Which SSD would you choose?

[moproblems99]

Greetings,

My primary 850 Pro 512 is finally full and I am looking to add to my game library. I am thinking of adding another Sata III Samsung 850 Evo as additional storage, moving to 960 Pro 512 as system drive and old 850 Pro as game/ drive, or 1TB 960 Evo as a do all and moving old 850 pro to a spare PC.

The 850 Evo is about $155.
The 960 Pro is about $295.
The 960 Evo is about $467.

I am split between option 850 Evo and 960 Pro. I am pretty busy so I don't want to do much work. The 960 Pro would be a pretty simple DD op so I am not that concerned. The 960 Evo would be either a DD and repartition or maybe a backup and restore cycle.

Thanks for your input.

 

[therealmeep]

I'd take the 960 pro, i have a 500 gig 960 evo and its great, plus if you keep your 850 as a data drive you probably won't need the space of either 1 tb drives.

 

[Jetster]

The Pro is more expensive than the EVO, by quite a bit. I also would go with the Pro

Never mind. Your poll does not say the 1Tb

Yep keep the 850 Pro for a game drive and get the 960 Pro. Its crazy fast

 

[jboydgolfer]

get the 850, you will love it. the extra money spent on a PCI-E SSD is what i like to call "sucker money". yes their faster, but its like buying a Ferrari when you live on a 1 mile wide island, not worth it.

so if money is of no issue, buy the PCI ssd, if you could use that $$ on something else, buy the SSD. it also depends on what your pc's primary use is.

 

[TheLostSwede]

As an M.2 PCIe SSD owner myself, I will tell you this much, they're nice, they're fast, but currently not worth the asking price. I paid about 15-20% more than a "high-end" SATA drive when I got mine a bit over a year ago, so it was a no-brainer paying around $235 for 512GB. Would I make the same choice today? Most likely not, as it would be priced similar to your 960 Pro price (although the performance isn't nearly as fast).
I keep my games on my "old" MX200 500GB drive (which I picked up for cheap when it was going EOL) and they load more than fast enough from it.
These are the only two drives in my system though, as everything else goes onto my NAS.

 

[Rehmanpa]

For storage of things like games I'd really recommend a 7200rpm hdd tbh. Lots of storage. Nvme is fast but Windows only boots so fast ya know, i recently made the same decision you are now and I went with the 850 evo. For mass storage again id get a 4tb western digital black drive or something. 8 times the hdd space for very little real world performance for around the same price. That or an HGST Hitachi 7200rpm enterprise drive for around the same price. Real world difference st least in my opinion is negligible for hdd vs ssd load time for most applications. I will never recommend anything less than an ssd for booting though.

Edit: forgot to mention look at warranties. Sata ssds have way better warranties and are more reliable. Part of the reason I went 850 over 960.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Hard drives are noisy though, I don't want one in my PC any more, that's for sure.

As for warranties, that depends on what drive you buy. And why are SATA SSDs more reliable than X?

 

[R-T-B]

get the 850, you will love it. the extra money spent on a PCI-E SSD is what i like to call "sucker money".

I found my "sucker money" in a long lost bitcoin wallet.

 

[StrayKAT]

Hard drives are noisy though, I don't want one in my PC any more, that's for sure.

As for warranties, that depends on what drive you buy. And why are SATA SSDs more reliable than X?

I used to always think so, but I can't seem to hear my WD Black. Not sure if that's the case or the drive.

I'd recommend the largest SSD you can get, but since it's Samsung, you'll pay an arm and a leg for even a 2tb 850.

 

[Rehmanpa]

My 3.5" hdds are NOT noisy. I even have an equal logic running 15 of them and I can barely hear them with my ear next to it. The only thing I hear are the fans of my old power edge server beneath it xD

Seriously though for game storage 7200rpm is just fine. They're not noisy (obviously louder than an ssd but still basically inaudible. A good 2tb hdd will cost you about 60 or 70 I think, probably less. I would highly recommend one of those or 4tb for even more space.

 

[Kursah]

Depends on the drives you're using, case, mounting, fan noise, ambient noise, etc. Most of my HDD's are fairly quiet, but nowhere near inaudible, I don't even have to try to hear 'em...though now I rarely use either of them so in that sense they're quiet . Different folks, different preferences, different levels of standards and acceptance.

Go faster SSD's for OSes and critical applications, go slower SATA SSD's for storage and games, go HDD's for spare storage and non-gaming or extra gaming storage. That's what I aim for and prefer, might not jive with others though.

Loading times can be significantly different in some instances, especially with games that load larger amounts of data. Ashes of the Singularity comes to mind as an excellent game to test with. Can go from minute(s) to mere seconds load time simply by using an SSD over a standard consumer-grade HDD. When an SSD can read up to 500+ MB/s and an HDD is around the 100-150MB/s (some maybe pushing 200) with the same files being loaded to RAM, you bet your ass there's a difference with larger games, files, transfers. But there's also a cost/size ratio, some cannot justify spending so much on 1-2TB SSD's, and I can't blame them.

If you can afford it, sure is nice to have a 1TB SSD...though my 960GB BX200 sucks at writes once the cache fills up with large transfers, reads are speedy. The HDD I was using for my old game drive sits empty aside from what was left from A|B testing to compare load times on my system for my own personal interest.

I'd get an 850, or another brand that is a touch more affordable (or on sale...though the 500GB 850 Evo was on-sale at Newegg today), Crucial, Sandisk, WD Blue, whatever was on sale for a SATA SSD anymore. Most of them are quite capable at saturating SATA. Depends on what warranty, SSD tech, and brand name you want to pay for. I've had good luck with many brands and no longer aim just for Samsung.

 

[eidairaman1]

Go for pro drives only.

Alternative mx300 series

 

[StrayKAT]

Go for pro drives only.

Alternative mx300 series

Isn't the BX actually better? I thought I read that. It's MLC at least...vs the MX's TLC. Crappy sizes though.

 

[R-T-B]

Given Samsung's current technology lead, I can't recommend Crucial with a straight face except for extreme budgets, sadly.

 

[eidairaman1]

Given Samsung's current technology lead, I can't recommend Crucial with a straight face except for extreme budgets, sadly.

those are the only two Brands I could recommend right now for ssdS

 

[lyndonguitar]

I'd get the 850 Evo SSD, especially for gaming only, not even all games benefit from having an SSD, some games are still fine on typical HDDs... so you're better off going with the more cheaper SSD so you can get more storage space. Once you've gone SSD, it's as fast as it gets. going faster with NVMe isn't that noticeable unless you really look for it(either you pay close attention, , benchmark it, or just pure placebo) the NVMe more is kinda oriented for productivity loads.

 

[BR79]

just what I was thinking lyndonguitar!.. I did go for an Seagate Backup Plus 8tb usb3 external just for storage, and would go for one or two more when I see I need to. No need to go for SSD for everything. Im going for NVMe for the startup disk, and then a couple of old SSD's for a second OS and some games, and one for my music stuff (vst's and sounds), the rest in internal HD or external.

Of course, this is thinking on budget and not throwing money thru the window... If I hadn't had any money limit.. then I would check out the biggest (in capacity), the smallest (in physical size), the fastest and quietest, and then buy quite a few of them!

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

Needs some correction thou... 960 EVO is more affordable than the PRO variant, but there's no denying that the 960 PRO is currently the best M.2 drive money can buy. 850 EVO on the other hand is the cheapest option if you have deep pockets & need a fast storage for your games.

 

[Komshija]

For gaming library 850 EVO is the best option of three candidates you mentioned. Pretty much any decent SSD will suit such task and there's no need going for the fastest and the most expensive.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

For gaming library 850 EVO is the best option of three candidates you mentioned. Pretty much any decent SSD will suit such task and there's no need going for the fastest and the most expensive.

THis....

I have a cheapo Crucial MX100 that i picked up a while back as a drive to stash some of my games on. I still load in pretty quick with most games.

 

[jsfitz54]

This: https://promotions.newegg.com/neemail/latest/index-landing.aspx

2 X EVO 500GB for $280 USD with promo EMCBRBC69

GOOD UNTIL 10/14/17

 

[StrayKAT]

I guess I'll just vote for the 850evo too.

But 500GB is painful for a "gaming library". I have one.

 

[Th3pwn3r]

I guess I'll just vote for the 850evo too.

But 500GB is painful for a "gaming library". I have one.

Was just going to say this. I have a 512 NVME SSD and wish I bought the 1tb instead, oh well. Forza7 and Shadow of War basically took over the entire drive at nearly 100GB per game. I struggled to make room on the 250gb SSD my GFs computer has to install Shadow of War lol.

This: https://promotions.newegg.com/neemail/latest/index-landing.aspx

2 X EVO 500GB for $280 USD with promo EMCBRBC69

GOOD UNTIL 10/14/17

View attachment 92975

Nice deal but I was able to find a 512 for $120 shipped used on Amazon some time ago. Not sure what they go for on there now or if prices have really gone up that much.

 

[Vayra86]

Isn't the BX actually better? I thought I read that. It's MLC at least...vs the MX's TLC. Crappy sizes though.

Yes, in terms of endurance, but not in terms of speed. Its a trade off, but I would definitely go for the new BX over the MX. If I remember correctly, the BX speeds fall off hard when the drive is nearly full. I do notice similar behavior with my current BX100, not so much with my Samsung 830.

At equal price though the Samsung evo's have a more reliable track record and are marginally faster in some edge cases. Then again, Crucial is also known for solid SSDs, so no reason to doubt the BX is similar. Its a bit of a toss up IMO, get the cheaper option.

About size, yes, bigger is always better and there will be a day it comes in handy. I started with a 256gb Samsung 830 and quickly had to add the BX100. Now I'm again looking at two near-full drives and a HDD that's also close. And I get annoyed with game installs, its becoming a balancing act and these days 3-5 games can fill up that storage already.

Larger SSD storage has another plus and that is endurance as well, there's just more memory for wear levelling to work with.

 

[moproblems99]

Thanks everyone. I pretty much had also decided to go with the Evo as a holdover until I build my Zen+ rig. I had looked at the Crucial as well but for $6 more I will go with the Evo. With the left over over money I will probably pick up an MSI 1070 Armor since it is $399 right now. I can't see paying $40 more for the gaming.

Needs some correction thou... 960 EVO is more affordable than the PRO variant, but there's no denying that the 960 PRO is currently the best M.2 drive money can buy. 850 EVO on the other hand is the cheapest option if you have deep pockets & need a fast storage for your games.

It is when you compare a 500GB to 512G but not when you compare 1TB Evo to 512GB Pro. I managed to leave off the 1TB in the poll which was my mistake.