Does anyone make good SSDs any more?

[Psi]

When it comes to SSDs, they are kind of unusual. 
With most things spending more gets you more reliability, but this is often not so with SSDs.
Spending more $$$ on a SSD gets you faster read/write speeds which comes with much higher temps and the bleeding edge FW version, so has a higher risk of failure or of FW bugs.

I'm not saying to buy cheap junk SSDs, you still want a known ok brand.


If you don't want to have to worry about it, get two SSDs and mirror them. Ideally different brands with similar specs.
But you do still need an offsite backup if you want to be safe.


+1 for Intel SSDs,  however i've not really looked into the brand in a while, my ones are still going strong.

[NiHaoMike]

It's worth considering used TLC and MLC SSDs. (Avoid used QLC unless it's insanely cheap.) Those often are cheaper than new QLC and have a lot more writes remaining than QLC ever had to begin with. The best deal I scored was $68 for a 2.6TB ioMemory PX600, MLC for less than the price of QLC. It's not bootable but that's no problem as the machine it's going in has other SSDs as well.

[Infraviolet]

I opened this thread a while ago when I last had HDD trouble and was considering an SSD replacement, now I have more HDD trouble and need a replacement urgently. And with my bad experiences with HDDs recently I think it's time to try SSD instead. So yes, I waited 8 months before this point.

Now I'm looking at the 1TB versions of:
Crucial BX500
Crucial MX500
WD Blue SA510
WD Green WDS100T3G0A

Any advice on whether any of those should be avoided?
I can't always see in the product descriptions which are MLC/TLC/QLC, any recommendations there?

EDIT: if anyone knows of an SSD brand that makes applying firmware fixes easy for pure linux users (no windows systems to hand at all) that might be a good choice, I keep seeing awful warnings about SSDs needing firmware fixes but the firmware updates being distributed only through convoluted Windows toolchains that won't work for drives with ext4 partitions on them.

Further edit: I can't seem to find any reports of a specific bug with the Crucial BX500 drives? They're apparently the low cost version, but appear to have the same endurance rating (360TB W) as the MX500? Is there a reason not to go with this sort? And I think the BX500 is TLC, not the dreaded QLC? The price difference of MX500 vs BX500 is a very small percentage, so in performance terms the BX500 may be a relative rip-off, but is it worthwhile in longevity terms, I see no reports of it having any firmware updates available, which suggests there have been no firmware mistakes in its design. Not having to apply any firmware updates would be good from a Linux perspective.

[BradC]

Crucial BX500
WD Green WDS100T3G0A

Avoid ^^^^.

Both are cacheless wonders. Can't comment on the WD Blue, but I have greens and they suck. I also have a couple of bigger MX500s and I hammer them as spool drives. Only broke one, once but nothing a secure erase didn't fix. I was trying something pathological and the drive called enough.

[Infraviolet]

"Both are cacheless wonders"
Does that just mean they're a bit slow? or does it affect lifespan and reliability?

To my understanding even a rather slow SSD is blazingly fast against an HDD?

If slowness, even down to near HDD levels, gets me longevity in excess of HDDs and a drive which won't get damaged during shipping or when moving the laptop... then I'm all for it.

[BradC]

"A bit slow" is subjective. If your write loads are small you may be ok. If you want to write significant data then you need to be prepared for write speeds to drop to 1990s hard drive speeds. I've seen 20-50MB/s from my WD Greens.

Aside from slow streaming writes, their performance is simply inconsistent. Dunno about where you are, but here the price difference between a BX and MX is less than 15% in most cases. Their performance difference under random writes is chalk and cheese.

[coppice]

Now I'm looking at the 1TB versions of:
Crucial BX500
Crucial MX500
WD Blue SA510
WD Green WDS100T3G0A

Assuming the Crucial MX500 is still the same product they've been making since 2017, and they haven't reworked it without change the name, that is a solid performer with a good track record.

[Infraviolet]

"Assuming the Crucial MX500 is still the same product they've been making since 2017"
Therein lies the problem, I don't think any SSD manufacturer has been making the same drive since 2017. it seems they al make revisions and changes, but keept the model numbers unchanged. The worry with the MX500 is the firmware bug which needs an update to M3CR046, but updating is virtually impossible on Linux. I don't know whether they've actually updated the firmware in the drives that are selling now, and there's no part number revision or anything to make it obvious what version of drive one is about to buy. That's why the BX500 got my interest, no mention of an equivalent firmware bug for it.

"I've seen 20-50MB/s from my WD Greens."
As performance comparisons go, the dying HDD I've been used to is a Toshiba MQ01ABD100, supposedly reading and writing at about 80MB/s? Although hdparm tells me:
sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/sda
/dev/sda:
 Timing cached reads:   10994 MB in  2.00 seconds = 5506.90 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads: 260 MB in  3.01 seconds =  86.28 MB/sec

So I'd be looking for speeds no worse than this. The largest files I handle are m4v format videos of up to 4GB in size, but only occasionally do I move or copy them, mostly it's just reading them by watching via VLC. I have a tiny number of >10GB zip files around I occasionally extract hundred megabyte files from. Most of my usual work on the PC is web browsing, source code editing in text editors, and some relatively light-weight CAD (not much heavy rendering or computational solving involved).

[coppice]

"Assuming the Crucial MX500 is still the same product they've been making since 2017"
Therein lies the problem, I don't think any SSD manufacturer has been making the same drive since 2017. it seems they al make revisions and changes, but keept the model numbers unchanged. The worry with the MX500 is the firmware bug which needs an update to M3CR046, but updating is virtually impossible on Linux. I don't know whether they've actually updated the firmware in the drives that are selling now, and there's no part number revision or anything to make it obvious what version of drive one is about to buy. That's why the BX500 got my interest, no mention of an equivalent firmware bug for it.

The most recent firmware I can see on Crucial's site is M3CR045. I think updating from within Linux is not supported, but the bootable ISO images Crucial supply do not require an installed OS to update a drive. I have used MX500s extensively on Linux machines since they first appeared, and never had trouble.

[Monkeh]

M3CR046 never got published to their site, but it's easily downloaded and can be applied with hdparm. For older versions you can simply extract the firmware image and their own tool (which will do exactly the same thing as hdparm) from their bootable image.

They also offer both GUI and CLI Linux versions of the 'storage executive', which I've never felt the need to play with - but is the tool run by their own update images: https://www.micron.com/sales-support/downloads/software-drivers/storage-executive-software

[coppice]

M3CR046 never got published to their site, but it's easily downloaded and can be applied with hdparm. For older versions you can simply extract the firmware image and their own tool (which will do exactly the same thing as hdparm) from their bootable image.

They also offer both GUI and CLI Linux versions of the 'storage executive', which I've never felt the need to play with - but is the tool run by their own update images: https://www.micron.com/sales-support/downloads/software-drivers/storage-executive-software

Is there some key problem that is only fixed in M3CR046? I've never used an update that didn't come from Crucial's site, and I've never had a problem with the drives.

[Monkeh]

M3CR046 never got published to their site, but it's easily downloaded and can be applied with hdparm. For older versions you can simply extract the firmware image and their own tool (which will do exactly the same thing as hdparm) from their bootable image.

They also offer both GUI and CLI Linux versions of the 'storage executive', which I've never felt the need to play with - but is the tool run by their own update images: https://www.micron.com/sales-support/downloads/software-drivers/storage-executive-software

Is there some key problem that is only fixed in M3CR046? I've never used an update that didn't come from Crucial's site, and I've never had a problem with the drives.

There's some obscure bug which can cause the drive to hang under certain loads. None of my MX500s are a hardware revision which takes the 04x firmware series.

[Infraviolet]

"None of my MX500s are a hardware revision which takes the 04x firmware series."
The problem is the drives keep changing but keep the same model number. So I've no idea what will actually turn up when I order a drive, same situation for all manufacturers. Has anyone been buying MX500s, BX500s or EVO 870's recently?

[Monkeh]

You're overthinking it. If your data matters it doesn't reside on a single device - any loss of a device should cost you nothing more than the last few hours if it's a single drive system (backups cover everything else) and the time needed to swap it out.

Just buy something.

[coppice]

You're overthinking it. If your data matters it doesn't reside on a single device - any loss of a device should cost you nothing more than the last few hours if it's a single drive system (backups cover everything else) and the time needed to swap it out.

Just buy something.

better still buy two somethings, and have some redundancy. Even the best drives fail, and often suddenly and completely.

[Infraviolet]

"If your data matters it doesn't reside on a single device - any loss of a device should cost you nothing more than the last few hours"
Yes, I keep many copies of all my important data, but restoring my OS, programs, settings... even with some system images I've made to speed up the process, still costs me two days, and opening up the laptop to physically swap the drive out is unpleasant (it is one without a bottom cover, so you have to take everything apart, and had to remove the laptop's rubber feet to get at the screws when I last changed the HDD.

I've had enough of having to do this procedure multiple times in the last year, I want something that won't fail on me again so soon.

From what I'm reading the MX500's bug is perhaps less serious than the EVO 870's? The EVO 870 has an actual degradation of the physical flash chips I think, whereas the MX500 seems to be solely an issue in firmware. There look to be workarounds to maybe do MX500 firmware updating in Linux, or with bootable images, though I hear they need some tinkering wit before they'll work with keyboard input. So if I went for the MX500 I'd encounter any problems immediately, rather than later down the line?

Or there's the BX500, the one thing going for it is I don't see many reported errors with it, but would it infact give worse performance than an HDD, due to the lack of DRAM?

[Infraviolet]

Another thought, what about WD red drives? Are the higher reliability? But are the the sort which is unable to be used as a boot device?

I know it is similar to the SA500 Blue, but the Red is more of an enterprise specced version, SA500. Does this mean it will be a high reliability SSD?

[Someone]

"If your data matters it doesn't reside on a single device - any loss of a device should cost you nothing more than the last few hours"
Yes, I keep many copies of all my important data, but restoring my OS, programs, settings... even with some system images I've made to speed up the process, still costs me two days

So you need a better backup solution that does capture all that.

[David Hess]

From what I'm reading the MX500's bug is perhaps less serious than the EVO 870's?

I had the MX500 bug when I installed a 2TB one in my modern laptop.  It only resulted in the system hanging and no data was lost.  The EVO 870 bug silently corrupted data.

Or there's the BX500, the one thing going for it is I don't see many reported errors with it, but would it infact give worse performance than an HDD, due to the lack of DRAM?

Performance was practically identical, but I suspect the MX500 suffers from less write amplification because of the DRAM cache.

Something I recently noticed is that none of my SATA USB drives support TRIM through the USB interface, and apparently none do, at least with Windows, but my one NVMe USB enclosure does.  I am thinking of making a big USB disk array with my collection of 2TB SATA SSDs and replacing the two I regularly use with NVMe drives.

It's worth considering used TLC and MLC SSDs. (Avoid used QLC unless it's insanely cheap.) Those often are cheaper than new QLC and have a lot more writes remaining than QLC ever had to begin with.

I am glad that I avoided QLC drives.  My oldest SSDs are only a couple years old, and if they had been QLC drives, then they would have already have exceeded their write endurance.

As it is, I am going to exceed the write endurance on some of my TLC drives before reaching their 5 year warranty.

[Infraviolet]

I'm really getting tempted by the WD RED SA500 drive now. Looks like similar performnce to typical SSDs, but more enterprise grade, and to my understanding the design has barely changed, and no firmware updates released, since it was first available.

Can anyone give me a good reason not to select a WD RED SA500? (speed reasons are only "good" in my books if the speed of this would be actively worse than the spinning rust Toshiba MQ01ABD100 models I am used to)

I know the red is made for NAS usage, but that mainly just means its a bit tougher in its reliability ratings than a normal consumer SSD? And everything I'm reading online so far says WD Red drives can work fine as the sole drive, the boot drive, in a PC.

Thanks

[coppice]

I'm really getting tempted by the WD RED SA500 drive now. Looks like similar performnce to typical SSDs, but more enterprise grade, and to my understanding the design has barely changed, and no firmware updates released, since it was first available.

Can anyone give me a good reason not to select a WD RED SA500? (speed reasons are only "good" in my books if the speed of this would be actively worse than the spinning rust Toshiba MQ01ABD100 models I am used to)

I know the red is made for NAS usage, but that mainly just means its a bit tougher in its reliability ratings than a normal consumer SSD? And everything I'm reading online so far says WD Red drives can work fine as the sole drive, the boot drive, in a PC.

Thanks

Any SSD made in the last few years can keep a SATA bus saturated almost all the time. Its only the NVMe drives which show speed differences these days.

[IanB]

a) Some years ago (2019) I installed a Samsung SSD 860 PRO 1TB drive into an older laptop as an upgrade, and used the heck out of it as a daily workhorse for several years until I retired the PC. As of today, it reports good health on all the S.M.A.R.T. statistics, with 15.8 TB written out of a warranted 300 TB. Benchmark results show sequential read and sequential write near maximum, but random read and random write are not so good (however, this could be due to the ancient PC hardware).

b) The performance of a SATA interface SSD is woefully slow compared to an NVMe SSD.

Given (a), you can overthink things. Just find a good brand, reasonably priced SSD, like Samsung, install it, and forget it.

Given (b), you should give serious thought to replacing the PC. Upgrading components on older hardware is not really efficient.

[IanB]

Wow, is this thread so old? I just scrolled up and realized I've posted in it before. Here was me thinking it was a new thread.

[mariush]

Techpowerup has a nice SSD database here : https://www.techpowerup.com/ssd-specs/

IMHO WD Green SATA drives are not worth it. They usually have quite low endurance... It seems to me like they're using badly binned flash chips or chips that had a lot of  failed cells in them (like they're using 512 GB chips to make 240-256 GB functional drive)
They're fine for booting up an OS on an office machine but not storing long term.

The BLUE drives should be fine, and the reds should also work well but I'm not sure it's worth the extra money.

Other brands Samsung 860, 870 Evo ...  not sure who else I'd use in SATA format.  At work we bought Kingston A400 240 GB for office type machines, the documents and stuff is kept on NAS anyway.

Maybe Kingston KC600 would be OK as well, if you can find it.

Note that you can get  M.2 to SATA enclosures for around 10$, see for example : https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-2-5-Inch-Aluminum-Enclosure-EC-M2SA/dp/B01N6PMZLW

Not many M.2 drives that are SATA based and good but there's a few: WD Red SA500 , WD Blue SA510, Silicon Power A55

[David Hess]

Any SSD made in the last few years can keep a SATA bus saturated almost all the time. Its only the NVMe drives which show speed differences these days.

SSD continuous write speeds are still slower than SATA3.  When I do my backups to an external USB enclosure, NVMe is not any faster unless the NVMe drive itself supports faster continuous writes.

Can anyone give me a good reason not to select a WD RED SA500? (speed reasons are only "good" in my books if the speed of this would be actively worse than the spinning rust Toshiba MQ01ABD100 models I am used to)

I have been burned by Western Digital too many times to trust them.  I was never able to confirm whether their SSDs support any form of power loss protection.