Droidbot's SATA3 SSD Tier List

[Droidbot]

Droidbot's Long Ass SATA 3 SSD Tier List 

Arranged in the following order: Tier 1 (Amazing), Tier 2 (Still Good), Tier 3 (Mediocre), Tier 4 (Not The Greatest), Tier 5 (Avoid)
Performance are what SSDs are rated on, value is mentioned based on price at current update. Keep TLC/MLC/SLC in mind before purchase : https://tinyurl.com/slcmlctlc (Does not apply to 3D VNAND, different)
Current Update: 6/04/16 (Changenotes at bottom)

Tier 1:
- Samsung 850 EVO/PRO (Generally the highest performing SATA SSDs, hands down) (TLC-3D VNAND)
- SK Hynix SL308 (Very good value, almost 850-tier performance for $50 less, as well as low power usage, good for laptops!) (TLC)
- OCZ VX500 (Very good performance and value, better than Trion/Vector) (MLC)
- Corsair Force LE (Very good value at high capacities with good performance) (TLC)
- Corsair Neutron XTI (Very good performance, but high price) (MLC) 

- MyDigitalSSD BP5e (Very good performance, very low price) (TLC) 

- Crucial BX100 / Mushkin Reactor (Not as bad as BX200, and surprisingly amazing performance) (MLC)

Tier 2: 
- Crucial MX300/MX200 (Very good value with strange capacities) (TLC-3D VNAND)
- ADATA SU800 512GB (Good value, good performance) (TLC-3D VNAND)
- OCZ Trion 150 / Vector 180 (Very good performance, but can choke in some situations) (TLC)
- SanDisk Extreme Pro / WD Black (Good performance, high price and not good value) (MLC)

- PNY CS2211 (Very good value with better performance) (MLC)

 

Tier 3: 
- ADATA SP900 (Decent performance, decent value) (MLC) 
- WD Blue / SanDisk X400 (Decent performance, very mediocre.. expensive for what it is) (TLC)
- Intel 540S (Not the best value, but not the worst either. Decent performance) (TLC)
- OCZ Trion 150 (Not the best value, not the worst performance either) (TLC)
- Samsung 750 EVO (Mediocre SSD, above average performance. Dies in the ass under heavy loads) (TLC)
- Intel 530 (Decent average performance, handles load quite well) (20nm MLC, be careful of endurance!)
- Crucial MX100 (Doesn't handle load very well, similar to the M550, but good overall performance besides that) (20nm MLC, be careful of endurance!)
- Intel 730 (Good performance, handles load quite well) (20nm MLC, be careful of endurance!)

- ADATA SU800 128/256GB (Decent performance, dies in the ass under heavy loads) (TLC-3D VNAND)

- SanDisk Ultra II/Ultra PLUS (Alright average performance, doesn't handle heavy loads that well) (TLC)

- Mushkin Triactor (Good performance, good value) (TLC)
- PNY CS1311 (Very good value with good performance) (TLC)

 

Tier 4:
- SanDisk SSD PLUS / Z410 (Inconsistent performance, pretty cheap. Changes components often.) (MLC)
- Kingston HyperX Fury (Good read, mediocre write speeds) (SMLC)
- Plextor M6S (Doesn't handle load very well, worse than MX100, but average performance) (MLC)
- OCZ Trion 100 (Mediocre performance, slow as fuck writes, not recommended, the 150 is better) (19nm TLC)

 

Tier 5: 
- Samsung 840 EVO (has issues with the cells wearing out quickly, don't buy used) (19nm TLC)
- Kingston SSDNOW V300 (reviews are good, but sketchy shit pulled by Kingston make this bad) (MLC)
- Crucial BX200 (bad performance for the money, horrible latency and service times) (early TLC) 
- Kingston SSDNOW UV400 (mediocre performance, slow reads, go for something better) (early TLC)
- OCZ TL100 (VERY SHIT performance, 94MB/s Seq Writes for fucks sake) (TLC)

- ADATA SP550 (Trades blows with the BX200, a little faster and without the BX200's flaws, however APPARENTLY has cell drift like the 840 EVO as reported by @zMeul) (TLC)

 

How I rate SSDs:

Spoiler

AnandTech's Destroyer Benchmark, taking service times and throughput throughout the load cycle into account.

Some outliers are rated by other sites like TomsHardware (Namely the SK Hynix and Corsair Force drives)

 

Any requests for new SSDs to be added with proof or other SSDs to be changed with proof are welcome. 

[Energycore]

Seems to be missing the ever recommended Sandisk Ultra II (or is it there under another name?)

[Droidbot]

Just now, Energycore said:

Seems to be missing the ever recommended Sandisk Ultra II (or is it there under another name?)

Tier 4, but it's not meant to be in Tier 4, I meant to put it in Tier 3..

 

[Droidbot]

Just now, Aleksiandrovich said:

I'll find a spot on my signature for this  

 

EDIT: Is this pre M.2, i don't see any is all, mainly sata 3?

Yep, it's SATA list. Will add M.2 tomorrow or something, I need to play games now

[Droidbot]

Just now, Aleksiandrovich said:

Fair enough, priorities am i right? How can you play games when you're a full time LTT helper ? With M.2 will come NVMe?

Only NVMe, can't be fucked doing SATA when half the SATA M.2 SSDs are versions of the ones above

[Flavio hc 16]

I hope the pin this post, great work man!

What made you put the crucial on tier 2? I would have thought it would sneak into tier 1

[Droidbot]

Just now, Flavio hc 16 said:

I hope the pin this post, great work man!

What made you put the crucial on tier 2? I would have thought it would sneak into tier 1

It's very good, but not the best SSD. It's great value though. Maybe Tier 1 when I revise it one day

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, Energycore said:

Seems to be missing the ever recommended Sandisk Ultra II (or is it there under another name?)

I feel sad too

[Funtoink63]

Quote

Tier 5

- Kingston SSDNOW V300 (reviews are good, but sketchy shit pulled by Kingston make this bad: 

Is that because they without any notice changed the controller and made it worse? Or did they did even something worse?

[Energycore]

Just now, Funtoink63 said:

Is that because they without any notice changed the controller and made it worse? Or did they did even something worse?

They switched to older (and worse) NAND after sending out review copies. This old NAND is bad enough to justify its low tier imo

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Funtoink63 said:

Is that because they without any notice changed the controller and made it worse? Or did they did even something worse?

Red is already sinful at the first place. Irrc they gave reviewers good ssd, then swap out for shit ones

[Droidbot]

Just now, Funtoink63 said:

Is that because they without any notice changed the controller and made it worse? Or did they did even something worse?

They switched from 19nm Toshiba NAND to cheap 20nm old Crucial NAND with horrible speeds by comparison and pretended like nothing happened. 

 

 

Blue is original unit, red is the newer one. 

[Flavio hc 16]

i don't know if you know it, but there is also the KINGdian brand here in Europe, they are super cheap but imho they will do it for an upper tier 4/ lower tier 3. I have 2 240gb one ( one for test, the other for the hackintosh)

[Guest]

would a random philipino techsite with porn in its name enough to somehow validate the quality of green wd? 

https://www.techporn.ph/wd-green-ssd-240gb-review/

[Droidbot]

1 minute ago, deXxterlab97 said:

would a random philipino techsite with porn in its name enough to somehow validate the quality of green wd? 

https://www.techporn.ph/wd-green-ssd-240gb-review/

not really IMHO but I'd expect it to be similar to SanDisk SSD PLUS as SanDisk is owned by WD

[Droidbot]

2 minutes ago, Flavio hc 16 said:

i don't know if you know it, but there is also the KINGdian brand here in Europe, they are super cheap but imho they will do it for an upper tier 4/ lower tier 3. I have 2 240gb one ( one for test, the other for the hackintosh)

Never heard of them, I'll look it up. I'd expect it to be around that, NAND would be bargain basement or last gen and controller would be a mixed bag most likely

[Funtoink63]

2 minutes ago, Energycore said:

They switched to older (and worse) NAND after sending out review copies. This old NAND is bad enough to justify its low tier imo

 

1 minute ago, deXxterlab97 said:

Red is already sinful at the first place. Irrc they gave reviewers good ssd, then swap out for shit ones

 

1 minute ago, Droidbot said:

They switched from 19nm Toshiba NAND to cheap 20nm old Crucial NAND with horrible speeds by comparison and pretended like nothing happened. 

Blue is original unit, red is the newer one. 

I remember reading about this incident, I thought they changed the controller, not the NAND.

Thanks for clarification.

 

Did they changed them after that / are the newer ones still that bad?

[Droidbot]

Just now, Funtoink63 said:

 

 

I remember reading about this incident, I thought they changed the controller, not the NAND.

Thanks for clarification.

 

Did they changed them after that / are the newer ones still that bad?

They discontinued it iirc, but it still isn't very good value at all and there is better value options out there. 

[Guest]

tier 2?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8949/mushkin-reactor-1tb-ssd-review

 

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/6867/mushkin-reactor-1tb-ssd-review-amazing-price-good-performance/index.html

[Bananasplit_00]

iv had pretty great results with my UV400, i would definatly NOT put it in teir 5, more like the same teir as the MX300 seeing as its cheaper and offers from what i know similar preformance and quality. i have the 240GB one, definatly a good drive, boot times went down by about 20 seconds compared to my previous Adata SSD and it preforms really good in my system

[Herman Mcpootis]

https://www.techporn.ph/wd-green-ssd-240gb-review/ tier 2 or 3? seems to trade blows with the CS1311.

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/nt8H99/zotac-internal-hard-drive-ztssda5p240gpe was only very slightly slower than the 850 evo but only a few bucks cheaper until it was discontinued.

[Droidbot]

1 minute ago, deXxterlab97 said:

tier 2?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8949/mushkin-reactor-1tb-ssd-review

 

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/6867/mushkin-reactor-1tb-ssd-review-amazing-price-good-performance/index.html

Shit, it's based on the BX100 design but performs better. Stays T3, but I might change it. It's discontinued, so keep that in mind. 

 

1 minute ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

iv had pretty great results with my UV400, i would definatly NOT put it in teir 5, more like the same teir as the MX300 seeing as its cheaper and offers from what i know similar preformance and quality. i have the 240GB one, definatly a good drive, boot times went down by about 20 seconds compared to my previous Adata SSD and it preforms really good in my system

https://img.purch.com/r/600x450/aHR0cDovL21lZGlhLmJlc3RvZm1pY3JvLmNvbS9PL1QvNjA3NDIxL29yaWdpbmFsL2ltYWdlMDAxLnBuZw==

 

uhhhhhhhhh

 

https://img.purch.com/o/aHR0cDovL21lZGlhLmJlc3RvZm1pY3JvLmNvbS9QL0ovNjA3NDQ3L29yaWdpbmFsL2ltYWdlMDI4LnBuZw==

 

double uhhhhhh

 

keep in mind it's actually differing, some units can be very good whereas others can be different, this is because of a different bill of materials for each unit and each purchase date. 

[Droidbot]

2 minutes ago, herman mcpootis said:

https://www.techporn.ph/wd-green-ssd-240gb-review/ tier 2 or 3? seems to trade blows with the CS1311.

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/nt8H99/zotac-internal-hard-drive-ztssda5p240gpe was only very slightly slower than the 850 evo but only a few bucks cheaper until it was discontinued.

need more info, prefer anandtech

 

based on a phison design like force le and bp5e, similar performance as well 

[Flavio hc 16]

the controller is a the  il controller Silicon Motion SM2256K  with TLC modules

from their sites

kingdian s280:These are SATA III SSDs with capacities of 120GB to 480GB  and maximum read/write speeds of 560/380 using the SMI2256 controller.

http://www.king-dian.com/sata

[Nowak]

Crucial MX100 is tier 3, that's my SSD, rip.