Hi , looking for a cheap ssd 500GB for games. There is one empty 2.5 inch slot in my laptop (legion y-540) . 3 games in particular are forza horizon 4 gta 5 and warzone. I have looked on a couple of websites and the prices are all over the place. the samsung ones are 90 AUD but the other brands are like 60.. dont really understand what the difference is.. I dont want anything super fast. i play on 1080p 60fps. thanks for ur help
2.5" SSD Recommendations for Gaming
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Based on my current warranty delays on a 500gb Evo Samsung SSD, I would say get a different brand.
Been waiting weeks to get a replacement to a dead SSD under warranty , and they can't tell me when they can ship me a replacement..
Probably because of the chipset shortage?
They've made no excuses except 'we don't know, it really shouldn't take this long'
I have a Crucial MX500 1TB I got for around $120 and it's running Warzone, Apex and WoW.
If not Samsung EVO, then Crucial MX500, WD Blue 3D, or Sandisk Ultra 3D (same as the WD Blue 3D) - they're all the TLC with DRAM models that can basically run as fast as SATA lets them most of the time unless you have a weird workload, which ain't gaming.
Everything else from those brands that is still SATA and not NVMe is either DRAMless TLC (Crucial BX500), or QLC (Samsung QVO), or older superseded models (WD/Sandisk Ultra without the 3D), or other strange combinations (eg: Sandisk Plus can be pretty much anything, they're know to swap guts under the same model number, meaning some are great some are crap - my bro has an ancient one that outperforms a brand new Crucial BX drive the same size, so obviously he got lucky and has DRAM on his).
The DRAMless TLC ones or QLC with DRAM should in theory be fine as a game drive, but they're often like $20-30/GB less then the full fat model, so why skimp out for that piddly saving?
Last time I bought a laptop upgrade for my father, the Crucial MX500 was the bang for buck option - cheaper than Samsung's shitty QVO at the time but EVO performance. Earlier for my 2TB game drive (boot is Samsung EVO 970 NVMe), WD Blue 3D was bang for buck, same ballpark as Crucial and Samsung, maybe a shade behind. Other than that I've been getting NVMe lately.
Other brands I dunno what's "good" off the top of my head, they're the market leaders in SATA SSDs anyway.
You look like someone in the know. I am looking for a PCIe 4.0 NVME SSD. I had decided on purchasing a WD SN850, but it looks like the Seagate Firecuda or Sabrent Rocket are slightly faster (not that the difference is likely to be noticeable outside of benchmarks). Do you have an opinion on the best option?
I honestly haven't looked that closely at Gen4 stuff as I consider it terrible price to performance for normal users & the last machine for actual work I helped spec was only with Gen3 units as gen4 was insane money at the time (When Ryzen 3000/X570 was new and there was only really that golden heatsinked drive available).
If they are all the newer, faster 2nd generation of Gen4 controllers (7000 seq read) like the WD one, I'd just get the cheapest in the size you want unless there was some catch with the endurance being lower or something else weird like that with one of them on their spec sheets vs the others. IIRC they all trade blows depending on the benchmark, some are better at sequential read/write where the other are better at random etc.
Thanks, I appreciate the detailed response.
Gen4 is definitely not the best value for money right now when compared to Gen3 or SATA, but I want a Gen4 as the main O/S drive and will relegate the current SATA SSD to file storage.
If you're looking to save a dollar then just get the cheapest one you can find, it'll barely make any difference at all.
Theres like a 1 second difference in load times between a Samsung's SATA 860 and a PCIE EVO Plus. As long as you're not on a mechanical HDD you can still tell people you're PC Master Race.
Don't go cheapest you can find, the cheapest ones are without DRAM and use QLC nand, they're are crap for reliability as the drive gets hit way harder.
Best to look at Crucial MX500, WD Blue & Sandisk Ultra SSD as they all have TLC nand & onboard DRAM. Just get whichever of those 3 is cheapest. Sometimes Samsung Evo is cheaper than them though which is also a good choice.
WIll the cheaper 60 dollar ones be able to run the games mentioned ?