Used SSD listings- best value?

[Aereldor]

Greetings.

 

Since new SSDs are incredibly pricey where I live and cost a fortune to ship from overseas, I decided to hit up my country's equivalent of Craigslist and found a few listings for 240GB SSDs. Not knowing much about SSDs, I wasn't sure which of these performs the best and what presents the best value.

 

Here's link to the listings, sorted by price. Keep in mind that I'd rather not spend more than 4000 rupees (my currency's equivalent of $60) unless the deal is too good to pass up. I also need at least 240GB of storage capacity, as I'm going to be using this for a Hackintosh installation along with a few programs and future project files if I get that far.

 

https://www.olx.in/stateofdelhi/q-ssd/?search%5Border%5D=filter_float_price%3Aasc

 

I would be extremely grateful for any insight you can provide.

 

Regards,
Aereldor.

[ZetZet]

well it says that's a new ssd...

[Aereldor]

2 minutes ago, ZetZet said:

well it says that's a new ssd...

Sod it, my bad- wrong link.

[X1XNobleX1X]

If you can get the Intel 520, it's quite a good SDD. Very reliable. 

 

Had a 480gb one, when they were $1000 AUD+

[Aereldor]

6 minutes ago, X1XNobleX1X said:

If you can get the Intel 520, it's quite a good SDD. Very reliable. 

 

Had a 480gb one, when they were $1000 AUD+

It is better than the Intel 1500 pro SSD listed for just a little more?

[Cryptonite]

9 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

Greetings.

 

Since new SSDs are incredibly pricey where I live and cost a fortune to ship from overseas, I decided to hit up my country's equivalent of Craigslist and found a few listings for 240GB SSDs. Not knowing much about SSDs, I wasn't sure which of these performs the best and what presents the best value.

 

Here's link to the listings, sorted by price. Keep in mind that I'd rather not spend more than 4000 rupees (my currency's equivalent of $60) unless the deal is too good to pass up. I also need at least 240GB of storage capacity, as I'm going to be using this for a Hackintosh installation along with a few programs and future project files if I get that far.

 

https://www.olx.in/stateofdelhi/q-ssd/?search%5Border%5D=filter_float_price%3Aasc

 

I would be extremely grateful for any insight you can provide.

 

Regards,
Aereldor.

well since SSDs are only supposed to write so many times and you have no idea what the person before you did with said SSD I wouldn't recommend going for a secondhand SSD. rather buy a cheaper new SSD.. then again the SSD might still basically be brand new.

[X1XNobleX1X]

1 minute ago, Aereldor said:

It is better than the Intel 1500 pro SSD listed for just a little more?

The Intel 520 is better, I think , just looking at comparisons online.

[Aereldor]

Just now, Cryptonite said:

well since SSDs are only supposed to write so many times and you have no idea what the person before you did with said SSD I wouldn't recommend going for a secondhand SSD. rather buy a cheaper new SSD.. then again the SSD might still basically be brand new.

That's a good point, but prices here are absolutely horrendous.

Is there a benchmark program I can use to test how many times an SSD has been written to, or something similar to estimate the longevity of the SSD?

[Aereldor]

1 minute ago, X1XNobleX1X said:

The Intel 520 is better, I think , just looking at comparisons online.

Alright, I'll probably get that. I'm just going to go through a last-ditch attempt to find a cheap, new 240GB SSD for a reasonable price- although all seems to be lost.

[Cryptonite]

Just now, X1XNobleX1X said:

The Intel 520 is better, I think , just looking at comparisons online.

 

2 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

It is better than the Intel 1500 pro SSD listed for just a little more?

well I have a 250 GB intel 510 in my second rig and its performance is very close to my M2. Samsung 950 PRO when it comes to boot time and read/write speeds are pretty good too. 

[Aereldor]

1 minute ago, Cryptonite said:

 

well I have a 250 GB intel 510 in my second rig and its performance is very close to my M2. Samsung 950 PRO when it comes to boot time and read/write speeds are pretty good too. 

Now this SSD seems like an extremely compelling option. Should I just pay asking ($57) for the 'barely-used' 520-series SSD if the seller agrees to come to a public location and run a program to prove that it's in top shape and hasn't been written to a whole lot?

Then again, I don't know of any such programs. I'll be grateful for any recommendations.

[X1XNobleX1X]

3 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

Now this SSD seems like an extremely compelling option. Should I just pay asking ($57) for the 'barely-used' 520-series SSD if the seller agrees to come to a public location and run a program to prove that it's in top shape and hasn't been written to a whole lot?

Then again, I don't know of any such programs. I'll be grateful for any recommendations.

 

1

You could use Crystal Disk Info, to check the health of it. (Power on hours, etc)

 

Quote

public location and run a program to prove that it's in top shape and hasn't been written to a whole lot?

How is he going to do this at a public location?

[Cryptonite]

1 minute ago, Aereldor said:

Now this SSD seems like an extremely compelling option. Should I just pay asking ($57) for the 'barely-used' 520-series SSD if the seller agrees to come to a public location and run a program to prove that it's in top shape and hasn't been written to a whole lot?

Then again, I don't know of any such programs. I'll be grateful for any recommendations.

https://www.olx.in/item/unused-intel-ssd-240gb-520-series-6-0gbps-100-health-performance-ID15aXgl.html#ef7812bb8c

that one? it looks promising. it'll most likely work great.

 

Crystal disk info is the only one I know of.

[Aereldor]

2 minutes ago, X1XNobleX1X said:

You could use Crystal Disk Info, to check the health of it. (Power on hours, etc)

 

How is he going to do this at a public location?

By sticking it in a laptop and bringing it to a cafe? It's a lot easier to drag around and test than other components.

 

Furthermore, my city isn't particularly safe, so I'm sure he/she'll understand if I don't want to go over to his/her place or invite them over.

[Aereldor]

2 minutes ago, Cryptonite said:

https://www.olx.in/item/unused-intel-ssd-240gb-520-series-6-0gbps-100-health-performance-ID15aXgl.html#ef7812bb8c

that one? it looks promising. it'll most likely work great.

 

Crystal disk info is the only one I know of.

Thanks a million. I just texted the number they provided. I hope they respond.

[X1XNobleX1X]

5 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

By sticking it in a laptop and bringing it to a cafe? It's a lot easier to drag around and test than other components.

 

 

 

That means he has to install a operating system on it?

Do you really think he will do that?

 

Unless, he has a USB to SATA adapter.

[Cryptonite]

8 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

Thanks a million. I just texted the number they provided. I hope they respond.

cool.. my 512 GB ssd has ~ 1.9 TB writes so far so it's still basically brand new.. just download this and put it on a flashdrive to test when you meet them. if the writes are over 10 TB I wouldn't take it. but then again they are supposed to withstand a load more than that. 

[Aereldor]

18 minutes ago, Cryptonite said:

cool.. my 512 GB ssd has ~ 1.9 TB writes so far so it's still basically brand new.. just download this and put it on a flashdrive to test when you meet them. if the writes are over 10 TB I wouldn't take it. but then again they are supposed to withstand a load more than that. 

He doesn't have a laptop with two SATA III ports, so I might have to take my tower along, possibly with that throwaway VGA monitor I have.

 

Alternatively, I could let him use the 2.5" HDD caddy I have to replace his DVD drive.

[Cryptonite]

3 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

He doesn't have a laptop with two SATA III ports, so I might have to take my tower along, possibly with that throwaway VGA monitor I have.

 

Alternatively, I could let him use the 2.5" HDD caddy I have to replace his DVD drive.

just ask him to run the program on his system, take a screenshot of the SSD and send it to you.

 

it'll look like this 

[Aereldor]

4 minutes ago, Cryptonite said:

just ask him to run the program on his system, take a screenshot of the SSD and send it to you.

 

it'll look like this 

I'm quite wary of cheats. I mean, the product is listed as unused but the description says 'barely used'. I want him to show me the SSD, mount it, run the program, and then give it to me. Call it paranoia, but better safe than sorry, eh?

[Cryptonite]

1 minute ago, Aereldor said:

I'm quite wary of cheats. I mean, the product is listed as unused but the description says 'barely used'. I want him to show me the SSD, mount it, run the program, and then give it to me. Call it paranoia, but better safe than sorry, eh?

uderstood hehe

[Aereldor]

2 minutes ago, Cryptonite said:

uderstood hehe

I wonder if it really is a good idea to take my tower as well as my throwaway peripherals and monitor to a cafe for this. In fact, I don't even know whether they'll allow me to do so.

Damn, I wish I had a Micro ATX case...

[Cryptonite]

7 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

I wonder if it really is a good idea to take my tower as well as my throwaway peripherals and monitor to a cafe for this. In fact, I don't even know whether they'll allow me to do so.

Damn, I wish I had a Micro ATX case...

it's difficult traveling with your case in a place you say isn't the safest is a little risky, I guess you'd either have to risk it or risk buying a dud. but to be honest if the SSD is really only one year old it should still be safe to use.

[Aereldor]

1 minute ago, Cryptonite said:

it's difficult traveling with your case in a place you say isn't the safest is a little risky, I guess you'd either have to risk it or risk buying a dud. but to be honest if the SSD is really only one year old it should still be safe to use.

I got him to bring a laptop, but the model is obscure and we're unsure of whether it uses the SATA III interface.

Do you know a surefire way of finding out besides copying a file and checking whether speeds exceed 150 MB/s?

[Cryptonite]

5 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

I got him to bring a laptop, but the model is obscure and we're unsure of whether it uses the SATA III interface.

Do you know a surefire way of finding out besides copying a file and checking whether speeds exceed 150 MB/s?

it wouldn't really matter if you use sata 3 or not to test it. if it passes crystal disk and shows you the correct model there you'll be fine, it'll just look like mine showing it is running at PCIe 2.0 x2 instead of PCIe 3.0 x4 which it can run on.

 

like this, the left hand side of each is current speed while the right hand is supported speed.

Edited May 1, 2016 by Cryptonite