yes, if you don't care about warranty, it's a good option. they are more affordable than retail units.

for firmware updates, you can track down machines that come with these ssds and check out their support pages for new ones (note: use it at your own risks). for samsung magician, there are plenty of tools that can be used as alternatives; with the latest version (5.x), you can just skip it, because there are so few useful functions in it, compared to previous versions.

i did that before for some of mine. they worked well. make sure to double confirm that the firmware is for exact ssd model (at least model number must match; it's oem so they use different models from different vendors to fulfill supplies).

again, do it at your own risks. i did that because i have spares.

what's your old ssd?

these two are almost the same; just pick the cheapest. value ssds are for normal to light work loads.

i assume you were using 840 evo (afaik there was no 540 evo)

from mainstream to value, it should be still good enough in terms of user experience (depending on your actual use).

i have some savage 240gb running here. no issue (it's been 1year+).

try apply the latest firmware from kingston, http://www.kingston.com/en/support/technic...to_SAFM001B.iso and see how it goes from there.

to me both run at similar speed.

the real answer about which is better depends on several things, at least budget and use case. 850 evo is a good choice, and way cheaper than 840 pro if your use case is just client work loads / normal use. (because it's cheaper you can opt for larger capacity variants; so more space for you to use) for heavier workloads, 840 pro is better than 840 evo (due to its persistent read/write speeds), but it costs more.

i have both for different use cases as explained above.

numbers about speed in ssd are mainly for marketing. it doesn't reflect anything practical in real world use.

nice; good luck

both are relatively reliable. er i have stated my opinion about speed between the two in the previous post.

Intel Solid-State Drive Toolbox version 3.4.5

https://downloadmirror.intel.com/26776/eng/...lbox_v3_4_5.zip

This release of the Intel® SSD Toolbox includes support for the Intel® Optane™ Memory products. When using Intel® Optane™ Memory as a system accelerator, expect an extra Volume tab in the SSD Toolbox due to accelerator configuration. Also, several features are disabled in Toolbox when system acceleration is configured. Support has also been added for the Intel® Optane™ SSD DC P4800X Series, and the Intel® SSD DC P4600 and P4500 Series.

This release also includes firmware updates for the Intel® SSD DC S3520, 750 and Pro 5400s (80/120GB) Series products.

For the Intel® SSD DC S3520 Series, the latest firmware revision is N2010112.

For the Intel® SSD 750 Series, the latest firmware revision is 8EV101H0.

The latest bootloader revision is 8B1B0133.

This firmware version contains fixes for the following issues:
* XN022 Assert Fixes
* Sequential read performance improvement at end of life from firmware 8EV101F0
* Misc. sightings closure and improvement on product health.

For the Intel® SSD Pro 5400s (80/120GB), the latest firmware revision is 36P. For firmware fix details, please see release note from September 2016.

i think you should use sata 6gb for ssd (assuming it's intel; should be more stable), and plug your hdds into pcie sata card instead.

ssds at 120gb range are relatively slower, compared to same models of other sizes.

if you're sure you wanna go for it, you should choose any tlc-based ssds from kingston, sandisk or samsung. most of these drives are affordable and at the same price range. (around MYR260.00); there is not much to talk about in terms of performance.

ok. in terms of reliability (i mean relatively), maybe you can go for samsung 850 evo (there is a 120gb variant) for longer warranty. i saw ronaldjoe at garage sales have this. (imo pay myr 30.00 extra for 2 years more of warranty is worth it)

yes seriously don't waste time on waiting for this and that already. hdd is still very good for storage purposes, but it's a bottleneck as os disk. ssd on the other hand is good for os disk, but still relatively expensive as storage.

i suggest you go for mainstream drives from samsung or kingston. samsung 850 evo and kingston hyperx savage 240gb range should be good enough for you. (size is relevant in terms of endurance, because they have more space to write)

i use value, mainstream, and pro sata ssds. imo value ssds are relatively ok, but they're not my type; still slower than what i expected. as for mainstream ssds, the above are among the better options. go pro series only if you really need persistent read/write speeds after steady state.

imo pcie nvme ssd is an overkill for normal usage.

just use disk management in windows and shrink the last partition in the disk (usually with the largest disk space), leaving unallocated free space at the end of the disk (usually the size of op i set to is at least 10 to 15% of total disk space, for normal use; for wok purposes, some i do go up to 20 to 25%)

yeah most ssds from the 240gb range onward should perform better. ssd's performance can be influenced by something called parallelism of nand flash chips in ssd.

i take 2d/planar flash chips as an example. usually, a single 2d flash memory has limited data bandwidth. this limitation can scale by putting more flash chips, and make them operate in parallel, in a ssd. (it's like saying 1 chip has only 1 data highway. to increase overall bandwidth, you put more chips to increase the number of highways) further improvements (e.g. increase cell density by reducing cell size, use of tlc in place of mlc) allow manufacturers to make higher-capacity flash chips, so the number of nand flash needed in a ssd becomes lesser. (e.g. previously we need, say, 8 flash chips to make a 120gb ssd. now we only need, say, 2) this happened to one of crucial's old models which used 2d nand flash before, causing the intended performance became much lower than expected.

2d nand depends on parallel chips to increase performance, what about 3d nand? they are parallel in nature, because of the stacking of multiple layers; so parallelism is maintained. due to the stacked arrangement also, endurance is improved, because the overall surface area is now much larger to let manufacturers to pack more capacity in a nand flash of the same size. there is no need to reduce cell size for this (reduced cell size also reduces endurance). with 3d nand technology, small drives can also have high performance, in theory.

there are other factors involved, but the above is the main one that affects ssd's performance for small ssds imo.

this is why it's important to know the type of nand chips that is used in a ssd. (maybe most of us don't care but i do hehe)

between slc and mlc, there is another type called emlc; for enterprise also. slc is just too expensive for consumer market; and we don't really need that much of endurance.

not sure about those from intel/micron. but to be fair, 3d nand version of tlc from samsung is ok imo. as for planar / 2d tlc, they're are definitely slower. (if you used mlc drives for some times, then you switch to planar tlc, you will feel the lags)

also, not all mlc chips are ok. certain old chips are slower in performance.

it really depends on your usage. it's not bad for consumer and moderate work loads. compared to sata drives, it is faster in terms of os boot and app load time. however the difference is just relative (by seconds). for my work loads specifically (creating vms, and running them in parallel), not much difference if i compared it to the old sm951 ahci.

if you wanna use it for gaming, just get a large sata ssd instead. (literally there is no improvement for game load time, compared my sm843, an old and much slower sata ssd)

for sata ssd, samsung 850 evo. consider the price gap is for the longer warranty period. note that these things are mass-produced electronics. although they have good quality controls in production, shit does happen. this is why we have warranty to protect us from manufacturing defects, since we will use them for a long time.

with that being said, oem ssds are actually relatively good alternative if you don't care about warranty. in this case, get a model from reputed brands that have better online reviews and comments.

i think it's the most practical upgrade for your computer. you will save a lot of time using it, than waiting for stuffs to load hehe

that was exactly what i did when i got my first lol!

since years ago, the best combo is still ssd as os disk, and hdd as data storage. you get the best of both worlds.

congratulations and have fun with it

from specs and reviews available online, it's a budget ssd, at the same range as samsung 750 evo; based on sandisk oem x400 (using planar/2d tlc, not 3d tlc). it uses marvell controller, sandisk nand, has dram, comes with a better endurance rating (400tbw for 1tb variant; even higher than some high end sata ssds). all seemed ok, just the price is at the higher side. for storage purposes, note that budget ssds usually have much slower write speed for tlc-based ssd (especially planar tlc), they might not be as speedier once its slc cache limit is reached. (i still think hdd is the better option for mass storage tbh)

for real-world use, it's still better to wait for comments from actual users.

charts/graphs about mixed client workloads, and 4k random reads/writes (iops) usually represent better for typical user loads. also, look at sequential read/write charts, and random read/write charts. namely, to have better judgements about performance of a ssd, we usually look at the combination of 3 areas: through puts, iops, and iops latency; not just one.

what you mentioned above is just through puts (i.e. sequential data transfer rates). for sata3-based sequential reads/writes, 600MB/s is theoretical; marketing tells you their drives can go up to 550MB/s; in real world, it's more like 100MB/s to 480MB/s, depending on things like usage-os drive or storage; workloads; nand chip type; controller; dram; driver; os; etc.)

edit: ssd is just storage. the fundamentals are the same.

This post has been edited by horns: Jun 4 2017, 01:24 AM