Which "old" SSD should I keep?

billbillw

Senior member
Jul 17, 2003
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I have a some spare SSDs. I'm going to put one in a secondary X68/Ivy system (will be mostly used by my kids) and sell the other one with a different X68/Ivy build that I'm doing.

The choices are PNY XLR8 240GB or Crucial M4 256GB.

The PNY actually has a little less than a year of remaining warranty. The Crucial is out of warranty. Both are fairly light on the total writes, etc.

I know its mostly a tossup on performance with the PNY probably being better write speed and random, but I was wondering if anyone had a feel for the ultimate reliability on these drives or if they thought one was a better overall real world performer.
 

Hellhammer

AnandTech Emeritus
Apr 25, 2011
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Which XLR8 is it, the SF2281 or the SM2246EN one? If it's the SM2246EN one, I would keep it, but otherwise keep the M4 as SF2281 has been everything but reliable.
 

billbillw

Senior member
Jul 17, 2003
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Which XLR8 is it, the SF2281 or the SM2246EN one? If it's the SM2246EN one, I would keep it, but otherwise keep the M4 as SF2281 has been everything but reliable.

99% sure its Sandforce. I'll check it tonight. It is not the one with flames on the cover.

I dunno. I think the SF2281 problems were mostly early on and firmware related. I've had several now since ~2013 and never had a problem with one. I have a Kingston in my laptop that's been going strong since early 2013. I've had a couple others in HTPCs that were fine also. Intel was/is using them and they seem reliable too.
 
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billbillw

Senior member
Jul 17, 2003
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Ironically, I ran Crystal Disk Mark and AS SSD on the PNY (sandforce) and it is miserably slow at writes (talking 8MB/s). I guess I had noticed some problems with the overall speed of the system it was in shortly before I replaced it. Looks like RMA time. Decision made.
 

billbillw

Senior member
Jul 17, 2003
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And PNY is sending a new replacement, happens to be the CS2211, which has a Phison S10 controller. Hopefully as good or better than the SM2246EN versions.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
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And PNY is sending a new replacement, happens to be the CS2211, which has a Phison S10 controller. Hopefully as good or better than the SM2246EN versions.

Hey, good deal. I think "thessdreview.com" has a good review of that drive, the 4K QD32 read/writes are really amazing for that drive. At least on the 256GB or larger sizes.