Which SSD would be best for me?

Xanthe_2871 · May 20, 2019

TL;DR: I want an SSD. I don't care too much about speed, it could even be the same speed as a hdd. I do care about $/GB and reliability. What I've found is below, I'd love a suggestion from this list, or something similar if you know of a better option.

Option 1 Cheapest 1 TB drive by a brand I recognise. But is it reliable? The reviews certainly look good. 9.28¢/GB

Option 2 A bit more expensive, but a brand I trust more than ADATA. Good reviews, but no better than the ADATA. 10.55¢/GB

Option 3 A few dollars more than the SanDisk, but WD is my most trusted brand. But, doesn't WD own SanDisk now? Am I just spending $5 more for the brand? Slightly better reviews. 11.23¢/GB

Option 4 Another increase in price by a few dollars. A brand I've never used, but LTT has recommended before. Slightly better reviews than options 1-4. 11.72¢/GB

Option 5 The most expensive 1TB drive I'm considering, but also has outstanding reviews. Suggested by multiple articles I found on Google. If it's just as reliable as the rest, but faster, then I'll pass. Speed isn't important to me. 14.45¢/GB

I'm also considering these two 2TB options:

Option 6 2TB! Only a little more than double the price. Still decent reviews. At 9.77¢/GB it's a better value than options 2-5. Honestly, I could justify $200 on this, if it's as reliable as the rest. Again, I don't care about speed too much.

Option 7 Also a seemingly good value. At 10.99¢/GB it's still in the ballpark of what I'd like to spend per GB. But is it reliable?

I don't need 2 TB, and maybe dumping more and more stuff on there like I would a traditional HDD will worsen it's life. I'm going to use this drive as mass storage, lots of dumping random files onto it. Maybe I should get a more expensive 1 TB drive that handles abuse better? Or, maybe more expensive just means faster, and in general, all SSD's use the same tech and will roughly handle read/write lifespans the same? I don't know! Please give me guidance, wonderful tech geeks!

More info for those interested: My laptop has an M.2 500GB SSD drive, which is currently my only storage for my laptop. I want to expand my storage. It has an open slot for a SATA drive, because it came with a 2 TB HDD but I removed it on day one. I don't want an hdd. I know they've gotten a lot better at handling vibrations but, my laptop is a convertible and I love being able to shake and twist and move it anyway I want in the tablet mode. Especially since I'm bad with backing up my files regularly so, a file may live for 6 months or more on my laptop before it gets a backup. I want an SSD. I'd like at least 1TB. But I'll spend more on a bigger drive if it's a better value per GB. It doesn't need to be fast. (I believe 500GB is still the sweet spot for GB/$ on SSDs, but I haven't been keeping up a lot lately so, maybe there is a better deal I don't know of. I want at least 1TB. But if someone's like, dude, this 2TB is an even better value, I'll spend more on it.) As it is, I treat my current M.2 SSD as a normal drive. It's my only drive, I store everything on it, just once in a while dumping things I don't use anymore onto random external HDDs to free up space. (HDDs that will sit around in a drawer until I suddenly need some file, and I spend hours looking for it... I'm not very digitally organized. Another reason I just want a SSD mass storage on my laptop. ^^;) Lots of Photoshop .PSD's, lots of video clips and photos, maybe even the VM virtual drives currently on my M.2 boot drive.

hello_there_123 · May 20, 2019

1. It's ok for budget primary OS use, but I think that for your usecase with lots of files moving around, video clips photos etc. it would be worth the upgrade to an SSD with even better nand/cache, aka the MX500/WD Blue 3D.

2. Absolutely not. https://reddit.com/r/buildapcsales/comments/ag3h6f/ssd_sandisk_ssd_plus_1tb_internal_ssd_10624/ee3fsh4/

3. I would pick this if you're fine with the 1-2 extra cables to hassle with.

4. I would pick the m.2 version of this for the same price if you don't want to hassle with any cables (imo it's worth the $5).

5. In primary os/consumer workloads in general this SSD performs similarly to the MX500/WD Blue 3D while being a lot more expensive. Would pass on this.

6+7. If you want 2TB for some reason those are ok choices, but I would get the MX500 over the su800 because of the reason I listed in 1.

Xanthe_2871 · May 20, 2019

2 minutes ago, hello_there_123 said:

1. It's ok for budget primary OS use, but I think that for your usecase with lots of files moving around, video clips photos etc. it would be worth the upgrade to an SSD with even better nand/cache, aka the MX500/WD Blue 3D.

2. Absolutely not. https://reddit.com/r/buildapcsales/comments/ag3h6f/ssd_sandisk_ssd_plus_1tb_internal_ssd_10624/ee3fsh4/

3. I would pick this if you're fine with the 1-2 extra cables to hassle with.

4. I would pick the m.2 version of this for the same price if you don't want to hassle with any cables (imo it's worth the $5).

5. In primary os/consumer workloads in general this SSD performs similarly to the MX500/WD Blue 3D while being a lot more expensive. Would pass on this.

6+7. If you want 2TB for some reason those are ok choices, but I would get the MX500 over the su800 because of the reason I listed in 1.

Thank you! Based on your suggestions I'd probably go with #3 or #7. Not sure what you mean by extra cables. It's a 2.5 inch SSD going into a laptop. It just has the SATA connector, right?

hello_there_123 · May 20, 2019

Just now, Xanthe_2871 said:

Thank you! Based on your suggestions I'd probably go with #3 or #7. Not sure what you mean by extra cables. It's a 2.5 inch SSD going into a laptop. It just has the SATA connector, right?

Oh, I thought you were putting it into a desktop. My bad. In that case then go for the 2.5"

jones177 · May 20, 2019

I getf what is practical for me.

For a gaming laptop I would get a 2tb SATA SSD. 2tb because I fill 1tb SSDs up too fast. I like Crucial but I get Samsung if they are on sale.

If you don't mind installing and uninstalling games go 1tb. I got two 1tb Crucial SSDs for $117 each to replace 5400 RPM HDs in laptops last Black Friday. Since the laptops are for "on the road" the size made sense.