Are used smaller capacity SSDs a viable option? (i'm a decade out the loop)

LeperousDust · 3 Jan 2021 at 00:01

So i'm looking for a drive (or few if the price is right) that I want to run as scratch/cache disk(s) for another project (server stuff). It's the first use i've probably had that might truly benefit from an ssd properly if i'm honest (other than obvious silence, longevity and power draw on my laptops).

Now my laptops and PC have SSDs but I haven't really kept up with this at all, and a lot has happened i'm sure.

I'm wondering:

Is there a market for smaller (128-256) SSDs that are too small for general needs but still amazing quality I should look for?
Are SSDs one of those things that have come along so much, it's not really worth that hassle if you want fast, buy new tech?
Are used SSDs a total minefield, especially some certain models, or is this also a good chance to see realworld failure rates, and know what to avoid (like seagate in the server world).

Ideally i'd want to pick up stuff from the members market and keep it cheap, so I need to understand what is good and what is bad, what to look out for or what questions to ask, I feel like I know very little and i'd just buy lemons!

LeperousDust · 3 Jan 2021 at 01:18

Cyber-Mav said:
Can get 250gig nvme for 30 quid these days. Gigabyte Brand too so have decent endurance ratings. Ideal as a cheap scratch disk

This is in a server with a sas backplane, so sata/sas connection is all I can use.

LeperousDust · 3 Jan 2021 at 02:11

Amazing reply, thanks! Food for thought. I definitely assumed there are more opportunities to make mistakes than grab a bargain... I guess I'll want something more on the enterprise side of things. It will be powered on 24/7, write bursts of GB's at a time and then dump it all to rusty metal when it can. So its the write performance that probably matters, but ultimately over its life I expect it to make pretty much 50/50 read writes i think given the nature of its application.

LeperousDust · 3 Jan 2021 at 13:08

Haha, I guess it's relative, I agree with you my laptop is the same, i just presumed SSDs use had grown across most of the board. These will be on the ingest of a server that is not short on TB's thats sure. So I guess my idea of small has changed with the files I use.

@Cyber-Mav the two you mentioned look genuinely perfect, a few smaller capacity of those would be perfect i think, ingest is certainly never more than 100Gb in one go.

Thanks guys, this is exactly the advice i needed!