1TB(ish) SSD for workstation - £400 Max

Soldato
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East Sussex
Having a bit a tough time deciding on best way of adding 1TB of extra SSD capacity to my workstation, I'm more focussed on read performance than writes, currently have 3 free M.2 Slots and a single spare U.2 port, + 4 free SATA ports.

Have created the lists below (each list in order of expected perf) and I've striken off the stuff thats over budget, looking at the list, the SATA choices dont make a lot of sense compared to the perf of the NVME stuff, so am currently leaning toward getting a pair of 500GB 960 Evo's or SM961's and striping them (have already got a pair of 250GB striped 960 Evo's and they work quite well for the cost)

SATA
1. || 2 x 512GB 860 Pro (£210) = £420
2. || 2 x 500GB 860 Evo (£140) = £280
3. || 1 x 1TB 860 Pro (£450) = £450
4. || 1 x 1TB 850 Pro (£390) = £390
5. || 1 x 1TB 860 Evo (£260) = £260

NVME - M.2
1. || 2 x 500GB 970 Evo (239) = £478
2. || 2 x 512GB 960 Pro (250) = £500

3. || 2 x 500GB 960 Evo (200) = £400
4. || 2 x 512GB SM961 (200) = £400
5. || 2 x 512GB PM961 (189) = £378
6. || 1 x 1 TB 960 Evo (349) = £349
7. || 1 x 1 TB PM961 (379) = £379

But then I've gone and found the 1TB Intel P4510 for just under budget with the following specs and wondering if it would be a better choice, slightly lower read spead than a single 960 Evo, much lower write speed - but should still be high enough for my needs, and it has a simply awesome figure for read IOPS - almost into intel 900p territory...

Intel P4510 Performance
Solid-state drive capacity = 1000 GB
Solid-state drive interface = PCIEx4 (U.2) NVME 3.1
Read speed = 2850 MB/s
Write speed = 1100 MB/s
Memory type = 3D TLC
Random read (100% span) = 465000 IOPS
Random write (100% span) = 70000 IOPS
Latency (read) 110 = µs
Latency (write) 60 = µs
TBW rating = 1920
MTBF = 2000000 h

Anyone got any experiance with these drives or tried them? Are there any other options I should look at?

Most of the NVME drives other than Samsung M.2 are either way out of budget - or way under capacity as far as I can tell. I think this would have lower read perf than striped M.2's, but would definetely be more reliable, and from the spec should last a very very long time.

I also find the 960 Evo's I've already got to be quite "peaky" in there performance and wondering if the intel would do better at sustained r/w even if if cant hit the headline r/w rate of the samsung drives... arg - thoughts?!
 
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Soldato
OP
Joined
14 Apr 2014
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East Sussex
Curious why you haven't bothered with Crucials MX500's ?

Have a few in another machine - they are ok, but similar cost to the samsungs (well tiny bit cheaper), with a bit less performace, also had 2 of 6 fail - though did load them up quite heavily for long periods, and getting them replaced was a pain in the neck (I dont know why - as crucial are great when it comes to RAM replacement)

850's Evos under same load/usage I've only had two failures in 8 drives - one of which was DOA so was immediately replaced by retailer, the other died as I'm pretty sure I exceeded TBW rating. So at least in my experiance the samsung stuff has worked out better - though I don't know what the industry averages are to compare against.

Have just ordered 2 Intel 5450s to as a quick fix since I posted this as found them online new at £50 for 250GB - should buy me enough time to figure out what to go for next.
 
Soldato
Joined
25 Nov 2005
Posts
12,444
Lots of reads (not a problem) to put data into memory (or as much as will fit), analysis / manipulation of data, then writing it back to disk - am just doing it a lot

Probably best picking the one with the best warranty length and RMA service then if you're doing enough to create 25%+ fail rate
 
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