Good budget secondary M.2 SSD for my laptop

[Baterka]

I have TP X1 Extreme Gen1 with relatively nice 256GB Intel 760p series M.2 NVMe SSD.

 

I want to have this drive for OS and most used apps and buy second M.2 (I think just 2280 fits) to fill second slot with 512GB-1TB of storage for some files, sw and games.

 

I think I do not need huge speeds for this second drive so I want to go budget on that. I was thinking about some WD Blue/Green (SATA M.2) but I want to ask you guys.

 

Any recommendations for nice budget M.2 SATA/NVMe SSD with balanced reliability/performance/price?

[5x5]

Crucial P1 or HP Elite models. Avoid the ED Greens

[Baterka]

What about Crucial P2? Any difference?

[5x5]

40 minutes ago, Baterka said:

What about Crucial P2? Any difference?

Also solid drives. Usually, the cheapest options aren't exactly good and tend to be quite shit. I'd argue the Crucial P series is better than the 760p you already have.

[Baterka]

I see that they are very promising but I am now trying to find out if new P2 is better. I see it is TLC instead of QLC but not much else. Same price tho.

[SPCFHT]

Kingston A2000. The Crucial P1 is a QLC SSD that people may not prefer.

[Baterka]

Seems like the A2000 is also faster overall than the original 760p installed from Lenovo  Little disapointment:

 

ATTO: (First is 760p)

 

CrystalDiskMark: (First is 760p)

[Baterka]

So I decided to buy 1TB SSD to the laptop and remove the original 760p  Should I still buy the A2000 or not worth in 1TB range

[NewMaxx]

The 760p and A2000 have very similar hardware. The 760p's controller is the 8-channel SM2262 with DRAM while the A2000 uses the 4-channel SM2263 variant (with DRAM). The 760p is slower on writes than the newer SM2262EN-based drives (SX8200 Pro) but it's not a huge factor for consumer usage. The A2000 is faster in your listed case because it's at higher capacity, although it will give it a run for its money anyway in that metric. However, they do use different generations of flash (3D2/64L in the 760p, 3D3/96L in the A2000), albeit with only minor differences. The primary difference between them is in fact the SLC cache design as the 760p is client-oriented (reliable, consistent) with only static SLC, the A2000 is consumer-focused with a large, dynamic cache.

[Baterka]

On 7/19/2020 at 10:22 PM, NewMaxx said:

The primary difference between them is in fact the SLC cache design as the 760p is client-oriented (reliable, consistent) with only static SLC, the A2000 is consumer-focused with a large, dynamic cache.

Do not really understand this part

[NewMaxx]

3 hours ago, Baterka said:

Do not really understand this part

The 760p is client-oriented, that is as you would have for an employee using a company laptop or workstation. Consistency and reliability are key. Therefore its SLC cache is conservative - static/dedicated SLC, which is inherently small because it must come from the reserved die space (outside user space). E.g. 12GB for the 1TB SKU. It's more reliable because with dynamic SLC you're converting to/from TLC which has additive wear as the SLC and TLC share the same garbage collection (maintenance) and wear-leveling zone among other things. Performance is more consistent because you don't have to worry about emptying and converting (juggling) the SLC as the drive is fuller or cache is overrun.

 

The A2000 has a consumer-oriented - consumer meaning, bursty (random) workloads - SLC cache design, large and dynamic. But this can wear the drive more and if it hits outside SLC it can eventually be bottlenecked by the cache (so-called "folding" or the compression of SLC blocks into TLC) which has very high latency as well as poor sequentials. This is for example what people complain about on the QLC-based Intel 660p for example (although that also has some static SLC, but that's a different discussion).

 

But in your case, of course, 256GB -> 1TB is an upgrade regardless due to more interleaving for example.

[Baterka]

My first intention was to have main, more reliable drive for system+work apps and the second drive for games and media. From your post it seems like it fits the "client-oriented"/"consumer-oriented" type. I think I will stick with the 256+512 drives rather than buying 1TB A2000  I will upgrade to 1TB when I get money for some better one like Samsung or KC2000