The latest 2.5" SSD recommendations?

[MacBook17]

We're presently looking at multi-bay SSD enclosures that are compatible with Thunderbolt interfaces. Needless to say, this type of powered enclosure requires 2.5" SSDs to function, so I'm writing to get the latest recommendations on durable 2.5" SSDs that can be used for this purpose.

By the way, we will probably put our money into an enclosure that allows for four (4) SSDs and RAID for future expansion potentential.

Thank you very much for your time...

 

[Erehy Dobon]

Do you have a budget? I don't understand why many people don't mention a budget in the standard "What ___ should I buy?" inquiries. Completely baffling.

Consumer grade 2.5" SSDs largely top out at 2TB capacity, somewhere in the $200 range. I have a 2TB SiliconPower unit and I want to upgrade to a 4TB SSD.

The only viable 4TB 2.5" SATA SSD is apparently a Samsung model, currently going for $422 (give or take a few dollars). That's about half the price of an equivalent 4TB m.2 NVMe Gen3 drive. There are tons of 2TB units from various manufacturers but very few 4TB models.

Let's be realistic. 2.5" SATA SSDs are staring at their extinction, crippled by the SATA interface.

 

[Fishrrman]

2.5" SATA SSDs are now "commodity items".

I'd suggest either Crucial or Sandisk.

But I disagree with Erehy above. The SATA SSD is not going to become "extinct" any time soon.
How many folks are still using platter-based drives?
Heck, I'll bet some are still using floppy disks.

Hmmm... if you have thunderbolt3 available, why not look into "native tbolt3" drives?
A single tbolt3 drive will be up to 4x faster than a SATA SSD.
(I realize "capacity considerations" may enter into the picture)

 

[MacBook17]

Does anyone have thoughts on Samsung 2.5" SATA SSDS?

If so, are there any Samsung models to avoid?

 

[njvm]

I have always used the Samsung 870 QVO series and I have not had any problems with them.

Probably worthwhile looking at the reviews on Amazon to get an idea as to how they perform.

 

[MacBook17]

I have always used the Samsung 870 QVO series and I have not had any problems with them.

Probably worthwhile looking at the reviews on Amazon to get an idea as to how they perform.

Do you happen to know the actual differences between the "QVO" series and the other Samsung 2.5 SSDs that they manufacture?

This is our first SSD purchase; hence, the question...

 

[mick2]

Do you happen to know the actual differences between the "QVO" series and the other Samsung 2.5 SSDs that they manufacture?

This is our first SSD purchase; hence, the question...

The technical difference is about how many bits each NAND cell stores. MLC=2bits, TLC=3bits, QLC=4bits.

In a nutshell, the QLC based drives trade endurance for low cost and high capacity. All SSDs have write endurance limits; these are signicantly lower with QLC drives than with TLC drives. The TLC equivalents from Samsung are the 850EVO, 860EVO, 870EVO.

QLC drives are also inherently much slower to write to, *if* you're writing large amounts of data continuously to the drive (by 'large amounts' I mean tens of GBs at a time). If you're writing more regular workloads of eg a few GBs at a time, they have various tricks to make these writes as fast as non-QVO drives. After a few minutes rest, write speeds return to normal even after large transfers.

All the above applies to writes only; read speeds are broadly identical across QLC & TLC.

You've not specified what you'll be using the drives for; QLC are most suited for workloads that are less write heavy and more read heavy. Go with TLC drives if you think you'll be regularly writing large amounts of data to the drive and need either the extra sustained write speed or the endurance.

hth

 

[njvm]

The link below provides a good overview of the differences between some of the Samsung SSDs (and others) and builds on what @mick2 succinctly put above.

Samsung SSDs Comparison: 860 and 970 EVO/Pro vs. 850/960 Series and MX500, 545s, Ultra 3D

Once upon a time yesterday, my semi tech-savvy friend challenged herself a new SSD to rebuild our last year dream PC, by going on a Microcenter shopping trip all alone without any help. Apparently…

www.custompcguide.net

 

[MarkC426]

Does anyone have thoughts on Samsung 2.5" SATA SSDS?

If so, are there any Samsung models to avoid?

I only buy Samsung ssd's.
Highly recommend the evo series (or pro series but more pricey).
Never had an issue with evo' s.

Only buy known brands, Samsung/crucial/sandisk etc, don't be suckered for a cheap alternative.
Your data is invaluable.

 

[Euroamerican]

Just took possession of a Samsung 870 EVO 1TB, which I plan to use to replace the primary drive in my 2012 Mac mini.

I was going to buy the Crucial MX 500, but there was a really good deal on the Samsung which I could not pass up.

 

[MacBook17]

After speaking directly with the folks at MacSales.com/OWC, I learned that the SATA interface present on the Samsung 860 EVO SSDs we're considering effectively "bottlenecks" (more or less) data transfer to a maximum rate of 6 GB/s ...so, in short, we can buy all of the Thunderbolt (TB) tech we want, but, as long as we're using SATA drives for storage, we'll never actually realize data transfers faster than 6 GB/s.

This being the case, we're going to start with an enclosure that supports the Samsung 2.5" SATA SSDs, but will not be using said enclosure with any TB interfaces (as mentioned in the original post). Instead, we'll buy an enclosure that comes with (2) FireWire 800 ports and (1) USB 3.1 Gen 1 port to use with the Samsung 860 EVOs. Yeah, the FireWire (FW) ports transfer data at a max of 800 MB/s, but that clearly outperforms the USB 2.0 ports on our present machine and the single USB 3.1 Gen 1 port -- at a transfer rate of 5GB/s -- puts us pretty close to the 6 GB/s ceiling we face with SATA transfer cap.

I realize that the thread was started with a question about durability of the latest 2.5" SSDs, but the fact that we're using the SSDs in an enclosure makes this added information important to those looking for the same kind of storage solution. No, we don't believe that SATA drives are going away any time soon, but we do believe that the Serial ATA (SATA) bus technology comes with certain limitations...which I assume NVMe will address in the future.

Regardless, any thoughts on the SATA limitation, and why we're thinking about it in this way, would be well received.

 

[rpmurray]

You can get faster data transfers from SATA SSDs if you RAID 0 them.

 

[MacBook17]

We don't know much about RAID here, but the enclosure we just ordered for our immediate needs does have a switch on the rear panel for selecting RAID modes, so I suppose that I'll get an introduction very soon.

 

[rpmurray]

You may want to read up on RAID before you put any data on one. A RAID 0 will stripe the data across multiple disks to speed up access but that has a downside that if one disk fails you lose all the data on the RAID. There are other RAID levels that may work better for you, RAID 5 being the most common.

 

[MacBook17]

That's a very good idea. Up to now, we've simply copied our data files to external storage devices, but we did get burned twice with defective HDDs that were replaced via warranty (very early on), so your words about RAID 0 definitely make sense to me.

 

[Dockland]

I bought this (with a no name USB-C enclosure) the other week. Running smooth and no issues so far.

 

[Blowback]

Does anyone have thoughts on Samsung 2.5" SATA SSDS?

If so, are there any Samsung models to avoid?

Never had any problems with Samsung SSDs...purchased my first about 8 (?) years ago when 500GB= $500...still going strong and have purchased several more since then. You're dealing with a 'Real' company with a reputation to maintain; not a 'name' on Amazon.

 

[MBAir2010]

My OWC 1tb is over 10 years old!
got that in 2011 January.
Toshiba, Seagate and WD are my others, WD is from 2013.

 

[MacBook17]

Yeah, we pretty much ended up ordering some of the same things that you guys did. We ordered an enclosure from OWC and a 2 TB Samsung 860 EVO to plug into it, for now. If all goes well, we will order another 2TB 860 EVO and see about setting up a RAID configuration.

As mentioned in Post 15, we lost the original 750 GB HDD that came with our new MBP 17 within a year and, after that, lost a second 750 GB HDD within the next year. I believe that both drives were made by Toshiba and that both were 5400 RPM models. Although I don't recall which brand of 750 GB HDD is in the MBP 17 now, it was definitely a better model because it has lasted over 8 years to date.

As per Post 11, it was explained to me that the weak point in the data transfer chain is the max transfer speed of the SATA bus in the SSD we ordered (6 GB/s max). With this in mind, we ordered an enclosure that works with FireWire 800 -- to transfer data off of the MBP 17 -- and also works with USB 3.1 Gen 1 for use with the MBP 15 we will borrowing as a temporary solution. Although I understand that the 6 GB/s transfer rate is not stellar, by current standards, it is quite a bit faster than the typical 100 MB/s max read/write transfer rate that we've been living with via the 5400 RPM HDD that's in the MBP 17.

Looking ahead to the (mid-2015) MBP 15, we should be able to make good use of its USB 3.0 ports, and their 5 GB/s transfer spec, to get closer to the 6 GB/s ceiling presented by the SATA interface in the Samsung 860 EVO SSD.

If I'm misunderstanding anything here, please feel free to educate me. As ever, thank you for your time.