SATA SSD Brand recomendation.

[BrianHG]

Well, my old laptop 5600rpm HD is failing according to Windows.
What brand SSD should I get.
I need 960gb or 1tb.
I don't want a junk name brand.
I have an ~80$ cad budget.
Some true big name brands are more expensive.
Some unknown brands are cheaper.

[wraper]

Brand name is secondary as long as it's not a no-name-ish garbage. You should avoid QLC, and especially PLC NAND (not available yet but will be very soon). Also avoid DRAMless SSD. If you want SATA drive (you did not mention what, NVMe would be better is there is a slot), performance will be about the same for the vast majority of SSD except bottom end DRAMless stuff.

[BrianHG]

Brand name is secondary as long as it's not a no-name-ish garbage. You should avoid QLC, and especially PLC NAND (not available yet but will be very soon). Also avoid DRAMless SSD. If you want SATA drive (you did not mention what, NVMe would be better is there is a slot), performance will be about the same for the vast majority of SSD except bottom end DRAMless stuff.

Finding out which drives are TLC is easy.
Finding out if they have dram cache is a problem.

For example, this drive: SanDisk SSD Plus 1TB Internal SSD - SATA III 6 Gb/s, 2.5"/7mm, Up to 535 MB/s - SDSSDA-1T00-G26,  85$ CAD.

All the spec says is nCache2.0.
Is this dram, or, running a portion of the flash in SLC mode, then re-writing the data in TLC mode?

[DavidAlfa]

Samsung evo 870 will do great, more expensive than others but worths every cent.
Had my 850 for almost 10 years, zero issues, upgraded to a much faster nvme SN850X.

Nowadays everything is TLC or QLC, you'll be having a hard time finding 1TB SLC if existing at all.

The key for SSD longevity, apart from staying away from random brands, is to have as many free space as possible so the wear leveling does its job, ideally about 50%.
It won't last as long if you fill it to 90%.
So if you need 1TB to use 850GB, better save a bit more and get 2TB.

If you download lots of stuff or use P2P/torrent, I strongly suggest to get a DVD-hdd adapter (It'll replace your optical drive) and get a cheap HDD just for downloads.

[wraper]

Finding out if they have dram cache is a problem.

I guess the easiest would be finding a teardown pictures/video to see if there is a DRAM chip. Did not look on SATA SSDs for a long time, most of what's sold now seems to be DRAMless junk (well, performance is OK for SATA) and ones with DRAM are more expensive than good NVMe with DRAM. Are you sure your laptop does not have NVMe slot? Most of 2015+ laptops have it even if came with HDD.

[thm_w]

Your budget is too low to get a quality new 1tb drive.

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/sandisk-ssd-plus-480gb-dramless-or-not.3587993/

The SSD Plus has long been DRAM-less - some models years ago had DRAM, though. However, SanDisk/WD has stated they plan to reintroduce it with DRAM (88SS1074 as on the WD Blue 3D/SanDisk Ultra 3D) but less than the normal amount. No confirmation on that yet however. Check my signature.

[GLouie]

I've been using Crucial MX500 for budget SATAIII SSDs from 1-2-4TB with zero problems. I'm not so interested in precise construction details at this price point, it'll still run circles around your old HDD. These got a nice review on Tom's Hardware back before the pandemic:
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crucial-mx500-ssd-review-nand,5390.html

and I'm seeing them sell now for $87USD/1TB. Samsungs are usually lauded, but always cost more.

[thm_w]

MX500 is good but currently $120 CAD: https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/product/h3tQzy/crucial-mx500-1tb-25-solid-state-drive-ct1000mx500ssd1
Samsung 870 evo is $115 with cache: https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/product/7nsnTW/samsung-870-evo-1-tb-25-solid-state-drive-mz-77e1t0bam

Deals usually show up here: https://old.reddit.com/r/bapcsalescanada/search?restrict_sr=on&sort=new&feature=legacy_search&q=ssd+NOT+laptop+NOT+prebuild+NOT+prebuilt

[fzabkar]

Samsung evo 870 will do great, more expensive than others but worths every cent.

Samsung 870 Evo -- is it a dud model?

https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=42876

I would opt for Kioxia, SK Hynix or Solidigm. People have been reporting problems with the more recent Crucial MX500 models. Samsung and WD/Sandisk have had dud models (eg SA510), so I'm not willing to trust them at the moment.

[Halcyon]

For quality/reliability, Crucial (Micron) or Intel are my preferred manufacturers.

[Whales]

80CAD is not enough for a 1TB SSD, you will want to spend a little bit more.

QLC is perfectly fine unless you have a very specific use case that justifies something else.  I've been running Samsung QVO drives for years in my desktop and laptop with no problems.  I am yet to see data showing QLC lasting less than TLC in real world use cases, but it's still worth checking the write limits & warranty before buying.

DRAMless SSDs are perfectly fine for everyday use.  DRAM-equipped ones are now a much more expensive market segment.  Again don't worry unless you have very specific use cases (eg high throughput writing of lots of small files).

Recently I had bad experiences with Silicon Power TLC+DRAM SSDs losing their data after only a few months of usage.  Both cases were covered under warranty, but that didn't replace my lost time and stress.  I ended up buying a more expensive (and noticeably slower) WD SSD instead and it has been fine so far.

[Postal2]

.... I don't want a junk name brand. ....

All SSDs are junk. Buy "Goldenfir" and don't bother.
https://aliexpress.com/item/32657147484.html

Not other place, exactly there. I recommend.

[Halcyon]

All SSDs are junk. Buy "Goldenfir" and don't bother.

What are you basing this off? Are you suggesting there is absolutely no quality difference between brands and product families?

[Postal2]

....What are you basing this off? ....

I wrote here about bad SSD with Samsung-evo branded chips. I bought it from another store. All 10+ SSDs in the link above have worked absolutely fine for 6 years.

[Halcyon]

....What are you basing this off? ....

I wrote here about bad SSD with Samsung-evo branded chips. I bought it from another store. All 10+ SSDs in the link above have worked absolutely fine for 6 years.

You didn't mention Samsung in that post. It sounded like you were saying all SSDs are the same crap.

[Postal2]

..... It sounded like you were saying all SSDs are the same crap.

Yes, I think so. But they are easy to store and cheap. HDD is too sensitive to shock.

[pcprogrammer]

Crucial works for me, but make sure to get the MX500 type. I was a bit to frugal and bought a BX500 2TB. It works but when writing a large amount of data the speed drops almost down to zero and then picks up again after a while. Had a MX500 500GB before it in my machine and did not notice this problem.

[tom66]

Yeah, BX500 is not great for rapid writes, I made that mistake too.

MX500 is a good SSD.

Do not buy anything made by Kingston.  Absolute trash tier company buying cheapest flash out there, and they do not stand behind their products.

[DavidAlfa]

I would opt for Kioxia

Hah, Kioxia was Toshiba Memory Corporation, which bought OCZ brand, which became bankrupt due extreme RMA rates.
I had one of these, died. A friend had another, died (The HDD, not him  ).
I replaced soooooo many Toshiba/HGST HDDs...

But you know, things can turn around quickly so they might make good stuff now.
I was very happy with Evo 850 series, can't talk about 870.

[wraper]

I would opt for Kioxia

Hah, Kioxia was Toshiba Memory Corporation, which bought OCZ brand, which became bankrupt due extreme RMA rates.
I had one of these, died. A friend had another, died (The HDD, not him  ).
I replaced soooooo many Toshiba/HGST HDDs...

But you know, things can turn around quickly so they might make good stuff now.
I was very happy with Evo 850 series, can't talk about 870.

It's funny blaming NAND manufacturer (used by many other brands) for buying bankrupt SSD brand. Also funnily enough Toshiba and HGST were some of the most reliable HDDs. Their issues with some worse models did not come even close to Seagate.

[fzabkar]

Here is an insight into the way that SSD manufacturers address NAND problems via firmware updates. It was written by Ace Laboratory, the most prominent developer of data recovery tools for SSDs and HDDs.

https://forum.acelab.eu.com/viewtopic.php?f=227&t=8735

Essentially, the firmware just keeps refreshing decaying NAND cells on a regular basis.

[fzabkar]

Crucial works for me, but make sure to get the MX500 type. I was a bit to frugal and bought a BX500 2TB. It works but when writing a large amount of data the speed drops almost down to zero and then picks up again after a while. Had a MX500 500GB before it in my machine and did not notice this problem.

I expect that the performance drops when the pseudo-SLC cache is filled and needs to be flushed.

[DavidAlfa]

Aha, in that article they say Samsung 840 ssd was terrible due poor quality TLC chips, they fixed the issues in the 850 by switching from TLC to 3D nand.
So no reason to think the 870 is bad, but I can't tell.
All I can say is my 500 gig 850 held the data perfectly fine for almost 10 years, mostly used for Windows OS.
I stored games and downloads in a 2TB HDD.

[Halcyon]

I would opt for Kioxia

Hah, Kioxia was Toshiba Memory Corporation, which bought OCZ brand, which became bankrupt due extreme RMA rates.
I had one of these, died. A friend had another, died (The HDD, not him  ).
I replaced soooooo many Toshiba/HGST HDDs...

But you know, things can turn around quickly so they might make good stuff now.
I was very happy with Evo 850 series, can't talk about 870.

It's funny blaming NAND manufacturer (used by many other brands) for buying bankrupt SSD brand. Also funnily enough Toshiba and HGST were some of the most reliable HDDs. Their issues with some worse models did not come even close to Seagate.

I tend to agree. Anecdotal evidence of course, but I've used HGST hard drives in servers for about 15-20 years. Even the original 2TB drives which have been in service for many years are still fully functional today (although I consider them at the end of their life purely due to the number of hours on them). Of course these are enterprise drives and cost far more than your standard consumer drives.

[Whales]

Aha, in that article they say Samsung 840 ssd was terrible due poor quality TLC chips, they fixed the issues in the 850 by switching from TLC to 3D nand.

TLC and 3D have nothing to do with each other.  You don't change from one to the other any more than you change from an electric car to a red car. 

3D refers to the physical construction of the cells.  It means layers of them are physically stacked.

TLC refers to the electronic configuration of each cell.  In many modern NAND chips the cells can be configured at runtime to be SLC, MLC, TLC or QLC.  The SLC mode is fastest but gives you the least space, QLC the opposite.  Cheaper models will put most of the drive's chips into the densest mode, more expensive models sometimes configure it differently to meet different speed, size and marketing goals.