The cheap SSDs thread

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Brainonska511

Brainonska511

Lifer
Dec 10, 2005
24,050
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gibster said:
Wow, not bad, I almost consider SSDs obsolete with nvme's available, but the size is hard to ignore. A likewise aggressively priced 8TB unit would make me seriously think about getting one, but I'm glad the prices are trending in the right direction. I'm still rocking a 6TB Iron Wolf for media storage, so an upgrade would be nice. I would probably swing for an 8TB SSD if it was the price of this 4TB, so maybe in a year or two :)
Click to expand...
I don't think SSDs are obsolete - you probably get a better cost/storage ratio with 2.5" SSDs over NVME, and some boards only have 1 or 2 NVME slots. For everyday use, most people would probably not notice a difference between a SATA SSD and a PCIe3.0 NVME.
 
gibster

gibster

Senior member
Jan 18, 2002
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Brainonska511 said:
I don't think SSDs are obsolete - you probably get a better cost/storage ratio with 2.5" SSDs over NVME, and some boards only have 1 or 2 NVME slots. For everyday use, most people would probably not notice a difference between a SATA SSD and a PCIe3.0 NVME.
Click to expand...

Yeah, nvme's are still more expensive, but if you have PCIE4, you get like 15X the speed of SSD, hard to pass up, and definitely noticeable. Even PCIE3 will give you 10X the speed.
Problem with SATA is that it seems like there are no plans to upgrade the technology in terms of speed, maybe future SSDs may have to use an USB interface, or they will come up with yet another interface, LOL.
 
BoomerD

BoomerD

No Lifer
Feb 26, 2006
62,844
11,256
136
gibster said:
Wow, not bad, I almost consider SSDs obsolete with nvme's available, but the size is hard to ignore. A likewise aggressively priced 8TB unit would make me seriously think about getting one, but I'm glad the prices are trending in the right direction. I'm still rocking a 6TB Iron Wolf for media storage, so an upgrade would be nice. I would probably swing for an 8TB SSD if it was the price of this 4TB, so maybe in a year or two :)
Click to expand...

I just bought a WD Black 2TB spinner...paid less for it than I did for an 80 GB spinner 20 years ago. (and about half what I paid for a 1TB WD Black spinner 10 years ago.) I know, I know...spinner drives are obsolete, but they're still good for data storage.
 
M

Macgyversite

Golden Member
Dec 8, 2002
1,163
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BoomerD said:
I nust bought a WD Black 2TB spinner...paid less for it than I did for an 80 GB spinner 20 years ago. (and about half what I paid for a 1TB WD Black spinner 10 years ago.) I know, I know...spinner drives are obsolete, but they're still good for data storage.
Click to expand...

Platter drives are a great value for data storage. I have a 4gb in my spare PC for back ups etc.

However for real back ups. I have many portable hard drives that I store in my gun safes. They are spinners too. Its just the way it is.
 
I

igor_kavinski

Lifer
Jul 27, 2020
16,164
10,240
106
Macgyversite said:
I have many portable hard drives that I store in my gun safes. They are spinners too. Its just the way it is.
Click to expand...
They should be taken out every few months or at least once a year and refreshed with something like DiskFresh: https://www.puransoftware.com/DiskFresh.html

Magnetic fields can get weaker with the passage of time, leading to soft sectors that may become harder to read for the disk head.
 
gibster

gibster

Senior member
Jan 18, 2002
754
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igor_kavinski said:
They should be taken out every few months or at least once a year and refreshed with something like DiskFresh: https://www.puransoftware.com/DiskFresh.html

Magnetic fields can get weaker with the passage of time, leading to soft sectors that may become harder to read for the disk head.
Click to expand...

I think this is what happened to all my MSDOS floppies from the 80's LOL, they are pretty much unreadable now.
 
J

Jimminy

Senior member
May 19, 2020
344
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86
igor_kavinski said:
They should be taken out every few months or at least once a year and refreshed with something like DiskFresh: https://www.puransoftware.com/DiskFresh.html

Magnetic fields can get weaker with the passage of time, leading to soft sectors that may become harder to read for the disk head.
Click to expand...

I followed this link and downloaded "puran utilities". I installed it, and it turned out to be some kind of twain image utility. Still have'nt figured out what happened. I sure hope it ain't a virus.

Edit: Nevermind. Got it now. I must have clicked some advertising rubbish. The font on the site was almost microscopic :)
 
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J

Jimminy

Senior member
May 19, 2020
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igor_kavinski said:
You must have clicked some ad link. Here's the link: https://www.puransoftware.com/DiskFreshSetup.exe

Checked with Windows Defender and no virus found.
Click to expand...

I got it downloaded and installed. but there's dozens of utilities and I can't figure out which one can "refresh" hard drives. Closest one I saw was "Disk check". Didn't see anything in that except error cheking/fixing. Also I noticed they say it uses chkdisk. So maybe it's just a graphic skin for chkdisk?

I'm confused.
Maybe today just isn't my day :)
 
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I

igor_kavinski

Lifer
Jul 27, 2020
16,164
10,240
106
Jimminy said:
I got it downloaded and installed. but there's dozens of utilities and I can't figure out which one can "refresh" hard drives.
Click to expand...
You installed something else. This is what it looks like:

1674606092400.png

Tick the drives and click Refresh Selected.

Only do it on an HDD. SSDs don't need it.
 
J

Jimminy

Senior member
May 19, 2020
344
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Apparently, it no longer contains the "diskfresh" utility, however I found this utility separately on the net without all the other rubbish. It doesn't mention win 10, only earlier systems, so it must be pretty old. Haven't tried to use it yet, nor how I would know if it's working, unless it makes an obvious program failure. Found this:
DiskFresh is compatible with Windows XP/2003/Vista/2008/7/8/2012 including 64 bit versions. It provides native support for 64 bit versions.



For such a basic simple thing, this is like pulling teeth.
 
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MisterE

MisterE

Golden Member
Mar 7, 2000
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MisterE

MisterE

Golden Member
Mar 7, 2000
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TEAM GROUP AX2 2TB 3D NAND TLC 2.5 Inch SATA III Internal Solid State Drive SSD T253A3002T0C101
$85 + tax with free Prime Shipping

$85 + tax is a nice price for a 2TB SSD. SLC cache, Read / Write 540/490 MB/s, 3 Year 1600TB TBW warranty. Manufacturer link for this product line: https://www.teamgroupinc.com/en/product/ax2

The slightly faster (550 / 520 MB/s) TEAM GROUP EX2 2TB 3D NAND TLC 2.5 Inch SSD T253E2002T0C101 is on sale for $92 + tax with free Prime Shipping. It has the same 3 Year 1600TB TBW warranty: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08HCHMY78
 
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J

Jimminy

Senior member
May 19, 2020
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Jimminy said:
Apparently, it no longer contains the "diskfresh" utility, however I found this utility separately on the net without all the other rubbish. It doesn't mention win 10, only earlier systems, so it must be pretty old. Haven't tried to use it yet, nor how I would know if it's working, unless it makes an obvious program failure. Found this:
DiskFresh is compatible with Windows XP/2003/Vista/2008/7/8/2012 including 64 bit versions. It provides native support for 64 bit versions.



For such a basic simple thing, this is like pulling teeth.
Click to expand...

FOLLOW UP: I finally had time to try this, and it appears to be a pretty bad program for win 10. (It locks up and claims it found a bad sector, but no way to exit or do anything else. You have to do ctrl alt delete, and restart to recover. So, I reckon it won't work with win 10. It's a real turd as far as I can see. Don't bother trying it unless you're running an old OS.

Since there are so very few of these "refresh" programs, I'm wondering if they are really needed? It seems odd to me.
 
I

igor_kavinski

Lifer
Jul 27, 2020
16,164
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Jimminy said:
Since there are so very few of these "refresh" programs, I'm wondering if they are really needed? It seems odd to me.
Click to expand...
Only for HDDs. SSDs do the necessary refresh of their NAND flash cells as part of their maintenance routines when the SSD is idle. Another software that I have personally had great success with is HDD Regenerator. It has allowed me to copy data from failing hard drives by "fixing" the bad sectors temporarily so the drive doesn't get stuck when reading from those sectors. However, I found out the hard way that the fix isn't permanent. If HDD Regenerator fixes a bad sector, it means that the HDD's disk surface is degraded and you should replace it after getting data off of it and either retire it or relegate it to keeping non-essential data.

If you have a failing HDD that is not letting you copy data because it gets stuck in a loop trying to read some bad sector, this is a lifesaver: http://www.dposoft.net/
 
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J

Jimminy

Senior member
May 19, 2020
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I have five hard drives that I keep backup images on. That's why I was interested in that disk refresh utility, but it didn't work out. I guess they dropped it, since it is no longer in the utility package.
 
MisterE

MisterE

Golden Member
Mar 7, 2000
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Silicon Power 512GB NVMe M.2 PCIe Gen3x4 2280 TLC R/W up to 3,400/2,300MB/s SSD (SU512GBP34A80M28AB)
$37 + tax with free Prime Shipping

Not a terrible price for a fairly fast Gen3 512GB NVMe drive. I own an assortment of Silicon Power SSDs and NVMe drives and like them a lot, and ordered my 3rd unit of this particular drive last night. SLC cache, Read 3400MB/s Write 2300MB/s, 5 year 400TB TBW warranty. Manufacturer link to this product line: https://www.silicon-power.com/web/product-p34a80
 
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I

igor_kavinski

Lifer
Jul 27, 2020
16,164
10,240
106
Jimminy said:
I have five hard drives that I keep backup images on. That's why I was interested in that disk refresh utility, but it didn't work out. I guess they dropped it, since it is no longer in the utility package.
Click to expand...
You should check out SnapRAID. You will have to dedicate a parity disk(s) to it and in return, you get peace of mind as it will fix errors silently and ensure that your data integrity is not compromised.
 
J

Jimminy

Senior member
May 19, 2020
344
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igor_kavinski said:
You should check out SnapRAID. You will have to dedicate a parity disk(s) to it and in return, you get peace of mind as it will fix errors silently and ensure that your data integrity is not compromised.
Click to expand...

Thanks igor, however, these drives are not kept online and powered up.

The good news is that I tried one more time, and diskfresh appears to be working, but won't know for sure until this evening when it should complete refreshing a disc.

I ran the installation set to windows 8 compatibility mode, and also the program itself. It's a shame Puran doesn't update this nifty little program.
 
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R

Ronstang

Lifer
Jul 8, 2000
12,493
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DiskFresh is working fine for me in Windows 10 right now but I will have to wait until it completes to see if I have the same problem as you Jimminy.

Somehow I don't really believe this is an issue....I have drives that have been in my emby server for 7+ years that hardly ever get accessed and are now just storing backups but they still work fine. I also have over 20 something SATA drives that sit in a cabinet most of the time....some have had data on them for 10-12 years and when I rarely pull them out and power them up to get some files they are still fine too.
 
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MisterE

MisterE

Golden Member
Mar 7, 2000
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Intel 670p Series M.2 2280 2TB PCIe 3.0 x4, NVMe 3D4 QLC Internal Solid State Drive SSDPEKNU020TZX1

Are you a human?

www.newegg.com www.newegg.com
$100 + tax with free shipping at NewEgg

A pretty nice price for a 2TB Intel PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe drive, though it is QLC. 3500MBps Read / 2700MBps write, 3D4 QLC, 5 year unknown TBW warranty (apparently).
 
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