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Best, cheap ~500GB SSD?

Arachnotronic

Arachnotronic

Lifer
Hi all,

Looking to maximize my bang-for-the-buck for a ~500GB SSD. What are the best values on the market?

I'm looking at a Crucial BX100 -- 500GB for $190. Are there any significantly better deals out there for that kind of capacity?
 
Arachnotronic said:
Hi all,

Looking to maximize my bang-for-the-buck for a ~500GB SSD. What are the best values on the market?

I'm looking at a Crucial BX100 -- 500GB for $190. Are there any significantly better deals out there for that kind of capacity?
Click to expand...

Frankly, that's a brand and model I keep my eye on -- day to day -- as being both a good buy and below-average price. I couldn't tell you much about the others. I suppose you could look at the Mushkin "Reactor" series. YOu also want to consider the seq-read/write specs, warranty -- other things.
 
Cheap SSDs are usually cheap for a reason, and most of the time, its not a good one. I'd avoid EVOs for life after that firmware debacle
 
OrionMaster said:
No. I don't trust the brand anymore, the way they handled it was terrible
Click to expand...

They did eventually release a firmware update to fix the issue 😛

As for OP, when I was researching a budget 250GB-ish SSD to buy I rejected the BX100 series due to poor write speeds. I guess the higher capacity should have less of an issue with that but I ended up getting an OCZ Arc 100. It gets me around 450MB/s in both read and write which is relatively close to advertised.

The only thing I didn't like about the OCZ Arc 100 is that my hackintosh doesn't seem to like it very much. I ended up having to install OSX onto my HDD. My Windows 7 installation seems to be pretty happy running on it though.
 
mikeymikec said:
I was going to say that the words "cheap" and "best" rarely make it into a valid sentence about a product.
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Ditto, it's either one or the either. The Crucial MX100 almost got that title as cheap / best but due to many reports of systems suddenly stopped booting with them and bad firmware. I cannot recommend them. The BX100 is a sucker in performance.

I only recommend SanDisk Extreme PRO SSDs after owning many Samsung SSDs before. These SanDisk Extreme PRO gave me the snappiest and fastest real world performance that is consistent every single day.
 
jji7skyline said:
They did eventually release a firmware update to fix the issue 😛

As for OP, when I was researching a budget 250GB-ish SSD to buy I rejected the BX100 series due to poor write speeds. I guess the higher capacity should have less of an issue with that but I ended up getting an OCZ Arc 100. It gets me around 450MB/s in both read and write which is relatively close to advertised.

The only thing I didn't like about the OCZ Arc 100 is that my hackintosh doesn't seem to like it very much. I ended up having to install OSX onto my HDD. My Windows 7 installation seems to be pretty happy running on it though.
Click to expand...

Yeah -- a recent Egg "Speshul Dee-ul" e-mail offered a 240GB Arc 100 for about $70 -- expiring 4 hours ago. The customer reviews of the 1-egg variety did not inspire confidence. Unless you wrote one of those reviews, the OSX difficulties are confirmed as "likely."

I've got enough MX100's and Sammy EVO/Pro SSDs that I can probably avoid buying another one just to increase capacity for one system, but I'll have the troubles of making some temporary HDD clones while I make a swap of SSDs one way or the other.
 
jji7skyline said:
They did eventually release a firmware update to fix the issue 😛
Click to expand...

Except of course it didn't, now there's a new new firmware update that might fix the problem, meanwhile the 850 EVO is suffering from SS recommending a firmware update that does nasty things to the drive.
 
mikeymikec said:
Except of course it didn't, now there's a new new firmware update that might fix the problem, meanwhile the 850 EVO is suffering from SS recommending a firmware update that does nasty things to the drive.
Click to expand...
Wasn't that pulled off from their servers?
 
Anandtech showed that the issue applies to the 840 pro as well (IIRC), Samsung is yet to admit that. The mSata 840 EVO users are being left in the dust as well. Samsung botched this big time
 
OrionMaster said:
Anandtech showed that the issue applies to the 840 pro as well (IIRC), Samsung is yet to admit that. The mSata 840 EVO users are being left in the dust as well. Samsung botched this big time
Click to expand...
indeed. my mSATA 1TB 840 EVO is sitting here crying for a firmware upgrade but they'll probably just ignore it just like they ignored the original 840 TLC based SSD
 
Have an older Adata 128GB Sandforce based SSD, it's been clicking none stop. No firmware updates or any of that crap. It was my first SSD purchase.
 
R0H1T said:
Wasn't that pulled off from their servers?
Click to expand...

I don't think that factoid really helps those who downloaded a recommended update 🙂 Furthermore, it would make me trust the EVO series even less.

OrionMaster said:
Anandtech showed that the issue applies to the 840 pro as well (IIRC), Samsung is yet to admit that. The mSata 840 EVO users are being left in the dust as well. Samsung botched this big time
Click to expand...

URL (of the article)? I haven't heard anything suggesting that the PRO series are affected. Different flash, probably a different controller... I imagine the chassis is made from the same material though 🙂
 
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I'm looking at a Crucial BX100 -- 500GB for $190. Are there any significantly better deals out there for that kind of capacity?
Click to expand...

I'd keep an eye on the MX100, MX200, M550, the Sandisk Ultra II, the 850 Evo, and perhaps the new OCZ Arcs since they're now backed by Toshiba.
 
Last week, I got a 850 EVO, 500GB through Amazon. Delivered next day - perfect packaging. Installed as my data drive, no problems at all. I would not hesitate to buy another should I need it.

BTW, Magician 4.6 says that the 850 EVO has the latest firmware, EMT01B6Q.
 
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I too have a 500gb Samsung 850 and a 250 GB Samsung 850 evo. No issues. Also bought another 120 gb 850 evo I think and another one, so two. Again, no issues.
 
OrionMaster said:
Anandtech showed that the issue applies to the 840 pro as well (IIRC), Samsung is yet to admit that. The mSata 840 EVO users are being left in the dust as well. Samsung botched this big time
Click to expand...
It is affecting 840 drives, but it's definitely not affecting 840 PRO.

Also a few days ago I updated the firmware of my mSATA PM851 drive, the OEM brother of 840 EVO. Hopefully the mSATA EVO will get it's fix soon enough.
 
I bought a 500gb transcend ssd370. Solid drive, good controller, and great software that allows you to clone your OS and install firmware updates. Best part is no drama as with the Evo drives. Amazon has it for $176
 
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