The cheap SSDs thread

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you2

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Steltek

Steltek

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Jimminy said:
How does one go about "refurbing" an SSD? Do they really have guys with tweezers and micro soldering equipment take these apart and replace microscopic parts, then glue them back together?
Click to expand...

They just take returns or system pulls, wipe them, re-package them, and re-sell them. I suspect that many sellers who are selling them in bulk don't even bother to test them, given that most of them are very reliable.

Since cheap new ones were becoming more difficult to find, I recently picked up a Samsung 870 Evo 1TB 2.5" SSD from Best Buy's eBay store. It arrived with less than 30 power on hours, less than 50 power cycles, and a grand total of 1.3TB of data having been written on it.

Assuming that it doesn't die prematurely (due to Samsung's apparent inability to write decent firmware for some of their products), it still has a ton of useable life in it if I need it as a replacement.
 
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Jimminy

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Steltek said:
They just take returns or system pulls, wipe them, re-package them, and re-sell them. I suspect that many sellers who are selling them in bulk don't even bother to test them, given that most of them are very reliable.

Since cheap new ones were becoming more difficult to find, I recently picked up a Samsung 870 Evo 1TB 2.5" SSD from Best Buy's eBay store. It arrived with less than 30 power on hours, less than 50 power cycles, and a grand total of 1.3TB of data having been written on it.

Assuming that it doesn't die prematurely (due to Samsung's apparent inability to write decent firmware for some of their products), it still has a ton of useable life in it if I need it as a replacement.
Click to expand...

I bought one of these woot 1TB sata drives on a whim. Don't know if it will ever be used. Afterwards, I noticed it has received lots of negative reviews :(

So, if I ever need it, it may die after a week of use. On the other hand, maybe they were fixed. It did come with the latest firmware. I can always hope, and I was never able to track down what was the root cause of all the problems.
 
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you2

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Jimminy said:
I bought one of these woot 1TB sata drives on a whim. Don't know if it will ever be used. Afterwards, I noticed it has received lots of negative reviews :(

So, if I ever need it, it may die after a week of use. On the other hand, maybe they were fixed. It did come with the latest firmware. I can always hope, and I was never able to track down what was the root cause of all the problems.
Click to expand...
The problem isn't that they are 'broken' the problem is they have been used. What you want to do is power it up and check how much use it has seen.
 
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Steltek

Steltek

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Jimminy said:
I bought one of these woot 1TB sata drives on a whim. Don't know if it will ever be used. Afterwards, I noticed it has received lots of negative reviews :(

So, if I ever need it, it may die after a week of use. On the other hand, maybe they were fixed. It did come with the latest firmware. I can always hope, and I was never able to track down what was the root cause of all the problems.
Click to expand...

If it works upon receipt, it likely won't die like that. As @you2 points out, install the drive in a desktop, install WD's SSD drive management software, and check for the total amount of data that was previously written to the drive.

The 1TB version of the SA510 has an expected flash endurance of 400TB written. As a result, you can compare the total data written to this 400TB figure to get an idea about how "used" the drive you received actually is.
 
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Jimminy

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Steltek said:
If it works upon receipt, it likely won't die like that. As @you2 points out, install the drive in a desktop, install WD's SSD drive management software, and check for the total amount of data that was previously written to the drive.

The 1TB version of the SA510 has an expected flash endurance of 400TB written. As a result, you can compare the total data written to this 400TB figure to get an idea about how "used" the drive you received actually is.
Click to expand...
I couldn't see any evidence that it wasn't brand new. From the packaging down to examination with disk utilities, including western digital to check firmware version.

If it is a refurb, they did a damn good job hiding that fact.

Still, there are lots of bad reports about this model.
 
Steltek

Steltek

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Jimminy said:
I couldn't see any evidence that it wasn't brand new. From the packaging down to examination with disk utilities, including western digital to check firmware version.

If it is a refurb, they did a damn good job hiding that fact.

Still, there are lots of bad reports about this model.
Click to expand...

As a general rule, I won't buy (or, for that matter, recommend that people buy) anything that WD sells in their "Green" or "Blue" lines. Those two lines constitute WD's "total worthless garbage" and "cheapo" lines, respectively.

Their "Black" product line, on the other hand, generally tends to be pretty good. If you watch, you can pick them up on sale or clearance (older models) for prices comparable to the Blue drives.

Of course, WD has had the occasional firmware issue, but that is more or less an occupational hazard affecting most SSD/NVMe manufacturers these days.
 
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manly

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The former WD Blue SATA SSDs had quite good reviews; at least as good as the Samsung EVO.
Unfortunately WDC did some cost cutting with the SA510 model variant, and consumers noticed.

I'll take that 1TB SSD if Jimminy never intends to use it. :p
 
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balloonshark

balloonshark

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Since we're on the subject of open box, refurb and used ssds. I bought a refurb 1TB SABRENT Rocket 2230 ssd from ebay for $60. They sell an open box model and a refurb model. I went with the latter for the warranty. The SMART status on my Steam Deck says less than 70GB written. These cost $100 new. This store also has other ssds and memory cards.

Security Measure | eBay

www.ebay.com www.ebay.com
 
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balloonshark

balloonshark

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SK hynix Platinum P51 1TB PCIe Gen5 NVMe M.2 2280 Internal SSD I Up to 14,700 MB/s Read, 13,400 MB/s Write I Powered by 238-Layer NAND Flash
off w/ promo code SSE3292, limited offer $119.99 - $10 = $109.99


SK hynix Platinum P51 2TB PCIe Gen5 NVMe M.2 2280 Internal SSD I Up to 14,700 MB/s Read, 13,400 MB/s Write I Powered by 238-Layer NAND Flash
off w/ promo code BNE3238, limited offer $209.99 - $20 = $189.99


Not sure if this is a good deal or not since they are Gen 5 ssds. Shell Shocker deal so it may be one day only.
 
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