Finding The Best Sub-$25 SSD (Adata, Inland, Lexar, Silicon Power)
Вставка
- Опубліковано 2 лип 2024
- *A Kingston A400 follow up is coming! Stay tuned! *
I use a lot of 128GB SSDs for small projects and budget builds. I've never put much thought into which ones I use though, so I decided to test some out to see what works best.
Link to results:
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
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Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:34 Specs
2:55 Disclaimer
4:21 Methodology
4:52 Crystal Disk Mark Results pt. 1
8:37 Windows Boot Times
9:22 Crystal Disk Mark Results pt. 2
11:47 Final Thoughts
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Music (in order):
"If You Want To" - Me
"Voodoo Groovez" - GARRISON ( / garrison-brown )
"The Butterfly Nose" - GARRISON
"Crenshaw Vibes" - GARRISON
"Hardware Haven Theme" - Me - Наука та технологія
This is kind of a previously unfulfilled niche of content, in depth and quality reviews and tips centered around actually low cost gear with good production quality. Many channels either pass on the cheap stuff altogether, or they have terrible video and audio, no script, and rarely give you any more information than what it says on the packaging.
Yeah I sort of agree. I really just wanted to start making the videos I wanted to see and I guess this is what happened. Thanks for the comment!
You might also like Oz Talks HW.
really cool insight, subbed immediately. such good vibes
Well done! Thoroughly informative as well as entertaining with a great video atmosphere overall. Its important to note that the existence of a DRAM cache (as in the Adata drive) will increase the longevity of the SSD, as it reduces the overall wear of the flash memory cells. I look forward to seeing this channel grow, keep up the great work!
Yes! Dang it I meant to say that in the video 🤦🏻♂️
Thanks for adding that as well as for the encouragement
I love Adata drives! So much bang for the buck, always my go to when trying to go cheap.
@@HardwareHaven I use a 128gb SSD because my PC is just being used to play media and for use as a general usage PC. Its a rebuilt i5 3470 from my older scrapped PC. I sold my i5 10400 PC during the GPU gouge wars...Because I gave up and got a Series S while waiting. My older PC is good enough as a streaming media/basic use PC and I don't need more than a 128gb SSD for this.
Like your honesty. I've been building PC systems for about 26 years now but I really don't know a lot of computer/tech engineering stuff except for the absolute basics - yup, I'm still a hobbyist. My first computer was an Amiga 500 and I learned how to modify it with LOTS of help from user groups, BBSs and IRC channels. UA-cam wasn't a thing yet back then. Later when I really wanted to build my own PC, I took a PC Repair correspondence course, read a beginner's guide on building PCs and made friends with a local computer repair shop owner who helped me pick my components for my first build and steer me towards resources I would never had thought of - dumpsters outside of other computer repair shops known to throw out older yet completely good parts such as slightly outdated monitors, cables, brackets etc. I bought ALL my major necessary parts new from my friend and he stood by me every step of the way till my PC was up and running. He was honest like you. He was a former electrical engineer and computer specialist for our local major university but was always patient and kind, humble to a fault. Now after 15 odd builds I'm still itching for my next, new build. Thanks for being here and providing good, thought provoking content.
You and your channel are absolutely going places, without a doubt, dude. Simply fantastic stuff!
Thanks!
Dude, fantastic work here brother. As someone who does video editing and has published content to youtube occasionally on another channel, I know the amount of work that went into this entire project. It shows your dedication to your passion and perseverance towards your craft. Keep up the work man! Looking forward to what comes next!
😭 It really does take forever, especially being an amateur editor haha!
Thanks so much for the encouragement
Thanks for the data, and a good video. I've used mainly Kingston small SSDs, and agree that they are great for making an older system feel more usable without much cost involved. I also use them as OS drives in home servers, where even after years of updates they use less an 10GB.
This is the first time one of your videos has shown up on my YT homepage. Nice production value and worthwhile content for the layman/casual user. Good luck with your channel.
Thanks!
I work on old computers all the time and I love these smaller capacity ssds due to the cost/performance and the fact that most of my clients don’t do many local tasks now a days as most applications just need a web browser.
Also great video! Love the editing style!
So true. And thanks!
I had a A400 brick after short use. There are methods to try to unbrick them, but I did not pursue it. It soured me on this part of the Kingston lineup. Thanks for the testing. Your method seemed reasonable to me.
I use a lot of smaller SSDs in project similar to what you described. Appreciated this vid. Thanks so much.
This guy is awesome cos he legit goes about his videos with the research process in mind very simple explanations leading up to a comprehensive analysis explanation. This guy is awesome please don't change. I like his process of explanation he doesn't talk too fast and that helps with comprehension
Keep the good work flowing dude
Glad you didn't include the PNY CS900, I've seen first hand major inconstant results in their SSDs. Cool video!
Awesome video, keep them coming!
SSDs are such cool technology. I love watching any videos on them.
Lower capacity SSDs are incredibly useful! I plop them into all kinds of systems.
And these SSDs are so friggin' cheap! My last pizza delivery cost more than an SSD, and the pizza didn't last anywhere near as long.
Good experiment, BTW. I've been using ADATA exclusively for my small capacity drive needs.
lmao you can't eat the ssd
SSD is for pc
and pizza for your stomach
no connection at all
ADATA or what ever it is just no more salt.
Yeah, but what kind of pizza?
Long live $7 bucks pizza
Can't believe someone compared a Sata SSD to a pizza😂 but wonderful David!
For Servers, Raspbery Pis and many other scenarios the cheap 120GB 2.5" SSDs are more than sufficient, I have roughly 8 of these SSDs laying around and in use. Great Review thanks a lot, was fun to watch.
Amazing content in this video and the channel overall. Also, a video like this but concerning RAM, GPUs and CPU would be amazing for people building it's own rigs.
These smaller SSDs definitely still have their place. I recently got one and use it as a boot drive for my TrueNAS box. I am also thinking of getting another to replace the old mechanical HD in an old laptop to give it some extra life. Since I only use that laptop for business related stuff like writing proposals, posting things online, etc. it works perfectly.
I use those smaller ssds for caching since i have primocache. For the same price as a 1tb ssd i could get a much higher capacity drive hdd with some extra cash. And i wouldn't be losing sleep over 3 seconds of slower load speed for gaming.
your editing is great
hope you get more subs cause you deserve them :)
Ah thanks!
Just come across this channel and the content is superb! I personally like the silicone power drives.
Thanks Dan!
I have several Adata and Silicon Power drives in various sizes. They might not be the fastest out there but they have been reliable.As I have upgraded, I put them into external USB cases. They're handy to keep around
I do tons of pc and laptop upgrades. Ppl don't need or want to spend for bigger hd. This waa something i always wanted to do. I use Kingston because you can always get them and its a name brand. Way to go on being honest. Doing videos and things like this is how you learn.
A little sad to see the Kingston A400 couldn't make the list. I've used 5 of the 240GB model in several PC builds for friends and myself. I've only just upgraded to an nvme boot drive after 2 years. Great video again
Yeah I kinda regret not waiting for a return. Had their return policy been more flexible, I probably would have
even i use the same model 240 gb ssd drive
Same for me! Worked great for many years before I switched to nvme two a month ago
We have about 400 at work and haven’t had one die yet.
Indeed, I think you should add those results in a new video. Great fan of the Kingston.
Absolutely fantastic video! Once I had finished the video I checked your sub count and my god was I surprised. You deserve a lot more! You've earned a sub from me, well done!
Wow, thank you! I appreciate it, but I'm already blown away by the support I've received in the last few months. It's crazy to me haha
Installed a few silicon power SSD in a few builds. No issues after a few year.
I will look into the adata in the future for sure.
This was a decent primer on the bargin-basement tier! Have a sub! :)
Glad to see these results. I always buy Adata for cheap SSDs. I bought one Silicon Power when they were on sale at Newegg a year ago and it was fine, but Adata is my go-to. Always had good results with them.
I just got one from Amazon but I was worried since it has fast read/write speeds like a dram ssd, it might be pushing limits and die quickly. I hope it lasts more than a year fingers crossed
Thanks for doing this!
Banger. Best vid so far. Keep it up.
I was honestly really nervous about this one. Thanks!
Great video, very informative. Thank you for posting it.
Nice review. Your voice is something man !
Great video and beneficial information. I like to use these cheapos to test Linux distros on a real drive before committing to a larger drive for a complete system. I like doing that better than a virtual drive, as I can see what real hardware will do on a system. Concerning my experience, I can echo your findings with ADATA, which I think is worth the extra $4. I have also had a good experience with the Silicone Power. I have recently purchased some Inland drives, but it is too soon to render a judgment, and I have only used a Lexar once, so that one I also don't have enough experience with to give an opinion. I like having some of these cheaper drives on hand as people will sometimes give me their old Windows 7 computers which I can recondition with Linux and give to kids and people who just need something to use for everyday computing. It saves these old machines from being thrown in the trash, and putting in a cheap SSD gives them more power than a Chromebook.
Really great video man 🔥🔥👍👍
New subber; loving your content.
Suggestion for next time: take note of each drive's warranty and TBW (TB written) rating. SSD cells have a limit to the # of times they can be written to, so that affects its usuable lifespan. Warranty is often tied to this (e.g., x years or ### TBW, whichever comes first).
I have found similarly priced SSDs (and M.2 NVMe) with similar advertised specs that vary significantly with warranty and TBW. For example, some had 5 yr warranty and a TBW of 200 times to drive's size, yet another brand had 3 yr and a TBW of 600x drive size. This definitely influenced my purchasing decisions based on use case.
I find ssd and the technology behind it interesting so that’s why I have a couple of MLC enterprise grade ssds, one of them has a 1.65TB capacity (pcie 4x) and a rated TBW of 9PBW! I got lucky and it was at 93% health so it is great for a storage drive (no nvme). In case you’re wondering, it is the Fusion-io scale2 pcie ssd (1.65tb)
Wtf 9PBW!!!!
@@bhoot1702 Yup. Came with its own software too, well, I had to scour the web for the software. If you run it through any standard disk utility (without formatting it) it will say all the sectors are bad...scared me real good. You have to have the VSL installed for the drive to be recognized by the system so its not as convenient as NVMe. Runs to the high 80s (celsius) if you don't have enough cooling. Guess that's how you know its some server grade stuff.
Thanks for this very useful video.
In reality even when the sp drive is at high capacity and is running slower, it is substantially faster then a mechanical drive. I've used 6 of them so far with no problems.
It's nice to see videos about sata ssd's ..most channels only talk about nvme
What a beautiful video, I wish more people would cover budget pc computer parts so we finally know who the reliable cheap brands are, however I know these videos are expensive so bigger channels need to step up too
Thanks for all the hard work
Thanks for the support!
I've put around 500 silicon powers in customer computers. Always a great upgrade to keep 4-10 year old computers moving at almost the same speed as new computers.
How abou Adata and PNY?
Have u had experience with it
@@syarifairlangga4608 I use adata sx8200 pro nvme's. They're good value for the speed. So far so good but I've only been using them for at most just over two years.
Nice content delivery
Love ur content! Keep it up!
I love tiny disks like these. I use them in my main machine in much the same way I used floppies in the 90s (via IcyDocks) and also as system disks for legacy gaming rigs (via IcyDocs & SATA to IDE adapters). Inexpensive and perfect for these use cases. :)
I use smaller SSD drives in my Dell R720 Server's for boot OS. Replaced the DVD/CD drive with a caddy type that hold an SSD drive and boot from it. Works like a treat.
I have the Silicon Power A55 but the size is 128GB, in that additional 8GB I can store my OS Ubuntu. I used it for some time as boot drive and now I use it as SSD cache for my HDDs. I have it now for 4 or 5 years and I never had any complaint.
Nice work. Definitely need a follow-up with the Kingston.
In the works!
I've been using Inland SSDs for years. Though I've hardly been thrashing them, they last just fine.
Really interesting. Thanks for sharing 👍👍
Dude your videos are so high quality
Glad you think so! I'm trying my best haha
It's amazing that you can buy those things so cheap these days. I remember when they first came out and were the new "big thing" in computers. I think at that time I bought a 32GB hard drive for like $70 or something. 128GB was like the max size you could buy and they were like $300 or something. I don't remember the exact prices but something like that.
wow. time fly's by so fast
4TB ones are $300 now. How awesome is that?
@@bickyboo7789 Wow that is amazing. I didn't even know they made them in that size. Back when SSD's first came out I don't think they even made mechanical hard drives in that size. 2TB was about the max in those days. My dad tells the story about buying a basic calculator for $300 when calculators first came out. Now days you can buy them for $5 at the local CVS.
@212days you can find 4tb for $220 now
@@212days 8 tb for 400 $ now
I've used cheap SP, TEAMGROUP, Lexar, and Inland SSDs in my desktops and, more specifically, in my servers. The only drives I've consistently had bad results with are the Lexars. The two that I had both died within 6 months and were basically only used to house the OS on my NAS. I think the final totals were less than 100 gigs written and maybe 1100 hours of being powered on when I chucked em. I replaced them with two TEAMGROUP drives and never once had another issue. I've honestly lost count at how many SP drives I have, some NVMe most SATA, and I've never had any issues with reliability. The only bad SP drive I've dealt with just needed a firmware update, which was actively noted on their support site when I visited the page for the drive I had to resolve the issue I was having, and that was 2 or 3 years ago at this point.
Wholesome SSD content.
Really useful video. Thx!
My first SSD was a ADATA and the second one was Kingston. Both were 32G, that was a good size back then. The Kingston started to wear (long boot times, random BSOD) after not even 6 moths under Windows 7, (8GDDR3, core I5 laptop) and swapped it with a mechanical HDD. ADATA was keeping up very well under Windows XP (some Intel dual core with 2G DDR2) and after almost one year installed Slackware on it. It still works like a champ today, after more than 10 years. The Kingston one, died under Linux completely; I don't used swap partition on either SSD.
Since then, my go-to brand of SSD is ADATA.
I tried Kingston some time ago and again, it failed, while ADATA showed no wear on the same PC under the same conditions. I don't know, maybe I had bad luck?
Brilliant video.
Thanks! I had a silicon power go DOA after a few days so avoided that brand since then but usually go for the cheap Chinese ones and try and find a dram cache for game drives... For boot drives I try and go for a brand like patriot or adata or get lucky with a crucial on sale!
I’m a huge fan of the Inland drives and they’re my go-tos when it comes to laptop hard drive replacement and rebuilding old office computers.
Fun fact - add an ATA to SATA adapter to your XP-based Pentium III, Pentium 4, or Athlon that lacks SATA and you’ll get performance out of your machine you won’t believe.
considering that the more common conversion uses CompactFlash and that's both slow and expensive, you're right. There are other specialized adapters that'll let you bolt a sata drive into even older stuff with various caveats as well.
My Socket A motherboard already had Sata on it so it might be better for P4 or Athlon/Sempron owner to find a better motherboard instead of trashy converters.
The Inland brand SSD has done me well in the past few years while brands like SanDisk have failed on me months after purchasing and getting an RMA was a pain in the arse. I've bought high performance Inland NVMe drives that have high endurance and moderate speeds for both Gen 3 (Premium) and Gen4 (Perform) and both have onboard cache at lower prices than those of Samsung. The Gen 3 drive has been in my system for about 2 years now and going strong despite my PC being on for more than 10 hours a day with quite a few instances of 24 hour operation. A really good buy if you live near a Micro Center store.
Superb reciew
I use plenty of 120-256gb drives in small projects here. For example, to try out different OSes on laptops. I also use a 120gig for my pfsense firewall, they'd probably be great for a HTPC as well if you're just streaming video and audio from a NAS. A 120gig would probably be overkill for something like ArcaOS or Haiku too.
I have four of the Kingston drives. Two 120, one 240 and a 500gb. All work great for years. For the price they're hard to beat. But I'll try an adata next time. Dram would help a lot with big files.
Looking forward to the results, I need an SSD for my OG Xbox and I don’t wanna spend 50 bucks just for a console mod
I bought four of the Silicon Power A55 SSDs, and each of them suffered a drastic reduction in write speed after less than 3 months' use. Initially, they worked fine, with Crystal DiskMark scores very similar to your report. The read and write speeds were around 400 MB/s. But after 3 months or so, the write speeds were under 100 MB/s. A couple of them had write speeds of around 15 MB/s, significantly slower than a hard drive. I was using these drives as storage, not the boot drive, and what apparently triggered the slowdown was when I copied the entire contents of a different drive to the SP all at once. The file transfer went well for the first 300 GB or so, then drastically slowed down. Afterwards, I tried deleting the partition and re-formatting the drive, but the write slowdown did not change, even when the drive was empty. The large file transfer appears to have permanently damaged the drive's write speed. I've done similar large file transfers using other brands of SSD and not had this problem with any other brand. I do not recommend the SP A55 drives.
Mine just died last night after around 6 months of use, overall i wouldn't recommend getting it.
So using the drive killed it.
@@JamesTsividis Yes, it seemed like using the drive is what slowed it down. One of them slowed down after I copied about 500 GB from a smaller drive that I was replacing. I'm no computer expert, but I've had many other SSDs from different brands, and these Silicon Power A55's are the only ones I've ever had slow down like that.
@@DillyDally69 Similar deal but it only took 3 months. RMA service required paying to send it all the way to Taiwan which does not make a lot of sense cost-wise. It would probably be better to get a cheap drive that at least has RMA service in the same country.
Feels like they purposefully made the RMA process difficult to avoid refunding customers.
Actually just built a NAS using an Inland 128gb and an old PC I had lying around. Running TrueNas using one of your video tutorials.... lol. Have 8Tb with 4Tb of parity. Actually kind of glad I went for Inland. A couple of reasons include I live near a Microcenter, it is their in house brand. And I got it sub 20$ on sale. Another is it's fairly middle to higher placing on the charts in all of the scenarios. Which lend to it being a bit more versatile. So not to bad even without a dram cache.
Fantastic video. Microcenter has Inland 128 and 240 GB SSDs, so I have quite a few of those for linux experiments and such. No failures yet, but I don't torture them either.
Man I’m so jealous if you micro center folk, haha! Thanks for the comment
Fair and honest review ....we don't need high tech info just the stuff that matters..nice video enjoyed ..
Great video! Though have you also tried a comparison with used but high health with DRAM and with high end brands (Samsung Intel Crucial/Micron Hynix)? I know that test would be much harder to run but I tend to lean towards those used drives than these brand new ones, especially because there is a selling tax for new items here, which makes the used products much more appealing.
Those old high end SSDs also come in metal casing instead of plastic (The Kingston is the only one with metal casing I believe), which should help more in terms of cooling and longevity, despite the SSDs being older.
Great video! I've seen the ADATA drives for sale but never decided to try one. I've installed several Silicon Power 512GB and 1TB drives and they've worked well. I'll try out an ADATA drive and see how well it works. :) Thanks for posting!
Glad you enjoyed! Just a heads up that I have a Kingston A400 review coming up, and I'm looking into the ADATA SU800 even more in that video.
@@HardwareHaven Sounds good. Quick question: when you used CloneZilla to clone the Windows installation, did you do a normal Windows installation on one of the SSDs and then use CloneZilla to clone that to the other SSDs? Thanks!
@@TheCocoaDaddy Good question, yes.
I play around a lot with these drives due to Raspberry pi4 that I have. I have a bunch of these but never tested them. Thanks for doing my homework.
New SUB, really entretainment video!, gj
Thanks!
i came on this video its 1year ago and iam going to buy a Adata su650 thanks it was very informative
Great video. It would be nice to see their TBW though. Nearly all the TBW tests usually run for high capacity well-known brands.
Are you asking to test that or just to list the manufacturer’s info?
@@HardwareHaven I was talking about testing that without knowing if it is an easy task or not:)
I could TOTALLY be wrong here, but I think the only real way to test that would be to have a bunch of them, run them until they start to fail, and then generate averages. It would be awesome if I could do that, but I doubt it haha
v helpful thank you!
Results scale with size, and yes the lexar seems to retain consistent when full which is interesting.
Adata is a good brand, thank you for testing it for me before I buy it
❤I would love to see a updated best bang for your buck ssds in the 1/2-2 tb range- something for a mass games drive or something
I've had my Adata SU800 128GB SSD for almost 5yrs now and still kicking in life, back then ssd's were more expensive than now but it was the best investment I've ever made.
Is the performance still the same as you bought it initially and is the one you get on aliexpress the original product?
here in indonesia, our "budget" 128gb SSD choices are priced at around 15$, with many brands you will never heard of, like RX7, NCT, valuetech, flyjiie, kingsmax and there are still more of em. maybe more comparison vs those legit brands like the above will be cool
kingsmax is the only brand I've actually seen online here. They also make SD cards If I recall right. Never bought one, though.
You should also be looking at the lifecycle of the drives, the manufactures usually supply that info. Also how long their warranty is, will give you an idea of the expected lifespan of the device.
3yrs is the silicon power it says
First of all, I love the Intro POST splash screen.
Also, when my grandma downloads Ransomware, where will she store it.
You know 128GB is going to be over faster than my data cap.
Thanks! I thought it was fun haha
And that’s a fair point lol
I've been very satisfied with the balance of performance and cost with ADATA products in general.
I just buy refurbished big name branded ssds on ebay for pennies for small projects, usually the sellers list the health but it's always a gamble. Paid off a lot of times for me. I've been using brand new Kingston drives on my own builds for years and haven't had one die yet.
I can echo your findings on the Kingston drives. I used to work at a place where a lot of cheap, small SSDs were purchased and I found the Silicon Power drives to be the best all rounders, and the Kingston drives the most failure prone. I didn't get any AData drives as we were pinching every penny.
A lot of people hate Adata drives tho... but who knows? Sample size is the key.
These 128gb drives are awesome as an external boot drive when paired up with Ventoy. I literally can boot from any of 12 different ISO files and there is plenty of room to add more. This comes in handy when installing Windows 10, 11 Server 2012, 2019 etc... At the same time I have multiple Linux distros at my fingertips to check out as a live version and can install to another drive in a system at will. I am not affiliated with Ventoy - I just love the software and you should check it out if you get a chance
I use Ventoy on a 32 GB stick and have more than 8 iso's on it. Handy for repair, recovery or just plain installing an OS. Love it as well. Add/remove iso's in minutes.
Wish you had tried any of the Netac drives, I've had some good read/writte speed with them, and they've been very reliable.
Great video
Thanks!
Thank you for the benchmarks. Seems Adata, though slower than advertised...seems to be the best of lot in this budget category. File that away.
Loving this music
Secondhand ssds are also an option if you want to go cheap! For the last ten years, ssds have become much more resistant to wear, so it's not as risky as people tend to say anymore.. also nice that it avoids a little e-waste
Very true! I’m still running a Samsung 850 evo (I think ?) in my main desktop that I bought off of craigslist
If you want longevity, do not buy QLC drives.
@@omegamark4155 nowadays it's really not something anyone needs to worry about anymore, but I guess if you buy an SSD that's more than a decade old your advice is solid
@@ikbintom There were no QLC drives a decade ago. QLC relies on size to write less to one cell, as that one cell is used to store FOUR states of the information. Samsung 980 PRO is TLC and there was a crapstorm due to it not being MLC anymore (even though it has a better cache).
@@omegamark4155 you're right, good point
A small SSD is perfect for a system drive. I like to keep created or added data separately anyway, and only put the OS and apps on the system drive, which for me uses about 70GB.
I always use drives of this size, 1 smaller partition for windows, 1 larger for apps, mostly portable ones, plus net stuff like browsers. I then add other large mechanical drives, 1 for games, 1 for TV and films.
Yeah same, for me I have another 256gb of nvme for caching my game using primocache
Great vid! I have always been pleased with Adata drives. You consider doing a similar video with NVME drives?
Possibly!
I tinker with old PCs running different linux distro's and some old macs. Having a pile of 120GB class SSDs is always useful
About SSD: I recently discovered a nice little SATA 2 M.2 enclosure (for about 40$) that lets you add two M.2 (SATA) SSDs with RAID1 in one 2.5" case - that should easily be the smallest Hardware Raid available right now - pretty cool for booting servers - it gives you redundancy with low power consumption, it only uses one external sata port but still gives you a raid.
For example with your e350 Board you could use one of these and 3 standard 3.5" drives in Raid5-mode and get a decent backup server out of it.
That's awesome!
Can you share the name of the enclosure?
@@skyline8121 the enclosure is a delock 62590. Delock is a german company, but its only a trading company. So even if this brand is not available outside of the EU it should be available with a different label. There are also enclosures for two sata drives available from icybox (eg Icy Dock EZConvert Pro MB982SPR-2S R1).
Hardware RAID is generally a very bad idea since recovery is limited to the same controller so be prepared to lose stored data when the chip fails.
Better use soft RAID combined with passive PCIe to M.2 adapters and eventually some riser cables.
@@PainterVierax can't generally agree on that, especially for boot devices it is simply less trouble to have a hw raid 1. If you are worried about loosing the OS Config you can always do regular backups onthe sw raid for data (there I can agree - its better to have the data raid as sw raid) also those controllers are pretty reliable, I have 10 of them (most are sata to sata, not sata to nvme) and so far none failed ( the oldest ones are from 2014).
Btw: qnap also offers those small hw raid enclosures. Both sata 2 sata and sata to nvme.
Cloud/streaming gaming server has a use for small drives. Each vm needs its own drive to prevent multi user's from bottlenecking one drive.
Interesting test results. The one thing I need to say about SSDs is they should not be referred to as Drives but rather Storage Devices. A drive is a device with mechanical elements built into it, mainly the spinning disk and its related components for reading and writing. 🙂
That’s fair I guess, but SSD is technically an abbreviation for Solid State Drive. Even though it might technically be incorrect in the engineering/mechanical context, I think it’s just commonly accepted. What do you call flash drives?
I literally just bought the Kingston like a week ago in 240gb model. Works fine so I think you just got unlucky. I was a bit suspicious when I picked it up though, it’s crazy light
I got a silicon power S55 and and it is similar to the A55 with SLC cache. I know some multi layer chips can work as SLC but there is a real SLC NAND flash that is significantly more expensive per GB. The fact is that nearly all flash memory found on store shelves in Bestbuy or Walmart is not SLC. Most people would not pay so much despite being a much faster and longer lasting memory type. These days there is 96 layer flash memory and I cringe thinking of how short its life must be. It also makes me cringe to hear they are adding more layers too. I just hope they are doing SOMETHING to mitigate that severe longevity hit! We buy storage devices to RELIABLY store our files not be kept up at night with nightmares of all important files lost for good.
as a person who used SILICON POWER A55 250GB before, its really good tho, bought for only 24$ back then
and it performs almost same as my Samsung gen3 m2 ssd in my laptop