intel 660p a good deal?

[Fungal]

Looking to add more storage to my system, I was gonna go with a 2.5 inch sata 3 ssd but i figured the prices are so close i might as well go with an m.2. Currently i have a 960 evo 256gb as my boot drive which takes up my only m.2 slot on my motherboard.  I'm looking at the intel 660p 1tb and 2tb models. I considered getting a m.2 to 2.5 inch adapter but I figured there'd be no point in going with a m.2 at that point. I'll most likely go with an m.2 and a small m.2 pcie adapter. 

https://www.newegg.com/intel-660p-series-2tb/p/N82E16820167461

I'm open for any recommendations on better ssds for the money. Also any minimalistic pcie m.2 adapters link below

[Princess Luna]

If you want a 2,5 you can grab a MX500 it's a really good value SSD also available on 1TB/2TB.

 

The 660p is a really good pick value wise, it has it's limitations for more "professional" use but for your average gamer with normal desktop usage going on you'll be alright.

[GoldenLag]

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/88bwrH/hp-ex920-1tb-m2-2280-solid-state-drive-2yy47aaabc

 

better 1TB SSD

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/nF8j4D/crucial-mx500-2tb-25-solid-state-drive-ct2000mx500ssd1

 

better 2TB SSD. 

 

you want the cache for OS usage. if its just for storage then cacheless is fine. 

[aisle9]

Ewwwwwww QLC

[Sorenson]

I think the intel 660p is the perfect ssd to use with like a 16gb intel optane accelerator. It’s cheap storage with a small cache, but if you’re not video editing it’s great.

[Fungal]

9 minutes ago, GoldenLag said:

better 2TB SSD. 

 

not an ssd expert but the 660p has significantly faster reads/writes and random reads/writes so why would i get an mx500.

[mariushm]

The 660p uses QLC flash memory which means very low endurance, it's not a product designed for repeated writes on it.  It would work just fine as a drive to hold games onto, where you install games once and then run them (so basically write once, read many)

 

It's also SLOW once you write enough stuff to fill the small cache. For example, if you copy a 100 GB file from one drive to another, you'll get fast speeds for around 50 GB (the amount of flash memory configured as write cache) and then the SSD would slow down to around 100-150 MB/s because the QLC memory is slow and the drive doesn't get a chance to empty the cache into regular QLC memory fast enough.

 

The 1 TB model claims it has a cache size between 12 GB and 140 GB - think of it as the SSD being divided in 10 areas with 100 GB each, and each of these areas has around 12-15 GB  that's in "cache" mode. If you fill the SSD with 500 GB of data, you've killed 5 x 12-15 GB of cache, so you're left with around 50-80 GB of cache... If your SSD is 800 GB full, your cache may only be 10-20 GB. So the more the SSD gets filled, the higher the chances it will be slow with larger files.

 

It also has less endurance compared to TLC or MLC memory ... Intel guarantees 200 TB over the life of the 1 TB SSD, or 5 year warranty assuming you write less than 100 GB each day to the SSD. In comparison, a TLC SSD can reach 200-250 TB of endurance for a 1 TB drive.

 

[GoldenLag]

15 minutes ago, Fungal said:

not an ssd expert but the 660p has significantly faster reads/writes and random reads/writes so why would i get an mx500.

cache and the fact the 660p drops in read/write drastically due to its SLC cache. 

 

the mx500 is a better drive. also m.2 dont really provide much of a real world gain over regular sata unless its a Pro workload. 

[Fungal]

42 minutes ago, GoldenLag said:

cache and the fact the 660p drops in read/write drastically due to its SLC cache. 

  

the mx500 is a better drive. also m.2 dont really provide much of a real world gain over regular sata unless its a Pro workload. 

 

55 minutes ago, mariushm said:

The 660p uses QLC flash memory which means very low endurance, it's not a product designed for repeated writes on it.  It would work just fine as a drive to hold games onto, where you install games once and then run them (so basically write once, read many)

 

Thanks for the information. On newegg right now the wd blue 2tb is on sale for 15 less than the mx500. Would you guys still recommend the mx500

[GoldenLag]

2 minutes ago, Fungal said:

 

Thanks for the information. On newegg right now the wd blue 2tb is on sale for 15 less than the mx500. Would you guys still recommend the mx500

yep. 

 

i would honestly just grab the EX920 1TB and a cheap mass storage drive. 

[mariushm]

WD Blue is  SATA only, so your maximum speeds will be limited to around 560 MB/s - if you can live with that, they're good drives. OK controller, good TLC memory, decent endurance and everything.

 

Make sure your m.2 connector has SATA available. Some motherboards have two M.2 connectors, but only one supports BOTH nvme and sata.

[Fungal]

13 minutes ago, mariushm said:

WD Blue is  SATA only, so your maximum speeds will be limited to around 560 MB/s - if you can live with that, they're good drives. OK controller, good TLC memory, decent endurance and everything.

 

Make sure your m.2 connector has SATA available. Some motherboards have two M.2 connectors, but only one supports BOTH nvme and sata.

I was referring to the 2.5 inch sata 3 wd blue bc i only have one m.2 slot which is occupied