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Hunting for a replacement SSD

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-Ice

Member
Joined
Nov 26, 2011
Long story short: When the end of the free Win10 upgrade was closing in, I upgraded my Win7 machine and immediately noticed that the bootups were slow. I initially blamed Win10 but it turns out, my Samsung SSD decided it didn't like Win10 and packed it in. This was annoying as it was only 3 years and 4 months old.... had it died a few months earlier, I could've gotten it replaced. My OS SSD, a Crucial M4, is about a year older than the Samsung and is still going strong. Again, annoying as the Crucial SSD is for OS and the Samsung SSD is for games so I'd have expected the Samsung SSD to last longer.

So, essentially, three questions:
1. Is there any way to salvage my Samsung SSD? Or at least get some data out of it? The drive is not recognized in BIOS, Windows, or Samsung Magician.

2. What's a decent replacement for this SSD? My research shows Samsungs are still "top of the line" in terms of SSDs, but are there other lines I should be looking at? I'm hoping to spend anywhere from £50-120, more if it's a really good deal.

3. I am also thinking, are the speed differences between various SSD types really noticeable in real-world applications? Do I spend the extra money for a 256GB 850 Pro (Read 550MB/s, Write 520MB/s, 100k/90k IOPS) or should I settle for the cheaper 250GB 850 Evo (Read 540MB/s, Write 520MB/s, 97k/88k IOPS)? Will I really miss that 3k/2k IOPS difference for a £36 price difference? Or for £10 more, I could up my capacity to a 480GB SanDisk SSD PLUS (Read 480MB/s, Write 400MB/s) or a 480GB SanDisk Z410 (Read 535MB/s, Write 445MB/s, 35k/69k IOPS)... Capacity is a big thing; I can install more games on it, but I'm not really sure how the difference in MB/s or IOPS affects real-world use.

Thanks in advance for any help!
 
A location helps so we know how to use for a retailer. Since you bound not to have newegg if you in the uk,etc. Chooseing a drive is going to depend on what you can buy.

Evo vs pro your not going to notice a difference not even in gaming.
 
LOL, I thought the £££ on the prices was enough of a giveaway, but yes, I'm in the UK. :D

I don't have the money to splurge on big-capacity SSDs, in fact, I'll need to really justify a 500GB 850 Pro (comes in around £200). I don't do video editing or other "special" tasks, just some occasional Photoshop work so the SSD will primarily be for gaming.

Evo vs pro your not going to notice a difference not even in gaming.
I guess that settles it then. So I guess all the specs on read/write speeds are not really tangible in real-world use? So why not just go for the cheapest SSD available with a given capacity? For instance, a Patriot Blast 240GB SSD comes in at just over £55 whereas a Samsung 850 Evo is around £84, 55% more expensive! Why pick one type over another, given the same capacity? Brand loyalty?
 
Why pick one type over another, given the same capacity? Brand loyalty?

Side-by-side testing of drives show write and read speeds vary by brand, with the Samsungs usually at the top of the list.
And you should factor in quality too, I personally wouldn't buy a no-name ssd for fear of it dieing and losing my data.
 
Side-by-side testing of drives show write and read speeds vary by brand, with the Samsungs usually at the top of the list.
And you should factor in quality too, I personally wouldn't buy a no-name ssd for fear of it dieing and losing my data.
Yeah, but Evilsizer just said there's no noticeable difference in gaming despite the read/write speed differences. There are a lot of SSDs that are cheaper than the Samsung 850 Evo quoted above, Patriot, PNY, Kingston, and SanDisk all have 250/256GB SSDs priced under £60, easily £24 less than the 850 Evo. If you read my first post, it's a Samsung 840 SSD that died putting me in this predicament in the first place.
 
I don't want to put words in his mouth, but I think he meant you won't see a difference between the two Samsung's. They are both at the top of the list for read/write. You won't notice much in gaming, maybe slightly less load times.
Again, I'd really look at it from a quality standpoint. Imagine your new drive dieing in a year, you'll be right back where you are now.
 
having used a wide range of ssd from really low bw to maxing out sata standard, as long as the ssd has 80k iop at least for both read/write. they are more then enough for gaming, the evo vs pro the small difference in IOPs is not noticeable. samsung ssd's cost more cause everything in that drive is from samsung, be it the nand flash the DDR3 ram buffer and the controller. i remember at one time adata made ic's but i think they got out of the game. most if not all ssd's will use some lower end samsung nand with a different controller or you will find crucial/micron nand on the ssd's. now i could be wrong but i havent seen anyone out side intel using intel nand flash, it does seem here lately though intel drives use 3rd party controllers. unless intel finally got back into making controllers for their drives. it has been a while since i looked at intel to see whats, what. if you can find it i would suggest the ECO3 but i need to find the non-newegg name of the drive(called the Triactor), i do think its cost is a bit higher too. Crucial/micron drives the BX line being a higher end compared more to the samsung PRO, the crucial MX line is more comparable to samsungs evo's. other drives that i see people suggesting are the OCZ trion 150 line, im not sure they fall in to compare to the samsung pro/evo line. my first hand experince is more with samsung lately starting with the 840 pro,850 evo, (2) mushkin ECO3(aka triactor), older drives i have are the OCZ vertex ex 120gb SLC, agility 60gb drive. the 60gb drive after many os reinstalls according to smart data is getting near its last leg for write life. the vertex ex 120gb SLC i bought second hand so i dont know how much writing was done to it but even with the 3-4 win7 installs i have done on it, it still shows 99% write life left. thats more a testament to SLC nand i think then anything, but ssd's just likd HDD can have issues early on. if nothing happens pretty much in the first year, you shouldnt have any issues for a while other then write life.

if you go with a 500/512gb drive or even 240/256gb drive its going to take quite a bit of writing before they lock into read only mode. i can only suggest right now, go throw the list of the retailer and post what they have. we can make recommendations from there..
 
My usual go-to retailer is Scan, which is what I linked to above. HERE is a list of their SATA III SSDs.

Seems like I'll be going back to Samsung anyway since they seem to be leading the pack here, but I'll go for the 850 EVO 256GB to get 5 year warranty. I can't afford a 850 PRO at the moment, but the only reason I'm looking at PRO (since there's no noticeable difference in speed in real life, as you say) is the 10 year warranty.

My Samsung 840 (basic, not even EVO) has only been used as a gaming drive and I don't install/uninstall games that often. Any ideas why it died? Like I said, it's only 3 years and 4 months old which is disappointing. Also, is there any chance of data recovery from this drive?

You also mention knowing how much write life drives have --- how do I figure this out for my Crucial M4?


Thanks a lot for all your help guys!
 
some manufactures have their own tool to check drive life and as long as one samsung drive is in you can use their magician tool.
http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools.html
or check out ssd life
http://ssd-life.com

there is any number of reasons it failed something happened with the controller or the ddr 3 cache or power section on the pcb,ect the list goes on. with out samsung taking a closer look at it, you wont know. if the drive is not showing up in the bios then your pretty much out of luck as far as getting data off it.

going off that site the evo you found for 63 is the 750 EVO which is enterprise listed, not sure how its on that other list though. its a newer drive after the 850 im not sure what makes it all that better tbh.
https://www.scan.co.uk/products/250...-256mb-cache-read-540mb-s-write-520mb-s-97k-8
the 850 evo is more
https://www.scan.co.uk/products/250...nd-512mb-cache-read-540mb-s-write-520mb-s-97k

if you cant spend that much and your ok with the lower warrenty period
https://www.scan.co.uk/products/240...-16nm-tlc-nand-540mb-s-read-490mb-s-write-78k
or
https://www.scan.co.uk/products/275...ead-530mb-s-write-500mb-s-55k-83k-iops-retail
the 275gb mx300 is kinda new to the party so i might be kinda weary of suggesting/buying it. what i get the feeling its more like 300gb drive with it set to 275gb so there is more provisioning going on, this gives it more extra space to use when other nand bit's start going out.
 
there is any number of reasons it failed something happened with the controller or the ddr 3 cache or power section on the pcb,ect the list goes on. with out samsung taking a closer look at it, you wont know. if the drive is not showing up in the bios then your pretty much out of luck as far as getting data off it.

I thought as much. Just had to ask to be sure, thanks!

I'm pretty wary of buying Samsung again simply because of this failed 840, or if I would buy again, I'd like 5 years warranty at least which means 850 EVO. The 750 EVO is only guaranteed for 3 years. The Crucials you linked are also 3 years. I guess for the peace of mind of 2 more years, I'd rather spend the extra £20+ .
 
go for the 850 evo for the warranty, yea it does happen luck of the draw and all. i should knock on wood i haven't lost an ssd yet other then that agility getting close to be locked into read only mode which will happen to any drive once the write limit is hit.
 
yea i did recommend that one but its not listed even in 240+ sizes on the scan site. if he had newegg as an option he would have more choices.
 
Can you guys tell me the name of the program that checks how much write cycles left for the SSD?
I use Sandisk 128GB SSD (I think its their first series SSDs, Not sure.) You can see the model in my sig.
Edit: Nevermind, i saw Evilsizer posted a link to a program, Thanks :)
 
Crucial MX300 is pretty good with great support if anything happens but MX200 was simply better. I was testing 750GB version of MX300 and I will test 525GB soon too. I guess that performance will be about the same. There is also caching option which let them run up to 1200MB/s. Crucial software is reading drives health and works with other brands too. It should work with M4 series SSD.
From other cheaper SSD I can recommend Patriot Blast. Low price but good performance. I had no issues with these drives.

Generally whatever you take will have about the same reliability. Longer warranty is good but not always required if price is much higher. It also covers only hardware what often is less problem than losing data and time on reinstalling everything ( of course that depends from user ).
Also you won't see the difference in performance unless you are moving a lot of data between drives. In games etc what counts is that you work on SSD, no matter what SSD as almost all new series are fast.
 
Data recovery off SSD's is harder I hear. SSD's don;t give out audible warning sounds like clicking heads and whatnot. This is where SMART data comes in. Always keep an eye on it for SSD's and always backup regularly. I backup files daily and I usually make a system image every few months.

I currently use the Sandisk SSD Plus, 480Gb version. Plenty fast and from what I read before I bought it, a solid, reliable drive.
 
Yes, I saw no errors or anything else before any of my SSD broke ... it was like perfect condition and next day instant death. It's good to make RAID1 or simply backup data to HDD if it's anything important. No problem if it's game drive and you can reinstall OS . Worse if you keep all your files on one drive. It's only electronics so anything can happen.
 
Thanks for all your help guys! I was very tempted to go for Crucial or SanDisk but I realized my local retailer (brick and mortar store) had a Samsung 850 EVO 256GB for sale at about £4 less than advertised at my online seller. The online price plus postage, well, the local store had a better deal at the end of the day.

Speaking of failing HDDs, this incident prompted me to open up my case and it's now on the table beside me. Normally, it's out of the way, under and slightly behind my desk. I've started to notice that my HDD gives out audible clicks at regular intervals when the drive is being used and sometimes, the videos I am watching would "white up" for a while then the picture goes normal again. What's a good way to check HDD health? This Samsung Spinpoint, I think it's an F1 model, has been in service for more than 6 years now so I'd happily retire it if it needed it.
 
yea if your hearing clicks then its a sign of the drive needs to be replaced.
 
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