Do you really need DRAM Cashe for your Boot drive?

[Joe Jackman]

looking for the cheapest SSD possible.

 

[boggy77]

do you really need a titan rtx?

[Juular]

If it's relatively modern then it's not really necessary but don't choose the SSD only by presence or absence of DRAM cache, look for actual reviews.

[Princess Luna]

24 minutes ago, Joe Jackman said:

looking for the cheapest SSD possible.

Do you have the Crucial BX500 on your region? It's the best out of the cheaper SSD.

[GoodBytes]

4 hours ago, Joe Jackman said:

Do you really need DRAM Cashe for your Boot drive?

Depends. DRAM greatly helps on write performance.

So depending on what you do, it may affect you or not.

Check in depth reviews of the storage you are looking at, to know their performance.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

10 hours ago, Princess Luna said:

Do you have the Crucial BX500 on your region? It's the best out of the cheaper SSD.

From this review:

 

OUR VERDICT
Crucial’s BX500 is a cheap option that will outperform any HDD as a boot drive, but it comes with drawbacks. The BX500's low endurance and application performance rank far behind most current-gen SSDs in the market. Pricing is competitive, but there are much better options available for just a few dollars more, including Crucial’s own MX500, making this drive hard to recommend.

 

I cringe when I see posts asking for the cheapest of anything. People tend to forget that you generally get what you pay for. If you buy a crap drive, you will wind up having to replace it more often, costing you more in the long run, you will be unhappy with the performance, or both. The only budget SSD I will recommend is the Crucial MX500. Personally, I prefer the quality of the Samsung 860 Pros for 24/7 operation and the EVOs for backup drives and light usage computers, like my notebooks.

[Princess Luna]

5 minutes ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

The only budget SSD I will recommend is the Crucial MX500.

That is very far from being a budget alternative in a whole lot of countries... not all economies are as good as USA's.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

1 minute ago, Princess Luna said:

That is very far from being a budget alternative in a whole lot of countries... not all economies are as good as USA's.

I have no doubt that is true but it doesn't change the fact that the MX500s are the lowest price SSDs that will give reliable performance. 

[Mark Kaine]

On 12/6/2019 at 1:14 PM, Princess Luna said:

Do you have the Crucial BX500 on your region? It's the best out of the cheaper SSD.

Isn't the problem with these drives that it's basically lottery? 

 

They just bulk buy the cheapest parts wherever and quality is questionable at best (according to some articles I read) so actual quality varies heavily. 

 

And the MX500 is only like 10 bucks more and much more reliable... Why "save" $10 for something as important as a boot drive?   I get it when people just don't know better,  but knowingly...?  Why lol.

 

 

PS: didn't see post above me,  but yeah basically! 

[Princess Luna]

6 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

Isn't the problem with these drives that it's basically lottery? 

That's the point with advising on the Crucial BX500 though, alternatives at this price point and category like WD Green, SanDisk Plus and Specially the ultra garbage Kingston A400 indeed do not follow strict manufacturing standards, you can have different components and different process randomly.

 

Crucial(Micron) however does a much better job with the BX500 to the point it deserves praise, every BX500 you open up will be the same inside and every single benchmark it will sweep the floor with other SSD like the ones previously mentioned above.

 

As far as DRAMless Sata3 SSD goes, the BX500 is clearly the safest bet to go with and it costs the same as the garbage Kingston A400 so there's really no reason to disregard it.

[Mark Kaine]

3 hours ago, Princess Luna said:

Crucial(Micron) however does a much better job with the BX500 to the point it deserves praise, every BX500 you open up will be the same inside and every single benchmark it will sweep the floor with other SSD like the ones previously mentioned above.

Ok I didn't know that because everything I read about those SSDs lumped all of these "cheapo SSDs"  together as basically "lottery" and "trash", heh.

 

But regardless the MX500 is really only around €10 more last time I checked for lower volume SSDs and it has 3D nand so I kinda think that would still be the better choice even on a budget? 

 

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

3 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

...the MX500 is really only around €10 more last time I checked for lower volume SSDs and it has 3D nand so I kinda think that would still be the better choice even on a budget? 

Absolutely!

[Roswell]

13 hours ago, Princess Luna said:

That's the point with advising on the Crucial BX500 though, alternatives at this price point and category like WD Green, SanDisk Plus and Specially the ultra garbage Kingston A400 indeed do not follow strict manufacturing standards, you can have different components and different process randomly.

 

Crucial(Micron) however does a much better job with the BX500 to the point it deserves praise, every BX500 you open up will be the same inside and every single benchmark it will sweep the floor with other SSD like the ones previously mentioned above.

 

As far as DRAMless Sata3 SSD goes, the BX500 is clearly the safest bet to go with and it costs the same as the garbage Kingston A400 so there's really no reason to disregard it.

ADATA QLC cacheless drives are fine, as are the others using Intel NAND.