Which 500gb NVME M2 SSD would you recommend?

alpharalpha

alpharalpha

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Will be first time using an SSD, looking at staying under $60 or so. Currently considering Samsung 970 EVO Plus or 980--though part of me would like to just get a MX500 though I know that's not practical. Any recommendations on a reliable SSD in my price range. The mixed reviews on failure rates has me a bit nervous so durability is my main concern; I don't do anything out of the ordinary with my pc; just hoping an SSD will help web browsing as even with new build: i3-10100,16gb ram and asus rog strix b460 mobo (40mb internet wifi) still getting some lag with page loads, while scrolling down etc. I went with the seagate barracuda 2tb so thinking it's the weak link here.
 
Little doubt that HDD is holding back your system.

At this point I think it makes little sense to buy a SATA SSD in lieu of a NVMe unit. A good PCIe3 SSD will cost little if any more. The Samsung 970 Evo+ or SK Hynix Gold P31 are fine choices. I'm a little cold on the Samsung 980 as it's DRAM-less.

Don't read too much into failure reports. SSDs are generally much more reliable that HDDs ever were.
 
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If you are moving from a HDD to a first time SSD, there is a 99% chance you won't be able to tell a difference between most SSD models regardless of interface.

My advice is two-fold. One is to avoid QLC based drives if possible, and the other is to buy the biggest SSD you can, prioritizing capacity over performance and brand. Your cheap 500GB SSDs are $45 while your 1TB drives start around $80.
 
970 EVO plus would be a good decision. If durability and reliability are paramount my recommendation has always been Intel. Intel S series SATA SSDs are bullet proof in my experience. I have many Intel S3610 480GB - 1.6 TB drives them in RAID 10 and RAID 50 arrays running 24/7/365 enterprise database workloads. Still perform like new. *knock on wood* never had one fail. Can find them on the used market in your price range on occasion.
 
sinisterDei said:
If you are moving from a HDD to a first time SSD, there is a 99% chance you won't be able to tell a difference between most SSD models regardless of interface.

My advice is two-fold. One is to avoid QLC based drives if possible, and the other is to buy the biggest SSD you can, prioritizing capacity over performance and brand. Your cheap 500GB SSDs are $45 while your 1TB drives start around $80.
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I was wondering about that, I see Crucial P2 & WDSN550 for lower price in 1tb, but still more than a Samsung 980/970EVO+ in 500gb.

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I have used Inland Professional drives and been very happy. Also like Crucial P5 Plus
 
Stay with Samsung, or in lieu of that, Crucial.

Don't buy a Sabrent. It died 37 days after installation in a low use (D: drive, for games, and download folder) situation. Was on sale, cheaper than the Samsung... sigh. Didn't really lose anything but time, but there it is.
Refunded and replaced with a 970 EVO.
 
TheCur said:
Don't buy a Sabrent. It died 37 days after installation in a low use (D: drive, for games, and download folder) situation. Was on sale, cheaper than the Samsung... sigh. Didn't really lose anything but time, but there it is.
Refunded and replaced with a 970 EVO.
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Anecdotal evidence is of little value when making buying decisions. You need to know the actual statistics, which you won't get.

I have 3 Sabrent's working just fine. The only SSD that I've had die on me that wasn't my own fault was a Samsung.

Any drive from any brand can die. That's why you back up the data you care about.
 
pitingres said:
I have 3 Sabrent's working just fine. The only SSD that I've had die on me that wasn't my own fault was a Samsung.
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Same with my Dad. He's lost a couple SSDs, and I think they were both Samsung. He hasn't lost one in a while though, I think the last one was maybe 5 years ago. The second one was the replacement for the first one that died. They died young too, only a year or two old. IDK why. He doesn't beat them or do anything I/O heavy really. I've never had an SSD die on me and I've been running them since 2008 and I beat them a lot harder than dad. I'm a software engineer in the financial trading business. Dad's retired. This was all a few years ago and the dead ones were SATA 2.5" drives. I have Samsung SATA SSDs from around that time that are still going strong... so IDK why they died on dad. One of them was a Christmas present. I forget when but I'm thinking 2015 or so. I have an identical one. I bought one, liked it, got dad one for Christmas. His died years ago. Mine is ~7-8 years old and still going in the machine I'm typing this on. In other words it's pretty damned random, Samsung makes good SSDs, and you shouldn't worry about it too much beyond doing the usual backups because any drive can suffer surprise random death. I have had remarkably good luck with storage devices. Like none breaking except for a used SCSI drive I bought back in like 2005 or so and a PATA drive from the late '90s dropping dead in the mid 2000s. I even had a 10 drive Fibre channel array built out of used drives from eBay and never had a failure in the 2-3 years I was running it. But I still don't trust them and back up my important shit. You should too.
 
zandor said:
He's lost a couple SSDs, and I think they were both Samsung.
Click to expand...
As someone who works in the IT industry, does IT as a hobby, and as a second job/hobby hybrid, I feel pretty confident that I've installed, used, recommended, or otherwise interacted with more SSDs than some 99% of the population. I also feel pretty confident that almost anyone who works with SSDs (or any computer component really) at that quantity/scale will tell you that *any* of them can die. I've had 20+ Samsung enterprise-class SSDs die in the last 5-6 years or so alone, along with a handful of Intel, Crucial, Kingston, WD, and several other brand drives that I can't remember both in the enterprise and consumer-grade space. Brand reliability is, in my personal experience, a myth; individual drives are reliable, and the middle of the bathtub curve is your friend for the most part.
 
My anecdotal after rolling out hundreds of SATA and NVMe drives is...cheap Kingston drives last forever and expensive ones tend to fail more or wear. I also ride horses and SSDs seem to follow horse breeds. You can buy a trusty cheap old cob that will plod along forever or you can buy a fine highly strung thoroughbred and have it break a leg the next day. Sad but boy it was fast the day before...

I was going to buy a NAS/Enterprise/Optane NVMe for my Framework laptop but sourcing them was tough currently. Toughness over speed. Anything above 500MBps is just nice to have IMO.
 
Any of these except for the T-Force, that is the only SSD that has failed. My dad bought it without asking me and lasted less than a year.

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