Most reliable SSD brand?

[snoopunit]

I'm in the market for a couple of cheap 120GB SSDs and I can't decide on which brand. There's several SSDs from different brands and they all sell a 120GB unit at around $20 USD, however they ALL seem to have 4/5 stars with reports of DOA drives and drives that fail within weeks. Now obviously, these are outliers, but i'm wondering if any particular brands have a better reputation than others.

 

The drives i'm currently looking at: 

 

Kingston A400 120GB - https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820242399&ignorebbr=1

Crucial BX500 120GB - https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820156186&ignorebbr=1

Mushkin Enhanced Source 240GB - https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16820226881

PNY CS900 120GB - https://www.amazon.com/PNY-CS900-120GB-Internal-Solid/dp/B0722XPTL6/ref=sr_1_4?fst=as%3Aoff&qid=1557263357&refinements=p_36%3A1253503011&rnid=386442011&s=pc&sr=1-4

Sandisk SDSSDA 120GB - https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-120GB-Solid-State-SDSSDA-120G-G27/dp/B07621PNWC/ref=sr_1_5?fst=as%3Aoff&qid=1557263386&refinements=p_36%3A1253503011&rnid=386442011&s=pc&sr=1-5

 

There's also several other drives around the same price by lesser-known brands like ADATA, HP, etc.

 

Are there any clear advantages from one brand to the next? I'm not looking for the best performance, just the best bang for my buck so to speak.

[Electronics Wizardy]

There really isn't great failure numbers, so you really don't know.

 

Just keep backups and your data is safe.

 

But if you want reliable, don't buy the cheapest drives, get something like a samgsung or intel drive

 

Out of that list, id get the 240gb as the extra space is very nice, 120gb is getting kinda small

[snoopunit]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

There really isn't great failure numbers, so you really don't know.

 

Just keep backups and your data is safe.

 

But if you want reliable, don't buy the cheapest drives, get something like a samgsung or intel drive

 

Out of that list, id get the 240gb as the extra space is very nice, 120gb is getting kinda small

I was actually leaning towards the 240 since it's only like $5 more. I'm getting two drives and putting them in RAID0, The drive will be backed up regularly via timemachine, so i'm not worried about losing data so much as having to replace and rebuild if I get faulty drives.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, snoopunit said:

I was actually leaning towards the 240 since it's only like $5 more. I'm getting two drives and putting them in RAID0, The drive will be backed up regularly via timemachine, so i'm not worried about losing data so much as having to replace and rebuild if I get faulty drives.

so raid 0, so its even less reliable, just get a single bigger drive.

 

Really, a backup restore with good image backups is like 30 min, and the failure rats on drives are very low.

[SupaKomputa]

2 minutes ago, snoopunit said:

I was actually leaning towards the 240 since it's only like $5 more. I'm getting two drives and putting them in RAID0, The drive will be backed up regularly via timemachine, so i'm not worried about losing data so much as having to replace and rebuild if I get faulty drives.

a 500gb is about the same speed as 2x240 in raid 0.

From that list i would choose Crucial.

[Sorenson]

13 minutes ago, snoopunit said:

I was actually leaning towards the 240 since it's only like $5 more. I'm getting two drives and putting them in RAID0, The drive will be backed up regularly via timemachine, so i'm not worried about losing data so much as having to replace and rebuild if I get faulty drives.

You will probably get faster speeds by buying a single higher quality drive with a nice controller. Linus did a good tech quickie on this subject.

 

[hello_there_123]

https://imgur.com/a/sYmbnMr

 

Off that list I would probably get something tier 3 and above in SATA. The best option for you seems to be the Tcsunbow X3 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073W3QX2J/?tag=pcpapi-20&pldnSite=1

 

And before you say you're not going to buy any Chinese offbrand crap keep in mind that the nand is all manufacturered by Samsung, Crucial, and Sk.Hynix thus it's just a rebrand, the nand will be just as effective as if Samsung put their label on it.

[Falconevo]

Basing this solely on my own working experience with 10,000+ SSD's that have gone through the mill I would personally say Samsung.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

the Samsung Pros and EVOs (not the QVOs!) and the Crucial MX500s are the most reliable (I prefer the Sammys). Also, I don't recommend anything under 250GB.

[fluxdeity]

Samsung for best reliability and warranty(excluding QVO drives)

 

Out of the ones you listed I'd go Crucial or Sandisk.

[snoopunit]

22 hours ago, hello_there_123 said:

https://imgur.com/a/sYmbnMr

 

Off that list I would probably get something tier 3 and above in SATA. The best option for you seems to be the Tcsunbow X3 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073W3QX2J/?tag=pcpapi-20&pldnSite=1

 

And before you say you're not going to buy any Chinese offbrand crap keep in mind that the nand is all manufacturered by Samsung, Crucial, and Sk.Hynix thus it's just a rebrand, the nand will be just as effective as if Samsung put their label on it.

I have nothing against "Chinese off-brand" TBH. it's just that i don't usually buy from brands that I've never heard of. That drive you linked actually looks like a really good deal. Thanks

[snoopunit]

For everyone saying I should get a single, large, samsung drive, this would probably be the best option if it wasn't for the price. I'm not looking to spend more than $30 per drive. I have a 2011 Mac Mini with a 5400rpm 500gb drive. I'm buying the kit to add a second drive and I want to put two SSDs in RAID0 for shits and giggles. I'm not looking for the fastest speeds, just reliable DOA/failure rates. Out of the half-dozen SSDs that I've owned, only one drive crapped out on me, and i'm relatively sure that it was just at the end of its life-span. I'm only looking to see if there are any particular brands that have lower failure/DOA rates than others. If I had the money, I would have gone straight to the 870 evos, lol

[Dedayog]

21 hours ago, Falconevo said:

Basing this solely on my own working experience with 10,000+ SSD's that have gone through the mill I would personally say Samsung.

Huh?

 

What is you do that you have tracked 10k SSD's and their status?

 

Edit:  Since you're set on RAID 0, any of the mid to upper tier drives in 240/256GB size are good.  Crucial, Samsung, etc.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

3 hours ago, snoopunit said:

If I had the money, I would have gone straight to the 870 evos, lol

870 EVO?

[snoopunit]

5 hours ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

870 EVO?

I must have mixed up the 860s with the 970s :/

[Lady Fitzgerald]

7 hours ago, snoopunit said:

I must have mixed up the 860s with the 970s

And here I thought Samsung "snuck" in a new line.  All seriousness aside, I would love to see Samsung start coming out with larger, consumer grade SSDs.

[Dedayog]

3 minutes ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

And here I though Samsung "snuck" in a new line.  All seriousness aside, I would love to see Samsung start coming out with larger, consumer grade SSDs.

You thinking 2 and 4TB SSD's?  

[Lady Fitzgerald]

1 minute ago, jstudrawa said:

You thinking 2 and 4TB SSD's?  

Samsung already makes 2TB and 4TB SSDs (and I already have a bunch of each of them). I'm thinking 6TB and larger.

[Falconevo]

20 hours ago, jstudrawa said:

Huh?

 

What is you do that you have tracked 10k SSD's and their status?

  

Edit:  Since you're set on RAID 0, any of the mid to upper tier drives in 240/256GB size are good.  Crucial, Samsung, etc.

Enterprise/DC hosting, I would put the figure upwards of 10k for SSD's as it would be triple that counting items still in production/live systems and mechanical SATA/SAS drives in the 50k+ range.  Been in the industry a long time and was the primary individual responsible for forcing a very early change from mechanical to SSD in the business I work for, took a lot of convincing but have never looked back .  That's not to say mechanical drives don't still have a place, just not in my production systems

 

Tried and tested most manufacturer drives in all manner of edge case conditions.  Was recently testing the Intel EDSSF (ruler) units and Optane Dimms (Apache pass) too which are astonishing bits of kit, just waiting for multiple production units from a couple of different vendors for 'real world' testing as pre-production evaluation units rarely have full implementation of features.

[Dedayog]

Just now, Falconevo said:

Enterprise/DC hosting, I would put the figure upwards of 10k for SSD's as it would be triple that counting items still in production/live systems and mechanical SATA/SAS drives in the 50k+ range.  Been in the industry a long time and was the primary individual responsible for forcing a very early change from mechanical to SSD in the business I work for, took a lot of convincing but have never looked back .  That's not to say mechanical drives don't still have a place, just not in my production systems

 

Tried and tested most manufacturer drives in all manner of edge case conditions.  Was recently testing the Intel EDSSF (ruler) units and Optane Dimms (Apache pass) too which are astonishing bits of kit, just waiting for multiple production units from a couple of different vendors for 'real world' testing as pre-production evaluation units rarely have full implementation of features.

Thanks for the bit of background.

 

So then, you have contact with those drives on a daily basis and are notified when/if they fail?  I want to make sure you're not just using them, but are away of failure rates and any issues that crop up.

 

Very interesting to say the least.

[Falconevo]

Just now, jstudrawa said:

Thanks for the bit of background.

 

So then, you have contact with those drives on a daily basis and are notified when/if they fail?  I want to make sure you're not just using them, but are away of failure rates and any issues that crop up.

  

Very interesting to say the least.

Yea, every disk, HBA, array and storage appliances are heavily monitored, that's not to say failure's don't occur but we do have early warning systems for certain scenarios.  Most of the systems are built in house as we require integration to other systems and in house API's.

 

We also audit for known issues with disk firmware versions, so if an issue crops up we can quickly audit systems to pull an inventory of potentially affected systems and take steps to arrange the necessary work to make sure known issues don't cause unwanted data loss.  Most work in the enterprise/DC sphere can be performed without down time but it all depends on the original budget of the solution and how much penny pinching occurred, the customer should never be out of pocket for problems that aren't of their own making (in my humble opinion)

To give you a publicly known example, the Intel DC *4600 series suffered from a catastrophic issue on early firmware releases where the drive would enter 'disable logical state' under a number of assert or bad_context conditions .  The drive(s) would essentially be bricked and this could happen months after release in to production with no warning.. problems that are not always discovered in testing phases.  This caused no end of drama as the units are very popular and their successors are to this day so a lot of work was required to make sure we didn't have disks nuking themselves in storage appliances.

 

Only Intel can recover the drive and I work in an industry that has different RMA agreements so the drive essentially have to be replaced and original destroyed rather than recovered due to potentially sensitive data.  Hate to see expensive SSD's hit the shredder but there's no alternative and it is heartbreaking for me to see ... I don't mean to single out Intel here, similar incidents have happened with other manufacturers.  Not every product released is perfect straight out of the production line but good communication with the vendors and having technical contacts on their end makes a whole world of difference to getting problems sorted quickly.

I've also built a number of systems for SSD stock ingest for firmware updating SSDs so we can make sure that drives being earmarked for use have the latest (if no known issues) and/or the most suitable firmware before going in to a production environments even if they have been in stock for a period of time.