SSD Buyers Beware: 7 Crucial Tips for a Smart Purchase

With NVMe SSD prices reaching all time lows, picking the right drive can be challenging. Here are some tips I have picked up from my recent shopping experience where I purchased an Intel 670p for $73. Some important things discussed are Gen 3 vs. Gen 4, DRAM vs HMB (Host Memory Buffer) and limited PCIe lanes causing slower speed and disabling SATA ports. These tips can serve as an important buyer's guide in June 2023.

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[MrGTAmodsgerman]

The video title got me expecting a video about SSD price falling and why and such deeper explaination about it. But turns out to be a SSD buying guide which contains information that i didn't knew before, so i like it.

[fredsorre]

as someone who has been hoarding Data since 1995 that last advice kinda hurt but me having access to my tools and apps for older computers always seem to end up being used somehow every few years.

[readycheddar]

A word of advice. When you get your motherboard, just screw the m.2 screws it comes into the motherboard so you don’t need to worry about finding them or buying some later. I don’t know why they don’t just do this before they ship them.

[teddy]

and there... Apple is still charging $200 dollars for SSD storage upgrade from 256GB to 512GB. And people still buying.

[wajinshu]

What a recommendation. I'm eyeing for that Intel SSD and this video solidifies my research. Thank you for doing this video 😊

[kurousagi]

Samsung 980 Pro 2TB SSD for $99.99 right now on Amazon. PCIe Gen 4 speeds on 4x lanes.

[Faladrin]

One thing I would mention in this topic is that if you lack free NVMe slots you can buy PCIe cards that let you slot them. The specs of your system and motherboard design will determine if slotting an NVMe drive this way affects speed or not. Likely the PCIe bus is not going to be saturated and will perform perfectly fine to maintain top speeds for your drive. The biggest competitor in most systems for bus bandwidth will be your graphics card, but even top end graphics cards don't fill out PCIe 3.0 spec speeds. Perhaps if you have multiple graphics cards/Video capture/stream encoder devices all using the bus.. well you probably won't have a slot left to put the PCIe adapter anyway! In any case while I doubt saturating the bus is a big worry, I don't want anyone out there getting sub-par speed because I forgot to mention to check.

[softbread]

This video was deeper than it needed to be but much appreciated on the quality

[Kazoom]

Contradictory to what is mentioned in the tips, HMB is better for boot drive and programmes as they are utilised with small bits and pieces of data that need to be retrieved for OS or programmes to work. DRAM is better for huge storage transfers such as editing videos and photos where larger chunks of data are accessed and the dram comes in handy to ensure they are buffered.

[Trusteft]

When I decided to install a M.2 PCIe drive (I already had 5 SATA SSDs), I couldn't find the screw anywhere. I searched the box of the motherboard, I searched the box of the PC case, etc. Then just before I ordered a bunch of them, I realized the screw was already in its place on the motherboard.
Just sharing my experience. :)


Very good video, well done.

[MrKillswitch]

The first thing I always look at besides capacity and price is the TBW as that can get used up fairly quickly by some users. For my daily I am using some drives that are rated for 3200TBW bought on the cheap as they were retired from a data center plus they are MLC rather than the usual TLC nand.

[TechGorilla]

@7:07 - Crucial NVME drives include a screw within the packaging.

[swallowedinthesea]

I bought a $25 Crucial 500GB Gen3 SSD four days ago from Amazon for my Dell Inspiron 15! I remember they were riotously expensive and I set them aside until today. Noticed a huge improvement after installing Blizzard and Steam into the new drive!

[joetuktyyuktuk]

Been shopping around for another gen 4 m.2 as my 1TB Sabrent rocket is filling up, I still have over 3TB on my backup spinny disk, but thats all I intend for it, as a backup. 2TB seems to be the sweet spot in price, as long as you have the extra m.2 slot. For me I don't lose any SATA's until I use the third m.2 slot. This is where paying a little extra on your motherboard can pay off, when I built my PC I never thought I would ever use all the slots and functions of the board, but a few years in and those slots get filled up.

[joeglennaz]

Your comment about ending up with too many drives as well received. For some reason I have five external drives brand new in the box sitting on my desk I’m not sure even why I bought them off, but I am going to go set up a complete back up system from my home computer. I’m pretty much in applications user I don’t program I don’t do websites. I don’t even know what discord is. Thanks for the video. I’m interested in these drives for whatever crazy reason.

[a.j.haverkamp]

Spend $ 15 on a PCIe to M.2 adapter to get room for a third M.2 SSD. It does require a X4 PCIe slot.

[xynonners]

I just bought 2x1tb mp34 (phison e12, dram + tlc) for 45$ each

[krhoft]

Thanks for your time and sharing. I was totally unaware that Intel sold their ssd business to SK Hynix under the Solidigm umbrella. I always depended on SK Hynix and spinoff TimeTec for my memory needs but this opens up a new SSD NVMe avenue for me.

[mer]

recently bought a 2tb Crucial p3, it came with a NVME screw.

[sonyzz]

The M.2 screw comes included in Crucial P5 Plus package