Cheapest TLC 2TB SDD?

[abcdefghivjklmnop]

Hello, 

 

Im from EU, got a crucial p3 1tb for 47 euro before the terrible price increases on amazon (its like 60 now). I realised after I bought it that I bought a qlc ssd, its not terrible but certaintly i wont be daily driving it as i do alot of reads and writes and this thing will slow sooner or later as it's QLC. I swore it was TLC!!

 

Anyways, what is the cheapest TLC(or slower but more r/w) 2TB SSD money can buy currently, on Amazon? 

 

Tried googling but keep getting some random ass ssd's that have been already bought out. 

[Dedayog]

7 minutes ago, abcdefghivjklmnop said:

Hello, 

 

Im from EU, got a crucial p3 1tb for 47 euro before the terrible price increases on amazon (its like 60 now). I realised after I bought it that I bought a qlc ssd, its not terrible but certaintly i wont be daily driving it as i do alot of reads and writes and this thing will slow sooner or later as it's QLC. I swore it was TLC!!

 

Anyways, what is the cheapest TLC(or slower but more r/w) 2TB SSD money can buy currently, on Amazon? 

 

Tried googling but keep getting some random ass ssd's that have been already bought out. 

Cheapest that money can buy is a new phrase for me!  As opposed to bartering?

 

Gen 4 good drive...

 

https://www.amazon.com/TEAMGROUP-T-Force-Cardea-Solid-TM8FP7002T0C311/dp/B0899F3MWB/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=2tb+tlc+nvme&qid=1703620011&sr=8-4&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.17d9e15d-4e43-4581-b373-0e5c1a776d5d

 

[abcdefghivjklmnop]

30 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

Cheapest that money can buy is a new phrase for me!  As opposed to bartering?

 

Gen 4 good drive...

 

https://www.amazon.com/TEAMGROUP-T-Force-Cardea-Solid-TM8FP7002T0C311/dp/B0899F3MWB/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=2tb+tlc+nvme&qid=1703620011&sr=8-4&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.17d9e15d-4e43-4581-b373-0e5c1a776d5d

 

sadly thats us amazon, the uk amazon lists it for 30 more  

 

Shall wait till its cheaper 

[Dedayog]

16 minutes ago, abcdefghivjklmnop said:

sadly thats us amazon, the uk amazon lists it for 30 more  

 

Shall wait till its cheaper 

The SN770 is TLC and a tad cheaper.  Not sure there is anything cheaper Gen 4.  Gen 3 is, and there won't be any difference for daily use/gaming.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/WD_BLACK-SN770-2280-Gaming-speed/dp/B09QV5KJHV/ref=sr_1_16?crid=2V82WWGJRFADI&keywords=TLC%2B2tb&qid=1703622803&sprefix=tlc%2B2tb%2Caps%2C159&sr=8-16&th=1

[abcdefghivjklmnop]

4 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

The SN770 is TLC and a tad cheaper.  Not sure there is anything cheaper Gen 4.  Gen 3 is, and there won't be any difference for daily use/gaming.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/WD_BLACK-SN770-2280-Gaming-speed/dp/B09QV5KJHV/ref=sr_1_16?crid=2V82WWGJRFADI&keywords=TLC%2B2tb&qid=1703622803&sprefix=tlc%2B2tb%2Caps%2C159&sr=8-16&th=1

Dont really care about gen 3 or gen 4, im a simple man of gondor. 

[NewMaxx]

If by "EU" you mean "UK", the cheapest 2TB TLC drive would be the WD SN580. In other areas of the EU it might be the MP44L (which to my knowledge is still TLC). This is EXCLUDING 3.0 drives as for the most part there's no reason to go with 3.0, they are inferior in every way except for minor exceptions that are rarer and usually cost more.

[abcdefghivjklmnop]

2 hours ago, NewMaxx said:

If by "EU" you mean "UK", the cheapest 2TB TLC drive would be the WD SN580. In other areas of the EU it might be the MP44L (which to my knowledge is still TLC). This is EXCLUDING 3.0 drives as for the most part there's no reason to go with 3.0, they are inferior in every way except for minor exceptions that are rarer and usually cost more.

sn580 is 148 and the mp44l doesnt ship to me or is from us  shall wait till drives go cheaper again 

[Dedayog]

2 hours ago, NewMaxx said:

If by "EU" you mean "UK", the cheapest 2TB TLC drive would be the WD SN580. In other areas of the EU it might be the MP44L (which to my knowledge is still TLC). This is EXCLUDING 3.0 drives as for the most part there's no reason to go with 3.0, they are inferior in every way except for minor exceptions that are rarer and usually cost more.

They're inferior on paper.

 

In actual use, you can't tell any difference.

 

Hence ... They're the same.

[NewMaxx]

19 hours ago, Dedayog said:

They're inferior on paper.

 

In actual use, you can't tell any difference.

 

Hence ... They're the same.

Right, and the only two worthwhile are the Gold P31 (difficult to find in many regions, especially at 2TB) and the overpriced 970 EVO Plus. The latter has undergone hardware upgrades so it's not a bad choice, but many Gen4 options will be more efficient as well as "faster." I'd make an exception for the 970EP if you can find it priced well, which does happen. But for most cases, it's safe to ignore Gen3.

[NewMaxx]

19 hours ago, abcdefghivjklmnop said:

sn580 is 148 and the mp44l doesnt ship to me or is from us  shall wait till drives go cheaper again 

It depends on your region. If you live in an area supported by PCPartPicker, check and filter there. Otherwise I'd need more information.

[abcdefghivjklmnop]

On 12/27/2023 at 7:35 PM, NewMaxx said:

It depends on your region. If you live in an area supported by PCPartPicker, check and filter there. Otherwise I'd need more information.

The prices from pcpartpicker arent that good. Im looking for a gen3 drive as compared to gen4, for my use case, its not worth paying more for. The P31 You mentioned looks good but at 150 for 2tb is quite steep. the sudden increase for all ssd's on amazon after november got me crazyy

[NewMaxx]

50 minutes ago, abcdefghivjklmnop said:

The prices from pcpartpicker arent that good. Im looking for a gen3 drive as compared to gen4, for my use case, its not worth paying more for. The P31 You mentioned looks good but at 150 for 2tb is quite steep. the sudden increase for all ssd's on amazon after november got me crazyy

Gen3 isn't necessarily cheaper. If it is, great. I probably wouldn't buy Gen3 today given that Gen4 is as fast and usually faster (and more efficient) and can usually be found at the same price. Unless you're okay with DRAM-less drives and older hardware/flash. I question the reliability then, which is something most people won't compromise on. Although many Gen4 drives are also junky. And honestly, QLC isn't necessarily bad, there are cases I'd take it over TLC even.

 

In any case, looking at current availability (Amazon U.S.), the WD Blue SN580 is in a good spot. For $10 more or so you can get higher-end, the Crucial T500 has been $108 which is the deal to beat I think for 2TB + TLC. That was the Crucial site price though, but I think it hit $102 on Amazon at one point. Prices are on the way up however, and these are USD prices before tax.

[NobleGamer]

2 hours ago, NewMaxx said:

Gen3 isn't necessarily cheaper. If it is, great. I probably wouldn't buy Gen3 today given that Gen4 is as fast and usually faster (and more efficient) and can usually be found at the same price.

For OP's sake, let's be more specific. In my hunt this year for an SSD, the pricing of pcie 3 vs pcie 4 tends to go this way:

 

Gen 3 DRAM-less < Gen 4 DRAM-less < Gen 3 with DRAM < Gen 4 with DRAM

 

Some drives among the first 3 can have similar prices.

 

I personally don't recommend DRAM-less drives since they tend to not have as fast throughput (especially random IO) when comparing the same gen.

 

With pcie 4, you need to be more weary of their Temps, as they at minimum need some heat sink to prevent thermal throttle, whereas pcie 3 drives don't necessarily need a heating unless they don't have good air circulation, like the m.2 slot under my GPU.

 

2 hours ago, NewMaxx said:

Unless you're okay with DRAM-less drives and older hardware/flash. I question the reliability then, which is something most people won't compromise on. Although many Gen4 drives are also junky. And honestly, QLC isn't necessarily bad, there are cases I'd take it over TLC even.

If you are implying that pcie 3 is older hardware/flash, I mean someone else gave an example of 970 Evo Plus being iterated on in terms of controller & firmware over the years.

 

Its one thing to say that someone shouldn't look at SSD with older NAND like SLC or MLC, or has weak warranty/TBW, but it's a bit much to imply that pcie 4 has some huge forward looking benefit when there's no clear evidence of that unless perhaps OP really wants higher max random throughput, which can go up to break neck 1.5 million read IOPS.

[NewMaxx]

Modern DRAM-less NVMe drives are quite good. I'd limit this to newer Gen4 models, 5+ GB/s usually, but I think it's been proven they are very fast. And also quite efficient. Gen3 drives (w/DRAM) have a lot of drawbacks. Usually 8-channel (power and thermals), often 28nm (less efficient), older flash (less efficient and slower). Also, hardware is regularly swapped on these. The exceptions are, again, the Gold P31 (hard to find, expensive) and the 970 EVO Plus (can be expensive, and has two hardware revisions). It's not a matter of "get Gen4 since it's faster" since you're not going to notice a big difference in normal use. It's more a matter of, why use older tech if you don't have to, and that's exactly how manufacturers see it. It's why SATA SSDs are junk and Gen3 NVMe SSDs are largely junk as well. The new tech comes in 4.0 drives, it's not really a matter of the bandwidth difference but marketing and the fact drives are backward compatible anyway. Although sure, if you can find the 970EP as the cheapest 2TB drive, go for it. I just wouldn't suggest others like say, the SX8200 Pro, because the reliability just isn't there when it's using the flash and controller overstock of the week. (and older DRAM-less controllers, E13T/3.0 era included, are just less reliable)

 

And also, QLC can be quite usable, so right off the bat I think that's contradictory to the OP. A cheap 2TB P41 Plus can be quite reasonable. And yes, the 3.0 670p also works, if you can find it. But I've said my piece as someone who has a lot of experience in this field and gave my recommendation above, hopefully more than enough information in this thread to help decision making. (the most popular capacious 3.0 TLC drive w/DRAM is the 4TB MP34, which has some reliability issues, and my advice in this thread is based on some desire for "reliability")