Chinese SSD

[OCD-FREAK]

hello everyone,

 

iam on a budget and want to install an SSD in all my laptops. i found on aliexpress some really good looking and with really strong positive reviews and i limited my selection to two brands and they are : KingDian SSd and GoldeFir SSD, both are cheap and both have positive reviews with KingDian being more bought from people. (PLEASE I DONT WANT TO READ "BETTER IF YOU BUY KNOWN BRANDS LIKE SAMSUNG")

 

now could you guys have a look at the following links and help me decide which one is better ?

 

KingDian SSD:

KingDian SSD

 

GoldenFir SSD:

 

GoldenFir SSD   thank you all

[Theguywhobea]

You get what you pay for, so I would suggest going with the KingDian. You seem to already understand that you're buying cheap off brand SSD's so I hope you also understand that they probably aren't great quality and much more likely to fail in a short amount of time.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if they were rejected batches from name brand manufactures.

[Radium_Angel]

3 minutes ago, OCD-FREAK said:

hello everyone,

 

iam on a budget and want to install an SSD in all my laptops. i found on aliexpress some really good looking and with really strong positive reviews and i limited my selection to two brands and they are : KingDian SSd and GoldeFir SSD, both are cheap and both have positive reviews with KingDian being more bought from people. (PLEASE I DONT WANT TO READ "BETTER IF YOU BUY KNOWN BRANDS LIKE SAMSUNG")

 

now could you guys have a look at the following links and help me decide which one is better ?

 

KingDian SSD:

KingDian SSD

 

GoldenFir SSD:

 

GoldenFir SSD   thank you all

You are simply asking for trouble buying no-name drives to hold data.

But feel free to buy one, and report back your findings...

 

Or google this

 

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/213424-to-buy-or-not-to-buy-kingdian-60gb-ssd/

 

[OCD-FREAK]

4 minutes ago, Theguywhobea said:

You get what you pay for, so I would suggest going with the KingDian. You seem to already understand that you're buying cheap off brand SSD's so I hope you also understand that they probably aren't great quality and much more likely to fail in a short amount of time.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if they were rejected batches from name brand manufactures.

in fact the GoldenFir has the exact controllers of a Crucial SSD , check it's review on youtube, the guy says that it is exactly like a Crucial SSD  

[Theguywhobea]

1 minute ago, OCD-FREAK said:

in fact the GoldenFir has the exact controllers of a Crucial SSD , check it's review on youtube, the guy says that it is exactly like a Crucial SSD  

Yeah, which means it probably failed QC for Crucial, so another chinese company bought it and slapped their own label on it. Is it worth saving $20 or something to get an SSD that failed QC?

[OCD-FREAK]

6 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

You are simply asking for trouble buying no-name drives to hold data.

But feel free to buy one, and report back your findings...

 

Or google this

 

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/213424-to-buy-or-not-to-buy-kingdian-60gb-ssd/

 

i really dont understand that if the SSD is risky why it has sooooooo many positive review and a mind blowing 4.9 out of 5 ???

[userzero]

Buy it. Make sure you regularly back up. Carry on with life.

[OCD-FREAK]

Just now, Theguywhobea said:

Yeah, which means it probably failed QC for Crucial, so another chinese company bought it and slapped their own label on it. Is it worth saving $20 or something to get an SSD that failed QC?

20$ for one laptop its not worth saving but do 20$ x 5 thats 100$ so i think it is worth it trying after all those positive reviews and youtube reviews which states that it is indeed a good SSD and last at least for one year and its performance is equal to samsung pro 

[OCD-FREAK]

1 minute ago, userzero said:

Buy it. Make sure you regularly back up. Carry on with life.

do you have any experience with any of them ? as you really didn't answer my question on which is better : KingDian or GoldenFir ?

[userzero]

Just now, OCD-FREAK said:

do you have any experience with any of them ? as you really didn't answer my question on which is better : KingDian or GoldenFir ?

Yes. A KingDian. Not had any issues. But then I am careful to make sure my backup routine completes every week so I don't care if one dies.

[OCD-FREAK]

Just now, userzero said:

Yes. A KingDian. Not had any issues. But then I am careful to make sure my backup routine completes every week so I don't care if one dies.

so you suggest KingDian over GoldenFir ?

[userzero]

Just now, OCD-FREAK said:

so you suggest KingDian over GoldenFir ?

Nah. I'd buy neither but sometimes needs must.

[Lenovo1984]

The price on these cheap SSDs makes them seem like a good option, but you'll want to back them up for when they (probably) fail. You may spend enough on the backup storage (like a 2TB HDD) that the higher end SSDs may be a better fit, as you're more likely to be able to use them longer before they should fail. 

[Gikero]

Every cheap SSD I have ever purchased failed within 6 months. Drevo, Kingpin, ADATA. 6 total.

 

Cruicial, Samsung, Kingston or Western Digital are the only thing I will buy now. You're asking for a future headache. They're cheap because the parts in them are below standard for the original manufacturer. It is only a deal if you don't care about data and future downtime.

[OCD-FREAK]

Just now, Gikero said:

Every cheap SSD I have ever purchased failed within 6 months. Drevo, Kingpin, ADATA. 6 total.

 

Cruicial, Samsung, Kingston or Western Digital are the only thing I will buy now. You're asking for a future headache. They're cheap because the parts in them are below standard for the original manufacturer. It is only a deal if you don't care about data and future downtime.

yes i dont care about data as all "important DATA" will be stored on a high end cloud storage" so the SSD is just for performance and to look "fast" so the laptops look attractive to Buyers, obviously i will let them know what SSD there is in the laptops, but yeah from the reviews i read it's actually worth it for that price 

[Radium_Angel]

2 hours ago, OCD-FREAK said:

i really dont understand that if the SSD is risky why it has sooooooo many positive review and a mind blowing 4.9 out of 5 ???

When you buy something online, do you wait 6 months to do a review? Most people don't. They buy the SSD, see the huge performance difference between their ancient 5400RPM spinner, and go "wow! Amazing!" and post an awesome review.

 

6 months later the drive dies and it's too late to post a bad review, as they're not thinking about that, they're thinking all the data they lost....

[blueskull]

Some Chinese SSDs (colorful, galax, and those nameless brands) use recycled UFS smartphone flash chips modified to expose raw NAND interface with some shitty JMicron controllers.

I will not touch them. I won't even touch Spectek chips. I only consider flash chips with genuine original markings (Intel/Micron, Toshiba/Sandisk, Samsung) usable. By my standard, even Mushkin's in-house packaged chips are fishy.

[RattyRattyTwitchie]

"the SSD is just for performance and to look "fast" so the laptops look attractive to Buyers"

 

Man, I can't agree with your selling practices.

[EldonTyrell]

On 4/30/2018 at 5:20 PM, userzero said:

Yes. A KingDian. Not had any issues. But then I am careful to make sure my backup routine completes every week so I don't care if one dies.

Goldenfir = Crucial as someone else said.

Anyway a backup should always be done, no matter you have a good brand SSD, a noname one, or a mechanical hard drive. On my side, I'm using clonezilla and making backups of each of my pc's on a NAS. So I'm not worried the day I get a crash....

[NeilT]

Rather than start a new topic on this, I thought I'd share some info I have on the topic as people will hit the thread.

 

I've had two KingDian M.2 SSD's.  Not for $20 off but at around half price.

 

The first one my Chuwi lapbook Air refused because it claimed the controller was not supported.  The eBay seller refused to refund but did give me about 85% of my money back.  The SSD works in a USB 3.0 M.2 caddy so that's fine.  It does not get a lot of use and only carries transient data.

 

The second one worked.  I got it from Amazon and I checked out the supplier.  Amazon returns are a lot better than eBay, however, so I paid the extra £5.  The drive, identical to the first one, was accepted by the Chuwi and it worked perfectly.  However it ran hot.  Very hot.  I was not too bothered because my Chuwi is simply a portable device which I don't create content on, it accesses other content which is cloud or NAS/sever based.

 

Yesterday the SSD failed.  About a year after I bought it.  Today I put it under a very strong magnifying glass and had a good look at it with the label off.  It has a genuine SanDisk chip on it, clearly new and not re-used.  A much more detailed inspection shows that this is a part which failed QC and has been "touched up" by hand.  Soldering quality is generally poor for the entire board, clearly it was a failed batch through the solder bath.

 

Further inspection shows what failed.  There is a chip on the back (don't ask me it has no markings and I'm not an electroics engineer), but the chip has crumbled and shows signs of overheating from the inside.

 

As has been said above.  You get what you pay for.  I will replace it with a mainstream drive now that they have reached reasonable price levels and I have some experience with the Chuwi itself and whether I actually want to keep it.

 

The drive did the job I asked of it.  Namely to give me time to experience the machine and see if it would do what I required or whether I'd need to get something more powerful than the Atom chip, without driving my expense to the levels where I felt I would have to keep it to get my money's worth.

 

However, as expected, the lifetime of the SSD was short.

 

I wouldn't sell anyone a machine with these SSD's in them.  I value my reputation and this won't enhance it.

[arixos]

On 4/30/2018 at 5:00 PM, OCD-FREAK said:

hello everyone,

 

iam on a budget and want to install an SSD in all my laptops. i found on aliexpress some really good looking and with really strong positive reviews and i limited my selection to two brands and they are : KingDian SSd and GoldeFir SSD, both are cheap and both have positive reviews with KingDian being more bought from people. (PLEASE I DONT WANT TO READ "BETTER IF YOU BUY KNOWN BRANDS LIKE SAMSUNG")

 

now could you guys have a look at the following links and help me decide which one is better ?

 

KingDian SSD:

KingDian SSD

 

GoldenFir SSD:

 

GoldenFir SSD   thank you all

How did it go with your cheap chienese SSDs? Did they turn out to be reliable?

[AndyInAtlanta]

On 4/30/2018 at 11:15 AM, OCD-FREAK said:

i really dont understand that if the SSD is risky why it has sooooooo many positive review and a mind blowing 4.9 out of 5 ???

Depends on how much you trust Ali Express reviews.  A lot of the top reviewed items on Amazon are filled mostly with fake reviews.  I wouldn't trust the overall review score with Ali Express; find the in-depth ones.

[koenigworks9]

Although this is an old post, now that the disk capacities have greatly increased beyond ~500 GB, its a game changer.

So far above posts confirmed that the most-famous Chinese brands os SSD are quality-discarded batches of traditional ones: Goldenfir was apparently Crucial, and Kingdian was Sandisk.

 

Your mileage of durability of Chinese SSD will vary, I would say depending on the model and batch itself (not only the brand!), because the flash and controllers inside are often different. Aliexpress reviews are now only allowed on the first X days after purchase (90d?), so you don’t have experienced users comments except those buying the second unit.

 

Yes, you can freely use Chinese SSD for cheap RAID 1/5 redundant disk arrays, or a large and fast USB transient space for non-critical data, or a batch of old laptops (such as dummy terminals). It has a reduced initiation price, if it breaks you happily replace it in the long term with higher-quality brands progressively (and not at once).

However you must accept it’s like playing lottery and that the long-term balance of lifespan vs. price is always negative compared to first level brands with ram cache and large TBW.
 

This will only work if the usage is low and you always keep a longer fraction of disk free or overprovisioned >15%. Otherwise intensive uses will kill it very quickly, such as in 40 days when farming Chia for instance. One thing that burns their flash is that none have DRAM cache, while Samsung and Crucial MX500 have larger lifespan TBW because of the cache.

 

 

 

[srilanka]

I have sold lot of(about 250) chinese SSD drives in srilanka. All the Drives last more than 2 years. Currently i am using a drive called kingchuxin. Current TBW value is 24TB, I started to use it on the begining of 2020. It has same perfomance and same read write speed until now. 

[koenigworks9]

 

I'd like to complete on my previous answer above (yes - in my opinion you can use selective brands of chinese SSD to achieve an absolute low budget, if those are relatively big sized such as 500 GB, with enough overprovisioning free space used for unimportant info OR alternatively in a redundant RAID supervised for replacing failures quickly if your info is more valuable*).

 

But you will want data and numbers for sure.

 

Recently i have read a test of Aliexpress SSD (link below, in Spanish). Transfer speeds might vary at certain scenarios but are not really a concern for an absolute low budget. It's the total TBW that was a bit low.

 

https://hardzone.es/tutoriales/rendimiento/durabilidad-ssd-gama-entrada/

 

Brands such as KingSpec and Baition took 26-34 TBW to die (wich is in line with the response of the previous seller of 24 TB). It will give you around that life.

 

Surprisingly Kingston A400 made it through the 100 TBW test all right, same as Sandisk Ultra 3D and Crucial BX500 (all of them around those 500 GB), which is around their expected lifespan.

 

Not for a cost-effective budget, but more for an absolute-low budget, knowing how you use them.

(*) avoid them be same kind and new at the same time, to avoid dying at the same time. It's playing with fire!

 

Hope it helps!