is this budget SSD good? planning to get one to store some daily games for the loading speed.
It is really cheap compared to WD and SD.

Its like the entry of all SSD. That's why its cheap.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJEpQsGkNgg

watch this....dont know how to embedded

When you are used to old 28 seater school busses (HDD drives), even the Perodua Kenari (A400) feels luxurious though smaller. Easier to park, drives around fairly well. That sort of comparison.

Crucial MX500 is like... Honda City... value for money
Samsung 860 Evo SATA is like... a Toyota Camry... pricey, faster and classy
and the 970 Evo NVMe is like Ferrari 438 Italia... different class of speeds, with smaller seating space

This post has been edited by mbr: Nov 23 2018, 04:56 PM

And 970 Pro is the Bugatti Chiron

All those super cheap ones very likely does not have DRAM cache. Crucial MX500 got price drop and it is definitely better than Kingston A400.

yea. but quite a number of brands, by far this one is the cheapest from lazada

Thanks a lot it is really informative. Looks like most of the entry lvl SSD is good.

Nice comparison, but i try to search around crucial mx500 pricing higher compare to kingston.
I plan to get this the cheap SSD purely for game storage only.
right now using Nvme 970 evo as boot drive. it is blazing fast!
But i don't plan to install any game in this drive.

970 Evo pro is another lvl, i am fine with 970 evo for now hehe.

is DRAM really that important?
Crucial mx500 better you mean because it has DRAM? i am eyeing for A400 because of the pricing hehe, not still searching for other brands tho.
i only plan to get one SSD drive purely for game storage.

DRAMless?
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/dramle...undup,4833.html

About DRAM cache:
https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/...h_dram_caching/

Crucial has 512mb cache I think, depending on model. You are right, if you only want for game storage, the dram may not play that big a role

MX500 crucial


DRAM
250GB 256MB DDR3
500GB 512MB DDR3
1TB 1GB DDR3

if you use for boost disk better choose the SSD got DRAM

Im using evo 970 nvme as my boot drive. for game storage i think can go for non DRAMless sdd?

Great. thanks for ur feedback.

thanks for ur intro

To be frank, you won't feel that difference. Tried an A400 on an ancient 2010 i3 530 + 2GB RAM, still boot like performance SSD.

Saw this deal on Amazon US!

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Inch-Interna...d=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Worth it even include shipping to Malaysia?

A400 is still a good upgrade coming from HDD.

i will only boils down to a simple question.

Are you gonna use it for gaming = A400 is enough

Are you gonna user it to store important work files and data = Don't use A400 , Go for Crucial MX500 or samsung evo.

Currently using A400 480GB for Steam library, works well at under 70% capacity.

Installed A400 480GB 2 weeks ago. Works like charm. Agree with some one them saying that if you only want to store stuff that is not personal and important, go for A400 and nothing else. Otherwise look for Crucial MX500 or EVO.

PS: I bought mine @ RM 268.

This post has been edited by exdtan: Nov 27 2018, 03:41 PM

Only reason to get a DRAM-less SSD (like this Kingston A400) is to use them as a temporary drive for gaming. Don't use them as your OS or storage drive.

What is your personal experience in using DRAM-less SSD as OS drive ?
I will be testing its lifespan and doing a review for A400 since I am using it as my OS drive to see if what they said is true about DRAM-less SSD.

Cool. Looking forward to it. I doubt it is better than any SSD with DRAM cache when it is heavy though.

https://www.anandtech.com/bench/SSD18/2431

I also just bought Kingston A400 and i used it for my OS. I noticed a very annoying issue with it. more often than not, my screen will freeze(unresponsive) along with the mouse cursor sometimes being able to move and sometimes not being able (stuck) but sounds are still being played without a problem during those unresponsive moments. Especially when programs are being opened.

Damn bloody annoying and it only happened right after i switched to A400 SSD. reformatted it and still the same shit.

does that have to do with the SSD not having DRAM cache?

Yup. Thats no DRAM cache for you. Stutters when the load is heavy.

So far I only use it to do browser surfing + Visual Studio Code + PHP, Apache, MySQL + Media Streaming.

Videos and Audios no lag. Only issue I have faced is when laptop is in balanced/power saving mode, Disk I/O is slow. In which case HDD has the same problem too due to performance setting set by windows in theses power mode.

May i know what do you normally do that caused these issues ? I would like to simulate these issues in my own laptop by following your scenario.

Stutter is a common one - when at high loads.

Example; let's say I'm batch processing 500 images in photoshop, post process them with a filter. While doing that, if I try and open another process on say - premiere pro to put the photos that are done processing into a timeline, that's where the stutters will start. Then the system starts having freezes as the drive tries to read and write at the same time. This gets even worse when you start filling up the drive and there's even less space for the controller to write to the NAND.

On an NVME drive or even say an "entry-level" drive with DRAM (i.e MX500 or 850/860 Evo) - none of this issue happens. Of course the NVME drive will be quite a bit faster during heavy loads but the important thing is, stuttering or fingers crossed - entire system BSOD is rarely (if ever) going to happen).

Now I do have several A400 480gb drives that I use just for Steam storage and external storage for the PS4 Pro. In those cases, they work FINE. That's because the loads on the drive is minimal as game loading rarely ever exceeds half the drive's capable read and IOPS speed, much less to say saturate it. Since seek time and latency difference is fairly negligible between the cheapest SSDs and highest end, game load times aren't a very significant difference.

You can look at performance and specs, but this is for me the (by far) cheapest way of upgrading my 7-year-old Macbook Pro from 320GB HD to 480GB SSD. Only rm270!

Hence


https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/dramle...up,4833-10.html

I see. Thanks for sharing. I have one junior who is using Sandisk SSD Plus 120GB as OS drive for 4 years + now. So far no issue. I hope mine can last for at least that long too.

How about patriot burst ssd. Their pricing seems to be pretty similiar to the A400.

Well I have 24 office PCs using Sandisk SSD+ 240GB as their main drive too - but all those PCs do are only documents, web surfing and what not but they save all their work on a server or on a local mechanical HDD. But if we're talking about high level, extensive loads here, I would not install those SSDs at all even if my account side wants to save just a couple thousand dollars - I'd rather pay from my own pocket to install 860 Evos at the very least.


Same shit different flavor. Using the same controller (Phison S11), using the same NAND type. If you're going to get budget SSDs, just get the cheapest one.

It does have a small dram cache. But I propose going straight to crucial mx500.

received my 860 evo 1tb today, total include shipping and tax is RM 575 after convert. worth? malaysia is selling double that price.

compare the speed to my old crucial M4 512 gb and my wife sandisk ssd plus 240gb, i would say my 860 evo perform a lot stable and obviously faster, but no fast until i want to shout. it is faster as it should be.

granted i only transfer files between the disk to check the speed. out of 3 only sandisk is use as OS drive.
it is a dramless ssd, and base on my wife usage, it perform really well.
the only game my wife play is candy crush on FB.
however the performance can be slightly unstable. things still load pretty fast when i use it for some network/os troubleshoot and updates
there were slight hiccup that was foreign to me when i was using my M4. but it does not break the machine and the usability of the ssd.
the hiccup does not happen everytime and last no more than 1 sec or 2.

I placed order on 23 Nov and paid extra for priority shipping, it shipped out from Amazon on Nov 26, Florida => Ohio => just left to...? They use DHL and expected to arrive next week (3 Dec) but I am happy if can reach by 10th Dec

Eager to compare the experience with Patriot burst that I got

This post has been edited by mbr: Nov 29 2018, 09:50 AM

Dont buy tht a400. By right never ever buy a super low end ssd from kingston. Somewhre in year 2014 , kingston used to have a low end model call V300. Different batch get different type of NAND chips. Performance difference are significant.

Kingston themselves dont manufacture NAND chips , RAM and the SSD controller. They only assemble them. Bill of materials wise they just buy watever is available on the market that is cheap for the low end segment. Kingston is more like an assembly company.

Crucial on the other hand belongs to Micron. They produce their own NAND chips and RAM. They only buy the SSD controller from 3rd party. Their product QC is good because of this. Thts y i also recommend to buy MX500 if cheap ssd is all you want. Never go below that.

For the entire SSD industry, only Samsung produce everything by themselves . NAND chips, RAM and SSD controller. QC is top of the line. Of coz here you pay through your nose for a Samsung SSD.

This post has been edited by k!nex: Nov 29 2018, 02:07 PM

He played mostly MMORPG game so far. I would consider it as medium/average load...

bro, u are dealing with Amazon. if the items does not reach you by 3rd DEC or earlier, they will immediately ship you a new one with 2days delivery, and you can return the original order with Amazon reimbursed all of the shipping cost, and maybe extra for you hassle. Or, if you choose to wait, i am pretty sure your shipping charges will be refunded.

this is the world most customer centric company, they never break delivery promised.


back to the ssd, i think the performance between ur patriot and 860 evo would be likely close for normal application.
however it will show when heavy load occur, mainly because 1tb 860 dram cache is 1gb.
samsung makes their own ram and they are generous in this way..

Can I keep both? lol

no u cant lol
i dunno if you notice that we will not have to key in cvv2 when we make the payment..

check for bad sector.
goto cmd
chkdsk /r

Kingston A400 480GB (8 months old)

Means they will just charge me for 2, right? I don't mind second one without the shipping fee... thus resale here in malaysia for RM 850 also will be profitable

What is your use rate? In terms of GB write/rewrite each month?
Did you usually keep it over 80% full?

This SSD is belong to a friend of mine. Use as the main OS & storage drive.

A cheap SDD is much better than HDD.

I personally have no problem using A400.

This post has been edited by derthvadar: Dec 1 2018, 01:08 PM

Still stutters worse than HDD like users experienced from earlier post. Or here
https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/4209269/+5680

This post has been edited by TristanX: Dec 1 2018, 02:06 PM

Mine still working fine, maybe my luck still with me.

Are you using it for primary OS drive?

Strictly for OS drive and chrome. Still have 40GB of free space.

Loading OS definitely will stutter. Chrome is light load. Doesnt count.

Worth it for the price to performance!
Ordered the 970 Evo 500gb for RM 568 which I guess RM300 lower than Malaysia selling. I think sometimes if we can wait, the deals in amazon are worth it for us. Also, Amazon does make our hands itchy on those deals especially during Black Friday!

Hi , I have been using 960 250g for a year, it pairs with ryzen 1700 . Still running strong even today( 10 sec enters ) os.

Have been thinking about upgrade to 500gb . Would I have the same user experience if I get western digital 3d nand Black ? As it is a lot of cheaper than 970

How long it takes to reach ?

You are absolutely right.

I was using A400 for OS in my gaming pc and laptop before, after 2 month both my system become stutter and really unstable.

After change it to 860 evo all stutter and performance issue gone.

OMG
I guess these dram-less ssd only good as external backup storage

This post has been edited by Skylinestar: Dec 6 2018, 11:34 AM

hi, regarding the A400, when you're gaming, it will stutter at times right? screen just freeze for no apparent reason. Experiencing this while playing battlefield 5 and it stutters alot and the drive is new.

Not too bad as steam game drive, no?

Wouldnt trust a company that cheated once.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/7763/an-upda...wer-micron-nand

Crucial MX500 price difference isnt big. Why buy a crap when the good price/performance SSD isnt much more expensive?

It says Dec 13 but alrd received it on Dec 5

I use the 240gb version as OS drive for my old laptop.
Only use it for web browsing, youtube.
Works well for my usage, no issues so far.

Pretty happy with it, especially since I got it for a mere RM119.70 from lazada thanks to a coupon.

WDS500G2X0C?

According to here it should be faster than 960 Evo 250GB
https://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Compare/WD-Bl...485459vsm200373
https://www.pcworld.com/article/3265032/sto...ssd-review.html

If it's the older version (WDS512G1X0C) then worse performance.
https://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Compare/WD-Bl...251339vsm200373

im using this ssd, im upgrading from an ancient hdd, mobo just support sata2, mayb thats why i didnt encounter any slutter issue. the speed is amazing if u are upgrading from hdd.

SATA 2 is half the bandwidth of SATA 3. Bottlenecks SSDs.

I have seen kingston d3 ram with kingston chips, on the chip there printed kingston

Those are rebadged. Not only Kingston does that, even Apacer and Kingmax do that. Still these companies do not manufacture their own RAM chips themselves.

what the.... !?

personally i think is is lying lol.... F kingston

now i read back, he use the keyword "manufacture"

that's different thing liao, last time i read it somewhere dunno what company and electronic product, they find other company to help manufacture.

help manufacture is 1 thing, but rebadge other ppl chips to own brand... hrm... I still doubt it though

Today's world are only left with 3 DRAM manufacturers . Samsung , Hynix and Micron. Only 3 companies producing DRAM chips for the entire planet. So everybody else like , Kingston , A-Data , G-Skill have to buy their chips from these 3 companies.
The thing you read is most likely related to those semiconductor companies that do not have their own wafer fabrication foundry. A good example is Nvidia. TSMC manufactures most of their chips. However, Samsung is the manufacturer for their GP107 chips, which you can find in the GTX1050Ti and GTX1050 cards.

"Kingston has developed long-term relationships with the leading DRAM manufacturers. Our DRAM chips are purchased directly from these manufacturers, which include Micron, SK Hynix, Powerchip, Nanya and others. The components are shipped directly from the manufacturer's facility to Kingston's facility minimizing handling and exposure to damage." Source. Even Kingston themselves admit they dont manufacture their own DRAM chips. Their own brand markings on the chips are common though.

This post has been edited by k!nex: Dec 19 2018, 04:24 AM

I just bought 2 of A400 on 12.12. Problem is I encounter intermittent freezing when gaming. Any one of you encounter this?

im using a400 240gb. before this i use 500gb seagate hdd. so far no problem. pc startup around 5sec. play game (black desert) loading time really fast. so far im satisfied

hmm that's strange. every game I play the SSD like to freeze...I am using 480G version....Played JC4 and XCOM2 also freeze...music goes into loop..wait till SSD load data back then can resume.


Both SSD also like that. I am starting to think that the SSD's are refurbished. Lol

Is the SSD almost full?

Nope. 1 has 30% free space left and another one has 70%~80% free space left. both has same problem.

did you buy online? which seller ...hopefully not refurbished stuff got into your hands

Many are oem produces for them. Overall value for money a400. See how you use it as well, motherboard and other things play big role.

Ignore that trash. Seagate Barracuda is value for money.

https://www.kingston.com/en/support/technical/ssdmanager

Ignore that trash hdd if you need to select only one drive

Use this

https://www.kingston.com/en/support/technical/ssdmanager

How about the cheap Kingston a1000? Same issue?

For those who doesnt know.
https://shopee.com.my/search?keyword=Seagat...rracuda%20250GB

The new budget king.
Still trash.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12991/the-ki...me-ssd-review/2

This post has been edited by TristanX: Dec 24 2018, 08:21 AM

If barracuda at that price ... winner over a400

Although Kingston A1000 performance is one of the worse for NVME SSD, my opinion it's still better than SATA SSD. Even when against Barracuda SATA SSD.





https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Seagate...D_500_GB/4.html

NVME always the better choice against SATA because of the bigger bandwidth and better latency. Unless of course if the drive is really bad until SATA SSD can outperform it.

Thanks. I bought it because it is cheap, and I happen to have an m.2 slot on my motherboard.

This post has been edited by Savor_Savvy: Dec 25 2018, 12:08 PM

When you have Intel 760p for RM80 more money which is miles better, A1000 can be ignored.


https://www.anandtech.com/show/12991/the-ki...me-ssd-review/2

Not RM200 more?

RM299 for 256GB from Viewnet.
http://viewnet.com.my/

Cheapest I saw A1000 is RM202. So that makes 760P is expensive by almost 50%. Does the higher price justify the performance?

Anandtech test is more like stress test of the drive. Techpowerup also do normal user usage test.
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/S...p_512_GB/8.html

Win 10 startup time
760P 17.7 seconds
A1000 19.2 seconds

Winrar compression time
760P 35.5 seconds
A1000 42.5 seconds

MP3 indexing time
760P 1.7 seconds
A1000 2.3 seconds

Avast anti virus scan time
760P 51.2 seconds
A1000 62.6 seconds

Photoshop editing time
760P 61.5 seconds
A1000 54.3 seconds

RM350 for a1000 (480gb). To store my games.

Well, Intel controls prices. That's why you rarely see cheaper from other vendors. Intel is also known for reliability.

Anyway, he already bought it. Dont bother wasting time recommending crap.

Cool. Enjoy the slower speed.

My company is using this model but 120GB only, so far still ok after few months usage in Windows 10, no shuttering issue.
For normal office work (Microsoft Office, SAP) should't be any issue.

This post has been edited by Andrewtst: Dec 31 2018, 03:46 AM

It's cheap yeah but probably you'll replace it after a year or sooner. If it for everyday use you better invest on a good one.

This post has been edited by emmajoy: Dec 31 2018, 07:22 AM

Understand that the A400 is mainly a cheap alternative to upgrade old computers. You should not dump any more money on a pc that is more than 3 years old. So A400 250 is the perfect choice for less than RM160 these days. You can crucify the A400 for its performance, but it is very very high on value if you use it to upgrade your old pc. Nothing can touch it on that. With 3 years warranty, you should expect to get at least that amount of extended use time for your old pc until you upgrade or some problem comes up that needs a change.

If you are gaming, surely it is stupid to be cheap out & upgrade your few thousand buck rig with A400 that will affect your pc overall performance right?

I have two 5 year old Core i3 laptops that uses A400 250GB. And they are giving me good service so far for nearly 10 months now. Spend near RM400 on 2 units, and i cannot even buy a single Samsung 250GB SSD with that kind of money at that time.

So if anyone wanna bash the A400, go ahead. The problem is not about its speed or perceived reliability, but more on the overall value to keep your computer not ending up as E-waste.

A400 is a good setup for HTPC as OS for home user especially 120GB version only cost me below RM70.

3 years warranty and almost RM23/year.

ROI win.

A400 user here, happy with its performance for my 2008 intel duo core pc....
I dont know why with the bashing of cheap ssd....is already a steal when ur conside its cheap price plus 3 years warranty on the ssd and its not like ur can spot different in ssd performance anyway

If you run it though benchmark, yes there are difference. But for general use without attaching numbers, it is really much much better than HDD. But for the thousands of buyers of A400 would they care if it was fast? The ones that made noise are the cheapskates gamers that bought it without studying the pros and cons.

Are there's stuttering issue as what some are complaining?