Best budget brand sata SSD with Dram cache?

Ice Tea · 17 Oct 2020 at 10:01

What is currently the best budget brand for 120gb and 500gb sata ssd?

It will be running Linux ZFS

Thanks

mickyflinn · 17 Oct 2020 at 10:39

As long as you stick with branded stuff you should be fine whichever you choose.

Ice Tea · 17 Oct 2020 at 11:40

mickyflinn said:
As long as you stick with branded stuff you should be fine whichever you choose.

I thought that might be the case , I just wondered if one stood out for having a larger or faster cache...

Disco_P · 20 Oct 2020 at 06:42

Ice Tea said:
I thought that might be the case , I just wondered if one stood out for having a larger or faster cache...

Crucial Mx500 seems to be the best budget drive. Avoid dramless drives like the crucial bx, sandisk ssd plus, WD Green (and perhaps blue too) etc

Ice Tea · 20 Oct 2020 at 10:59

Thanks

Avalon · 20 Oct 2020 at 21:02

Disco_P said:
Crucial Mx500 seems to be the best budget drive. Avoid dramless drives like the crucial bx, sandisk ssd plus, WD Green (and perhaps blue too) etc

While I agree in principal, in the real world, it tends to make bugger all perceivable difference outside of synthetic benchmarks that are irrelevant to how most people use the hardware.

Disco_P · 20 Oct 2020 at 22:46

Avalon said:
While I agree in principal, in the real world, it tends to make bugger all perceivable difference outside of synthetic benchmarks that are irrelevant to how most people use the hardware.

You've already been subjected to the wall of text I put up on dramless SSDs.

Avalon · 21 Oct 2020 at 00:42

Disco_P said:
You've already been subjected to the wall of text I put up on dramless SSDs.

Yes, but by your own admission, you kind of suck at hardware purchases, a no name Chinese drive (though the TCSunbow stuff is essentially the same controller set-up as Crucia MX500 from memory if you want cache and cheap) and somehow managing to miss one of the most discussed bait and switches in SSD history since Kingston, those are hardly shining examples. In the right application they work well, and in load time tests they generally come in almost indistinguishable from anything else, which makes for cheap/fast steam library drives. Then again I normally run fusion.io's that cost a fraction of your average SSD and have write endurance my kids may have to worry about long after i'm gone, who doesn't like 3.8TB for less than the price of a 2TB QLC NVMe drive?

Disco_P · 21 Oct 2020 at 14:27

Avalon said:
Yes, but by your own admission, you kind of suck at hardware purchases, a no name Chinese drive (though the TCSunbow stuff is essentially the same controller set-up as Crucia MX500 from memory if you want cache and cheap) and somehow managing to miss one of the most discussed bait and switches in SSD history since Kingston, those are hardly shining examples. In the right application they work well, and in load time tests they generally come in almost indistinguishable from anything else, which makes for cheap/fast steam library drives. Then again I normally run fusion.io's that cost a fraction of your average SSD and have write endurance my kids may have to worry about long after i'm gone, who doesn't like 3.8TB for less than the price of a 2TB QLC NVMe drive?

Well look at mister smarty pants over here. I'd like to see where people talked about the sandisk ssdplus bait and switch if it was so discussed.

They're not cheap/fast steam libraries. They are too slow. I don't even think you've used one...

Cyber-Mav · 21 Oct 2020 at 15:50

got lexar and pny brands and both work fine and get firmware updates too. id be weary of the kingspec (not kingston) brand that seems to be doing the rounds.

EsaT · 21 Oct 2020 at 16:24

Disco_P said:
Crucial Mx500 seems to be the best budget drive.

MX500 isn't exactly budget drive.
It just doesn't have brand overpricing of Samsung.
BX500 is that budget drive of Crucial.

Cyber-Mav · 21 Oct 2020 at 17:23

You after one with or without dram cache?

Ice Tea · 22 Oct 2020 at 12:26

Cyber-Mav said:
You after one with or without dram cache?

Dram , i've changes the topic to reflect this.

Alexrose1uk · 22 Oct 2020 at 14:47

Avalon said:
Yes, but by your own admission, you kind of suck at hardware purchases, a no name Chinese drive (though the TCSunbow stuff is essentially the same controller set-up as Crucia MX500 from memory if you want cache and cheap) and somehow managing to miss one of the most discussed bait and switches in SSD history since Kingston, those are hardly shining examples. In the right application they work well, and in load time tests they generally come in almost indistinguishable from anything else, which makes for cheap/fast steam library drives. Then again I normally run fusion.io's that cost a fraction of your average SSD and have write endurance my kids may have to worry about long after i'm gone, who doesn't like 3.8TB for less than the price of a 2TB QLC NVMe drive?

Those TCSunbow vary batch to batch, more recent drives don't have DRAM Cache, they are cheap for a reason

I wouldn't call them a budget brand, but Sabrent are one manufacturer who seem to be pretty reliable but aren't one of the 'big boys' yet.

Ice Tea · 23 Oct 2020 at 08:04

A report from TrendForce suggests that SSD prices are expected to fall between 10 and 15 percent in the coming quarter due to an oversupply issue.

Typical

chaparral · 23 Oct 2020 at 21:07

Ice Tea said:
Typical

Over supply,, More like the they cost far to much ..Around £700 :mad:

for a 4TB NVMe so people not buying them

You can buy about seven 4TB HDD's for that and have £50 left over