Capacity: 2TB
Form Factor: M.2 2280
Interface: PCI-Express 3.0 x4, NVMe 1.3
Read Speed : up to 2400MB/s
Write speed : up to 1750MB/s
TBW is low at 480TB
Also no DRAM
Maybe decent for a basic 2TB (non boot) pc game drive where not too many large rewrites happening?
As a boot drive, your system would use it for swapping data. That can be a lot of write depending on how much you load the memory.
Most people would want to avoid the use of virtual memory for a prolong period of time. Even with an SSD, it is still undesirably slow. That's the case even on a Mac with Apple Silicon and a PCIe gen 4 class internal SSD, I can easily feel virtual memory is being used heavily and I would close application rather than continue with painfully slow performance.
It probably helps that I have 32GB RAM, but my current boot SSD is at 20TBW after 630 days.
It runs 24/7, I gets used at least 3-4 hours a day (gaming, TV, work, personal all on the same machine, sometimes I remote into it from other machines), I occasionally install games by mistake to this drive and take them off again, swap disk is on this drive. I'm a heavy user.
Granted, I still wouldn't use this for a boot drive simply because for an extra $50 I can save the risk of a day's downtime at some point in the next decade or two. But if it's a system with no important data, it's fine for a boot drive.
My Samsung 950 Pro (bought ~2016), used as a boot drive in the every day PC, reports 70TB written. Fairly sure this drive would be out of warranty before you hit the 480TBW mark, assuming you aren't using it for Chia mining or something … lol
Are you writing your CCTV to the SSD? It would seem like you’d be much better using a mechanical drive for that part of your use?
Definitely worth spending extra for a better boot drive like you say.
@freefall101: Doh I completely misread your message, must need a coffee. My bad, was also looking at security cameras previously lol
@Anthropomorphised: I was a little freaked out because I was just playing with mine and thought "wait, how do you know I have a harddrive with my cameras?" haha
Write amplification
Is that actually, seriously a problem for a boot drive though…?
Absolutely no problem, it'll be totally fine.
As per the other post below, if the drive can handle 263GB of writes per day, then you're never going to get close to wearing it out. That is a gigantic figure even though it's smaller than other drives.
I've been using a 250gb Samsung 830 as a boot drive for ~11 years and I'm still only at 57TB writes… Back when they came out they only gave them like 100TB TBWs. https://i.imgur.com/P5wC5An.png
That said I only put programs I use often on it, any work involving large files I do on HDDs…
Maybe decent for a basic 2TB (non boot) pc game drive where not too many large rewrites happening?
As long as you set the games settings to update when you play. Else if you have a large library and the games are constantly updating everytime there is a patch, that can still be a lot of writes. Also its good to make sure there is atleast 20% free space on SSD.
Seriously?! unless you think your downloads are going to outpace your ssd. Which isn’t the case for even a SD card
Um… for general public, especially for gaming:
You spend most of your time playing games, not patching games. If your PC spent 50% of the time patching games, then you are simply not a real gamer. Before you mention TBW is a real issue, you need to prove that you personally have reached that situation under normal condition. Do you know how long this SSD needs to do a full drive write (and is that memory or SSD to it OR NBN download to it)?
The problem is, whenever a patch is downloaded that are few gb in size, look at how long it writes to the SSD patching each and every large files. So 4GB patch might be 30GB writes. Yes I am not a real gamer. I download, play for a few times and move on to the next game. Does it matter? The use case is real. I have my MX 500 lose 4% of its life for just insalling games ones on it and not playing them for a year. Then I realised I had to disable updates as they do write a lot.
I have my MX 500 lose 4% of its life for just insalling games ones on it and not playing them for a year. Then I realised I had to disable updates as they do write a lot.
What.
So after a year's use, you've used less than a twentieth of the drives life, meaning you still have 20 years of writes left at the same rate and your conclusion was to disable updates ?!
If a drive can handle your workload for twenty years then it has way way more write capacity than you need…
@Nom: More than half the games in there were barely getting any updates as they were old. Also that drive has a decent TBW upto 720 for a 2TB drive. Of the 2 TB, 1.4TB was games and rest was static data like images and videos. If you ahve latest games receving more updates and have a lower TBW thats much worse. If you have a steam library and dont play most of hte games frequently, I dont see the point in keeping them upto date either.
@John Doh: I don't understand the fixation on using TBW to calculate your own version of % of SSD life. Even so, that's use your calculation, 4% of that is 28.8 TB. That meant you have approximately re-written the SSD 14 times equivalent.
The reality is that with TLC SSDs, you are better off letting the data refresh from time to time. The patching does mean data gets written to alternative cells and you get a fresher copy of some of the game files.
It's better to use the SSDs without restriction, rather than purposely reducing TBW (which is a figure the SSD maker strategically decided based on competition and warranty period calculation, rather the true TBW). All storage devices have higher failure rate after the warranty period. Reducing write is not going to help you. Furthermore, saving TBW on a gaming SSD makes the least sense. Those games can be re-installed on the cloud so you don't need to backup games.
All my SSDs failed so far have one thing in common. They haven't been used often enough (very little writes).
@John Doh: You're way overthinking it - you just don't need to worry about lifespan of a modern SSD unless you have some very specific high-write workflow (like running a database server for a constantly updated database, for example).
Games use isn't going to get anywhere close to wearing out your drive, even if you do all the updates every single day.
Just let em rip and don't worry about it 👌
480TBW at 5 year warranty gives you 96TB per year or 263GB per day. That’s probably not realistic for the average person even with game updates.
It’s definitely low but should be plenty for the average Joe on a storage drive
Maybe we are wrong, average Joe installs 2 Red Dead 2 like games every day, so 730 Red Dead 2 equivalent games per year.
Better find them PNY CS3040 2TB with 3600TBW. That way, people can re-write the entire SSD nearly twice every day for 5 years.
I don’t even know if my basic NBN speeds would download that much in a day 😆
Not sure why you got downvoted for trying to provide context lol
TBW is not an objective measurement because SSD makers don't quote the real figure (there is a big buffer). There is no guideline on it.
If you managed to exceed the TBW on this SSD, you certainly have your money worth. As for there is a lot of background writes behind the scene, you install Crystal DiskInfo and check your current SSD's write figures. Is the total write figure crazy high?
Is it good as a data drive?
At the moment, due to the price, it is a decent choice. However, I don't have this particular SSD so I cannot comment on its reliability. Also, I am basing on 1TB SSD model (based on those reviews which indicate the 1TB SSD version uses TLC). SSD price is trending downward though.
Using an SSD as a data drive is basically a quality of life purchase, so we are still paying a premium for it. Also, do bear in mind that SSDs are generally not great as cold storage devices so do check them regularly. If you do use it regularly, then that's less of an issue. If it is for professional work, then you probably want to go for something even better (i.e. if this is for Macbook Pro or a PC with Thunderbolt 3/4 ports, I would probably look elsewhere (something with faster sustained write speed)).
my use case (not sure about mynamechecksout's) is mostly as an external for photo storage/lightroom editing while travelling. Basically bumping up from a 500TB 2.5" ssd and wanting 2TB in a small, cost-effective, solid state and reasonable speed but it's not like ait needs to be blistering writes like a system disk or game disk. It's unlikely to ever be outside an external enclosure. 2.5" SSD in a close fitting case is a convenient form factor, but these seem even more compact and suited to stuffing in a bag.
Any thoughts on these vs some other, perhaps cheaper but comparable performance 2TB stick?
It'll be fine for this purpose - but I would format the drive to 1.8TB or so, and leave 200GB unused - this helps with drive performance when it gets close to full. (Because it can't get full when you're reserving 200GB 😁)
@Nom: Thanks for the input everyone, we have the same use case quick-dry with the exception that I will put a few steam games I play from time to time
I am using it for game drive, can't feel different from my Samsung 980 Pro 2TB for game
Thanks for sharing your perspective!
Yeah, the difference in game load times between the fastest and slowest SSDs is almost nothing. Any old SSD is fine for this use case 👍
Should be fine to use in a laptop as the boot drive.
Ive got a new system with the cs1031 1TB,
Using pcbenchmarks software, only ever got the ssd to get 1000MB/s read, it says its capable up to 2400MBs according to this post.
Is this normal? To get only less the 50% of the read on the specs
No. Try some other benchmark software, such as Crystal Disk or HD Tune.
Is 2280 still going to be the standard size for a while? Or is 2230 already overtaking it ?
Barely anything except for surfaces/steam deck use 2230’s, 2280’s are still the standard size due to the ability to put more chips on (like dram, and capacity) and easier to spread heat
Ah. Lousy Surface. my SP4's 2280 was removable but from sp6 until the SP7+ where they changed to 2230 , they started soldering the 2280 in.
Anyone recommend this for an Autocad drive? Just want to use this as the drive where I save all the files. At the moment I'm looking at around 1TB data saved in like 2-3 years from now. If not, im open to recommendations! Thanks.
similar use case, and thoughts/'wonderings'
How big is a big Autocad file ? Do you have single files hundreds of GB in size ?
I use it for Revit as well as autocad. Files can go as big as 1-2 gb but no more. And they stay where they are after I save them. Maybe 10mb saves every 20-30 mins.
Absolutely fine for that sort of use 👍
Suitable for PS5??
Wouldn’t recommend, you’ll want something faster. Here’s a list to refer to https://www.cnet.com/tech/gaming/best-m2-ssd/
No!!! This is PCIe gen 3 x4 SSD. PS5 rejects it. You will be wasting your money getting this for PS5.
Is that actually, seriously a problem for a boot drive though…? Surely you aren't going to write 2TB of data 240 times in any reasonable period of time..