for mainstream, samsung 850 evo.

for budget ssd, not sure. just go for well-known brands like intel, samsung, crucial, kingston and sandisk.

it's an option if you're really on a tight budget.

--

Intel® Solid State Drive Toolbox 3.4.6

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/2...x?product=80096

note for those who do not have 3.4.5 or later installed, it's better for you to grab this one, because of this announcement, https://security-center.intel.com/advisory....anguageid=en-fr

uh? it looks normal to me. the last one is 4k benchmark. it's always the slowest of all in crystaldiskmark. you can check them out online for comparison (remember to compare label to label, e.g. 4k vs 4k; crystaldiskmark changed sequences to display results for some reasons)

for normal use and gaming, you will not trigger such throttles, as long as air flow is adequate (the sticker on 960 evo is copper film that helps heat spreading). it's when you use it as storage and do transfers of large files for a long period of time that you need cooling mods like this. 40c idle and 50c on load are in normal non-throttle range. (estimated throttling point is above 70c+)

i do use pcie adapter with heat sink to house 960 evo. i didn't take the sticker off. it's still cooler with heat sink (around 45c under load; by load i mean creating multiple vms on the ssd (at least 40gb each), and transfer them to different ssd storage after that). compared to my sm951, which had its sticker removed entirely, sm951 is cooler but by few c only.

if this is the case, your best option is to use disk cloning tools, either from manufacturers or third-party. disk cloning does work if your existing setup is good to go (meaning there is no need to adjust hardware settings, drivers are all ok, etc). the process involves cloning hdd to with ssd, with ssd attached to usb adapter. after the cloning is done, unplug the hdd from system, and replace the ssd as boot device in bios, and boot from it.

do not touch the hdd until everything is fine running on ssd. (you might need it again if something happened)

still, to get rid of other potential issues later on, a clean install is always the best way to start with.

no it will not work. dell vostro 5568 supports m.2 sata ssd only. 960 evo is m.2 pcie ssd.

it's been lightly discussed above; still waiting for real owners to provide more precise inputs.

compared to hdd, it should be ok if it's for normal use. (i bet it's meant for os disk only based on the size) you still can benefit from high iops and low latency. however real-world sequential read/write speeds might not be as good as 250gb and up.

probably you will need to wait for a while :/

or, maybe consider oem. i saw AceCombat selling samsung pm851a below myr 1k (basically an oem version of 850 evo)

it's been a while. here are some ssd management tool updates from various manufacturers:

Zotac SATA SSD Toolbox 1.15
https://www.zotac.com/download/mediadrivers...olBox_V1.15.zip

Adata SSD ToolBox Version 3.0.1
http://us.adata-group.com/AppStore/ADATA_SSDToolBoxSetup.zip

Palit ThunderTuner SSD Version 1.0
http://www.palit.com/palit/download.php?pc_cate=ssd&lang=en

actually i think you can stick the heat sinks onto the sticker instead of tearing the sticker off. i didn't take off the sticker of my 960 evo. it's still running under 50c 45c even under load. (note that i do large file transfers frequently)

still, it's a practical mod. yes it's true that most of the times we will never hit such overheating thresh holds if it's for normal use / gaming only, but a simple mod like this gives relatively better dissipation of heat for the ssd.

This post has been edited by horns: Jul 1 2017, 12:16 AM

hyperx fury > uv400 > a400 (based on performance and tbw)

yes for some reasons they thought those placements are good. in reality, they are really not good at all.

qlc ssds are coming our way. (well, probably next year) previously it was speculated that it only survived 100 p/e cycles. now toshiba tells us that it's actually 1000 p/e (like tlc)

http://www.anandtech.com/show/11590/toshib...1000-p-e-cycles

other related news about qlc nand flash:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/11585/wester...4-96-layer-nand
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/10/to..._100tb_qlc_ssd/
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/17/am...ting_100tb_ssd/
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/28/qlc_flash_primer/

for those with weird nvme ssd m.2 slot, ek has passive m.2 nvme ssd cooler for you:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ekwb-nvme...sink,34939.html
https://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-m-2-nvme-heatsink-black

well it's already here, https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/4350658

both are sata3-based, just different form factors, so it's the same in performance.

yeah in a way it means more software to be installed and used for ssd management only, if you have ssds from different brands in a system.

actually there are almost no functions in such ssd management tools that we need for daily operations. ssd runs fine without them. to me i just install and run them when necessary (e.g. i only run samsung magician once during initial setup, then it's uninstalled until the next time i need it, e.g. for secure erase) for ssd optimizations included, we can do it manually, including over provisioning. (more flexible at least for me)

also, i usually set my systems to use only one or two brands.

at retail, any 120gb range m.2 sata ssd will do because they are below myr400. 240gb range is usually above myr400.

brands wise, you can choose from samsung (850 evo) and kingston.

alternatively you can go with this one, 256gb, https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/4289659

kingston is slightly faster on paper. however they are budget ssd so it might not be significant.

note that for small ssd is relatively slow in general. (although if compared to hdd its iops is still relatively better) for optimal r/w speeds, choose 240gb range but it's beyond your budget.

the good timing to get one is always when you need one, and have enough budget to do so. note that nvme ssd is still priced as premium at this stage.

right, there is literally no improvement in game loads compared to sata3 ssd. (i have tested the same; the outcomes were literally like those videos)

i will suggest use the money to get large capacity sata3 ssds, because it's better to go for more space since speed is not significant.

professional work purposes will benefit from its speeds. (e.g. content creation, engineering, virtualization, data storage at data centers; still it depends on capabilities of underlying os / software to make full use of its full potentials)

for normal usage/gaming, sata3 ssd is sufficient enough imo. with nvme ssd, you actually gain only a slight (maybe no) performance improvements for this type of usage.

This post has been edited by horns: Jul 21 2017, 12:10 AM