Should I get an Intel DC P4600 PCIe drive for my gaming PC?

[goldenf]

A guy on a local forum is selling a used Intel DC P4600 4TB PCIe SSD for a really good price - around what a new 4TB SATA SSD costs.

The drive is one year old and apparently wasn't used much (RAID 0 in a gaming PC, in storage for 6 months). With the good price, high speed, ridiculous reliability and built-in heatsink, I'm very tempted to go for it.

Another forum user bought the other drive from him and claims it works perfectly. The seller is new on the forum with only a few trades, but the buyer of the other drive is well-known and has a good reputation.

I'm hesitant for a few reasons.
 - It should have a five year warranty, but the seller doesn't know where the drive was bought and doesn't have a proof of purchase. So tracking down the right place for an RMA in case of failure may be tricky.
 - I'm not sure if using a server-grade drive in a normal gaming PC may cause issues?

 - This may be dumb, but I'm worried that it will mess with the aesthetics of my case. I have a black/red/orange theme going, and a shiny steel bracket with silver heatsink and green PCB will stick out. This wouldn't be an issue with an M.2 or a 2.5" drive as they'd both be out of sight.

 - I don't really need NVMe speeds. I just want to install games on it, and the difference in loading times between SATA SSD's and NVMe's isn't really significant enough IMO. I already have an NVMe drive for my OS.
 - That said, PCIe 4.0 drives are now a thing, and I have an X570 mobo so I can take advantage of that in future.

 

What do you guys think? Is it too good of a deal to pass up, or should I be boring and just get a new SATA SSD for less hassle?

My PC specs:
R7 3700X

2070 Super

Asus TUF X570 Plus motherboard
16GB 3200MHz RAM

512Gb NVMe M.2

[Senzelian]

Really depends on the price, your need for that much storage, where you're buying it and how you're paying for it.

 

I wouldn't buy such an expensive piece of hardware from someone without any sort of security like for example PayPal or eBay's buyer protection.

 

If you can get the guy to post this SSD on eBay for the price he wants to sell it at and then purchase it from him with PayPal - yeah, why not?
Otherwise I wouldn't do it. I was scammed before and lost 600€ because of a GTX 1080.

 

Edit: Also get yourself a copy of the S.M.A.R.T. values of the drive.

[goldenf]

3 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

Really depends on the price, your need for that much storage, where you're buying it and how you're paying for it.

 

I wouldn't buy such an expensive piece of hardware from someone without any sort of security like for example PayPal or eBay's buyer protection.

 

If you can get the guy to post this SSD on eBay for the price he wants to sell it at and then purchase it from him with PayPal - yeah, why not?
Otherwise I wouldn't do it. I was scammed before and lost 600€ because of a GTX 1080.

Yeah it's a lot of money to buy a second hand part like this.

I see you're a bit of an expert when it comes to SSD's. While I've got you here, can I ask your opinion on which new SSD I should get if I don't go for the P4600?
I can get either of these two brand new for a really good price:
Micron 1300 2TB

Seagate Barracuda 2TB

 

The next cheapest drive I could get is a Crucial BX500 for about 30% more, or a Mushkin Pilot-E NVMe for about 40% more.

 

I don't need blistering performance, but I also don't want to buy a lemon. What do you recommend?

[Senzelian]

7 minutes ago, goldenf said:

Yeah it's a lot of money to buy a second hand part like this.

I see you're a bit of an expert when it comes to SSD's. While I've got you here, can I ask your opinion on which new SSD I should get if I don't go for the P4600?
I can get either of these two brand new for a really good price:
Micron 1300 2TB

Seagate Barracuda 2TB

 

The next cheapest drive I could get is a Crucial BX500 for about 30% more, or a Mushkin Pilot-E NVMe for about 40% more.

 

I don't need blistering performance, but I also don't want to buy a lemon. What do you recommend?

I know that the Micron 1300 is a decent drive and will do fine.

Haven't heard or read much about the Barracuda. That's something you'd need to look into yourself. There are probably plenty of reviews.

 

I find it interesting that those two drives are the cheapest where you live.
Where I live, Germany, they are quite expensive. Are you sure there aren't any cheaper ones?

 

Here the 1300 costs around 350€, while I can get similar drives for less than 250€.

 

Btw. In general it's important that the SSD that you're going to buy has at least some form of cache on board. The BX500 for example doesn't have any cache and is a drive you should avoid.

[goldenf]

4 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

I know that the Micron 1300 is a decent drive and will do fine.

Haven't heard or read much about the Barracuda. That's something you'd need to look into yourself. There are probably plenty of reviews.

 

I find it interesting that those two drives are the cheapest where you live.
Where I live, Germany, they are quite expensive. Are you sure there aren't any cheaper ones?

 

Here the 1300 costs around 350€, while I can get similar drives for less than 250€.

 

Btw. In general it's important that the SSD that you're going to buy has at least some form of cache on board. The BX500 for example doesn't have any cache and is a drive you should avoid.

This is excellent info, thanks.

I'm in South Africa. Those are definitely the cheapest 2TB drives I have seen. They're both at 3700 ZAR (190 EUR) but I suspect there may be a pricing error on the site. If that is the case then I'll just get the Pilot-E for 5150 ZAR (263 EUR) with an EK heatsink, since the the BX500 is barely any cheaper at 4700 ZAR (240 EUR).