate a SATA 6 bus in the right circumstances, but that will make absolutely no difference for the overwhelming majority of users.

 

[CMDR The Lord Marshal]

I use a Crucial 1TB SSD myself and shortlisted it with EVO too, which has excellent specs. There was a 3rd cheaper SSD make I cannot now recall which was in the initial running, but when I read user reviews several complained it ran extremely hot and would shut down automatically, so I discounted it immediately.

I don't see it mentioned in any of the posts here, otherwise I would have remembered the make.

 

[Deleted member 110222]

What are you building - a computer for ants?

You will usually run your OS from the SSD. With Win 10, that would mean that also all programs and the default user directory would like very much to reside on the same drive, that is your SSD (yes, there are workarounds, which will make trouble on other ends, so I try to avoid them). I have a 500 GB SSD running at the moment, which is sufficient - the 240 wouldn't be, although I am storing all the data heavy stuff (music, images, other documents) on a secondary HDD.
I'm currently tempted to replace that with a 1GB M.2 - at 1 GB, the price difference between the 2.5" and the M.2 in the Samsung 860 EVO series is negligible, either is ~180 €.

It's a new part for my existing system, that currently only houses HDD.

TBH, I only really want an SSD for Windows. This has come up after my mate was round a week ago, and commented on my system speed against his, which is equipped with an SSD.

I was a total n00b when I built four years ago, hence only HDD.

Now that I've got my act together, and my finances in control, I think now is the time to rectify this oversight.

 

[Chris Simon]

It's a new part for my existing system, that currently only houses HDD.

TBH, I only really want an SSD for Windows. This has come up after my mate was round a week ago, and commented on my system speed against his, which is equipped with an SSD.

I was a total n00b when I built four years ago, hence only HDD.

Now that I've got my act together, and my finances in control, I think now is the time to rectify this oversight.

Having your games on SSD can have advantages, though. Especially in loading times. I have a 240GB SSD and a HDD for rubbish. I only usually have two or three games installed (I don't keep games I'm not actively playing on) and 240GB is just so so. Many games are nearing 100GB installation, these days.
So if you can squeeze in those 20-30 bucks, I'd very much recommend buying something bigger than 120.

I'm not saying that playing games from HDD is impossible, but I do like the snappiness of both system and games.

 

[Para Handy]

What are you building - a computer for ants?

.......

+++ ???? +++

+++ OUT OF CHEESE ERROR +++

+++ REDO FROM START +++




P.S. I fitted one of these 1TB NVMe M2 jobbies last month and can confirm that I have no cheese issues.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07CGJNLBB

 

[Ashnak]

+++ ???? +++

+++ OUT OF CHEESE ERROR +++

+++ REDO FROM START +++

 

[Deleted member 110222]

Having your games on SSD can have advantages, though. Especially in loading times. I have a 240GB SSD and a HDD for rubbish. I only usually have two or three games installed (I don't keep games I'm not actively playing on) and 240GB is just so so. Many games are nearing 100GB installation, these days.
So if you can squeeze in those 20-30 bucks, I'd very much recommend buying something bigger than 120.

I'm not saying that playing games from HDD is impossible, but I do like the snappiness of both system and games.

I can easy afford 240GB, hell I could go 480GB but that would mean another month for EDtracker.

The only game I really play on PC is ED. Do you think 240GB would be enough for Windows + ED?

 

[Chris Simon]

I can easy afford 240GB, hell I could go 480GB but that would mean another month for EDtracker.

The only game I really play on PC is ED. Do you think 240GB would be enough for Windows + ED?

Of course. Windows installation and adjacent stuff can fit into 10GB and unless you let it blow up, that'll be it. Mine is currently about 20GB. And ED is how much, 15GB? If you're not planning on Battlefield or something similarly ridiculous, 120GB is more than enough for that.

 

[Deleted member 110222]

Of course. Windows installation and adjacent stuff can fit into 10GB and unless you let it blow up, that'll be it. Mine is currently about 20GB. And ED is how much, 15GB? If you're not planning on Battlefield or something similarly ridiculous, 120GB is more than enough for that.

Nice, I'll go for 240GB then. It's well within reach and you can never have too much storage.

Thanks all, should be placing an order tomorrow.