Silicon Power SSDs?

[Pitsy]

I've been shopping around for an SSD and have come across this brand called Silicon Valley (linked below). Their 500gb model is about $20 cheaper than the Western Digital counterpart. But I'm really thrown off by the reviews. Solid 5 star reviews and a lot of them look fake to me. Just weird vibes I guess, they seem too good. Was wondering if anyone had experience with this brand or knows anything about them. I'll probably drop the $90 and find out for myself but I figured I'd ask you lovely people first. 

 

 

Amazon link for SSD

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07997QV4Z/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_CnanBbZNYRT9S

[LamoidZombieDog]

13 minutes ago, Pitsy said:

I've been shopping around for an SSD and have come across this brand called Silicon Valley (linked below). Their 500gb model is about $20 cheaper than the Western Digital counterpart. But I'm really thrown off by the reviews. Solid 5 star reviews and a lot of them look fake to me. Just weird vibes I guess, they seem too good. Was wondering if anyone had experience with this brand or knows anything about them. I'll probably drop the $90 and find out for myself but I figured I'd ask you lovely people first. 

 

 

Amazon link for SSD

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07997QV4Z/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_CnanBbZNYRT9S

based on review posts, its all legit.. dont own their drive but ive heard they are great, wish i got that now over my 250GB PNY ssd since the 512 here is only 40 bucks more

[Christophe Corazza]

57 minutes ago, Pitsy said:

I've been shopping around for an SSD and have come across this brand called Silicon Valley (linked below). Their 500gb model is about $20 cheaper than the Western Digital counterpart. But I'm really thrown off by the reviews. Solid 5 star reviews and a lot of them look fake to me. Just weird vibes I guess, they seem too good. Was wondering if anyone had experience with this brand or knows anything about them. I'll probably drop the $90 and find out for myself but I figured I'd ask you lovely people first. 

 

 

Amazon link for SSD

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07997QV4Z/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_CnanBbZNYRT9S

 

Silicon Power isn’t a top-tier vendor, but it’s perfectly fine, and I’d certainly consider buying them. SSDs have gotten to be quite common tech these days, with not a lot of problems and plenty of expertise in the industry. The controller vendors provide manufacturers with decent firmware that requires little customization besides plugging in the flash chip config (and that’s gotten more standardized over the past few years, too.)

It can be reasonable to pay maybe 10 - 20 % extra for a top-tier vendor (like Samsung), and to avoid never-heard-of-em bottom tier vendors. But nothing wrong with middle tier, assuming you’ve done some price and performance comparisons. Bit-Tech has reviewed their SSDs before: https://www.bit-tech.net/reviews/silicon-power-slim-s55-review-240gb/9/

 

As with any SSD (top tier or not) you should be sensible: don’t count on it after it’s warranty period (in years and TB written), avoid write amplification, use trim periodically, enable SMART reporting, don’t let it overheat, etc. There’s no reason to worry about 1 - 2-tier devices as long as you don’t abuse them.

 

[Pitsy]

2 minutes ago, Christophe Corazza said:

 

Silicon Power isn’t a top-tier vendor, but it’s perfectly fine, and I’d certainly consider buying them. SSDs have gotten to be quite common tech these days, with not a lot of problems and plenty of expertise in the industry. The controller vendors provide manufacturers with decent firmware that requires little customization besides plugging in the flash chip config (and that’s gotten more standardized over the past few years, too.)

It can be reasonable to pay maybe 10 - 20 % extra for a top-tier vendor (like Samsung), and to avoid never-heard-of-em bottom tier vendors. But nothing wrong with middle tier, assuming you’ve done some price comparisons. Bit-Tech has reviewed their SSDs before: https://www.bit-tech.net/reviews/silicon-power-slim-s55-review-240gb/9/

 

As with any SSD (top tier or not) you should be sensible: don’t count on it after it’s warranty period (in years and TB written), avoid write amplification, use trim periodically, enable SMART reporting, don’t let it overheat, etc. There’s no reason to worry about 1 - 2-tier devices as long as you don’t abuse them.

 

Thanks for the extensive reply! Appreciate the feedback.

[dizmo]

Honestly I'd just pay the extra $20. However, like all things, you should read actual reviews on the items, as there are good and bad SSDs even from the same company.

Also, for something like this, don't trust Amazon reviews. It's not a kettle.

[Christophe Corazza]

15 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Honestly I'd just pay the extra $20. However, like all things, you should read actual reviews on the items, as there are good and bad SSDs even from the same company.

Also, for something like this, don't trust Amazon reviews. It's not a kettle.

 

Indeed, the reviews on the site of the web store itself are very often misleading at best.

Best practice is to look for reputable review websites and combine their opinion with people’s experience (other than the ones listed on the web store).

[Sparon]

I know I'm a bit late to the party here, but others wondering about these SSDs may find this useful. Here has been my experience with Silicon Power:

 

1. Reliability: These are as reliable as most SSDs. It doesn't have insane lifespans like Samsungs "Pro" series, but it is rather good for most users.

2. Speed: Speeds have been--in my experience--slightly below advertised speeds. This seems to be somewhat universal, but Silicon Power SSDs seem a bit slower still. Nothing horrible, and real-world you probably won't notice the difference. If you absolutely must have the fastest drives on the planet, this is not for you.

3. Caching: These drives SUCK at sustained loads. They work very well for the average user, but if you are frequently throwing huge amounts of data at this thing, it will slow down to abysmal speeds. It is more than enough to handle light to moderate workloads, but don't expect to fill this drive entirely in one go with any speed.

 

Overall, they are plenty good for most users, but would not be suitable for server environments, or huge amounts of data in one go, or if you have to have the absolute fastest speeds.

[Guest]

On 6/27/2018 at 5:59 PM, Pitsy said:

I've been shopping around for an SSD and have come across this brand called Silicon Valley (linked below). Their 500gb model is about $20 cheaper than the Western Digital counterpart. But I'm really thrown off by the reviews. Solid 5 star reviews and a lot of them look fake to me. Just weird vibes I guess, they seem too good. Was wondering if anyone had experience with this brand or knows anything about them. I'll probably drop the $90 and find out for myself but I figured I'd ask you lovely people first. 

 

 

Amazon link for SSD

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07997QV4Z/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_CnanBbZNYRT9S

I'll assume the SSD will have "normal" usage, i.e. zero to very limited file transfer besides first day installing os + games. 

 

This is a better deal

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/mr/newegg/XZzkcf

 

The team l5 lite 3d is among the top non-"mainstream" SSDs, i.e. the 860 evo, mx500, WD Blue 3d, SanDisk ultra 3d, and Intel 545s. It is certainly better than the Silicon Power SSD, which while being adequete for normal usage will fall quickly in sustained read/write and 4k IOPS read/write, which are most important for people doing occasional big file transfers. 

 

I've found this to be a very help resource to judge which SSD you should buy: 

https://ssd.borecraft.com/documents/SSD_Buying_Guide.pdf

[hojnikb]

Just stick with 1st tier manufacturers, that own their own nand fabs (samsung, crucial etc..) for best experience. 2nd tier manufactueres like kingston, silicon power and others use lower binned NAND (best NAND is reserved for the manufacturer itself) which can potentially affect performance and reliability.