"Cheap" SSD's...

Dave Burton · 21 Jan 2019 at 15:00

Anyone got any experience of the more budget oriented brands of SSD, such as TCSunbow or KingDian? I've come across them whilst on the hunt for a new SSD (I'm not buying one, simply asking for advice for reference) but was wondering if anyone has had or used one, and what their experience was like.

Were they decent, or total garbage, would be interested to find out...

Cheers!

DB.

something daft already!! · 21 Jan 2019 at 15:04

Cheap SDD's what? SATA cables? Power cables?

Or do you mean Cheap SSDs plural?

Dave Burton · 21 Jan 2019 at 15:08

something daft already!! said:
Cheap SDD's what? SATA cables? Power cables?

Or do you mean Cheap SSDs plural?

No, the drives themselves. I'd have posted links but competitor to OcUk etc, simply trying to gain feedback on whether the drives were ok, or to be avoided like the plague.

Thanks.

bledd · 21 Jan 2019 at 18:46

Avoid.

Unless proper pc shops stil them, then they'll be junk.

SanDisk or Kingston are the 'value' brands. Both pretty rock solid.

Dave Burton · 22 Jan 2019 at 08:57

bledd said:
Avoid.

Unless proper pc shops stil them, then they'll be junk.

SanDisk or Kingston are the 'value' brands. Both pretty rock solid.

Cheers for the input, I'd assumed this any way. I've used a range of SSD's over the years, Kingston, Sandisk, Crucial, Intel, Samsung etc and until recently not had a drive fail. The failed drive was an OCZ Vertex 3 which @ time of failure was just shy of 7 years of solid service so no complaints there

. Makes me wonder how many people will buy these drives, thinking they've scored a bargain, only for them to fail in no time...

DB.

Uncle_Gravy · 22 Jan 2019 at 11:39

I can vouch for Kingston, I've had their V300 for a few years now as a boot drive and it's never seen me wrong.

bledd · 22 Jan 2019 at 14:09

They're a bit like very cheap power supplies, sure, they'll turn on and 'seem to work ok'. But you can't rely on them.

ExoMale · 22 Jan 2019 at 23:57

i dont know how transcend and Kingspec compare to kingdian and the like, but i have a 32gb transcend i purchased used and still works after like 2 years or so without fault, just a storage drive now due to size, i have had like 5 kingspecs over the last yeaer, a 60gb, 2 x 64gb, a 128gb i still use and a 128gb m.2 version thats my main drive for now in my computer, again all without issues and the smaller drives i used in builds i sold and nobody reported issues.

i do have a WDG ssd, so i dont just stick to cheap brands, but when you want/need a drive thats £15-20(this is based before proper brands came cheaper) then id recommend kingspec.

Rroff · 23 Jan 2019 at 00:01

I've used a few cheaper ones like TCSunBow which I think is just a rebadged variant of the same thing as many of the other generic names for a few throw away projects with mixed results - I certainly wouldn't use them for anything I was wanting to use day to day with reliability.

EDIT: I opened up one awhile ago after it started to throw up some smart errors though it still worked fine and it seemed to be Toshiba SSD parts inside so I'm guessing it is factory seconds/B grade stuff that didn't make the grade for brand name SSDs.

I've seen teardowns of some of the ultra cheap ones which just have a cheap sdcard or two slapped in with a usb/sata controller adapter of dubious origins and while they work have erratic performance and very limited write lifetime.

ExoMale said:
Kingspec

Having a quick google they seem to use previous gen SandForce controllers and Intel NAND and atleast on paper should be fairly decent.

fridayfred · 23 Jan 2019 at 16:46

I've used Integral & Teamgroup & find them both to be really good & reasonably priced. Am about to order another Teamgroup 1 TB when OCUK get them back in stock.

opethdisciple · 26 Jan 2019 at 11:47

The only 'cheap' brand I would buy is Sandisk.

Even then I'd still rather by a Crucial or better yet Samsung.

foster grant · 26 Jan 2019 at 13:23

I've used both SanDisk and Kingston and both the ones I had failed, and to be honest the only ones I use now are Samsung SSDs

pcfarrar · 29 Jan 2019 at 11:04

I'm getting really sick of returning faulty WD Green SSD's at work. The blue ones are fine, but the greens have a really high failure rate. For cheap drives for the past 6 months I've been bulk buying Crucial MX500 / BX500 and so far have had no failures.

Vexr · 5 Feb 2019 at 09:21

+1 for Crucial BX/MX's. I use a 500GB BX100 that's nearly 4 years old now and have had no problems with it.