What is your go to SSD after Samsung?

[Diggs]

I'm sure most would agree that Samsung is the go to for SSDs but you pay a price for the name and quality. If not Samsung, what would be your choice for a SSD? Personally I've bounced around all over (Crucial, Sandisk and PNY) but would like to settle my choices down a bit.

@edit - added Silicon Power. (Choices can be changed.)

 

[mikeroq]

First ADATA SSD we got died the same day. Didn't get anywhere with support, just chucked it.

Based on my quote data from 2018 to mid 2020 when my employer went out of business:

Silicon Power 49%
Samsung 21%
HP 10%
WD 6%
Kingston 5%
Crucial 4%
Others (Seagate, XPG, SanDisk) 5%

Not included are ones we had in stock sometimes like SanDisk or Kingston.

 

[britechguy]

So far, I have used Samsung, PNY, Crucial, Adata, and Mushkin.

The only one of those that has been problematic was the Mushkin, which I posted about here at the time. Two of them died, rapidly, and in rapid succession.

All the rest are chugging along just fine, thanks. It's really more of an issue of price and of the software that comes with (as some of the migration and monitoring utilities are quite nice) that drive my decision making depending on who the drive is for.

Based on what I've been reading here at Technibble, Silicon Power may start becoming my go to SSD.

In the end, none of these makers would stay in business as long as they have already if their product were routinely substandard and prone to early failure.

 

[backwoodsman]

I used Crucial for years. I wanted to support the US company that's based in my state (Idaho). Then I had one fail, and had a really bad warranty exchange experience that took way longer than it should've and was just pretty unpleasant. I couldn't even reach anyone in the US by phone, or anyone who even spoke English well enough to understand my request for expedited handling. So much for supporting the US company, and no more Crucial for me.

Then I used Inland for a while, until one had a compatibility problem with an HP Probook. But I had no other failures or issues with them.

I've been using Silicon Power for a while now; no problems yet.

 

[britechguy]

So much for supporting the US company, and no more Crucial for me.

I'm not questioning your choice, but your logic. It is very, very hard to think of any US based company in the tech industry that hasn't outsourced its customer service and/or technical support to foreign soil years ago.

I doubt that Inland, Silicon Power, Crucial, Samsung, etc., are going to have US-based customer service or support, either.

Dumping them because they handled an exchange, badly, one time if all else had been fine for a long period of time seems rash to me.

 

[alexsmith2709]

I sell Kingston A400 to the everyday customer and not had one fail (yet). They are the cheaper end of the scale and provide enough speed for the average customer. Most of my upgrades are because their Win 10 system is running like sh*te or their spinner died so something that works and is cheap is what the customer cares about and i care about availability and reliability. They have a 3 year warranty which is ok.
Some customers that want to pay for the faster speed or because they trust the name, then Samsung is the one i would pick.

 

[Diggs]

I've used quite a few SanDisk drives and had a problem with a 1TB Ultra. Customer support was excellent and all I did was email a screenshot of their drive utility showing a problem and it was quickly replaced even before I could send in the old. Strange thing that I was able to pull all customer data and when re-formatted the drive tested good. (Still sent it in for replacement.)

 

[Porthos]

I've been using Silicon Power for a while now; no problems yet.

Same for me as well.

 

[kwest]

We buy silicon power direct. They contacted us because we were messing up their amazon quantities. They have been our primary ssd for two years. We sell around 60 a month and don’t remember the last time one came back with an issue.

 

[Sky-Knight]

I do WD Blue SSDs exclusively now. Samsung does make a slightly faster drive, but WD's SSD Dashboard is easier for end users in my experience, and the Acronis license that comes with all WD devices makes imaging systems too easy.

 

[backwoodsman]

I'm not questioning your choice, but your logic.

Thank you for your opinion, but you're really not qualified to critique my logic.

 

[carmen617]

I do WD Blue SSDs exclusively now. Samsung does make a slightly faster drive, but WD's SSD Dashboard is easier for end users in my experience, and the Acronis license that comes with all WD devices makes imaging systems too easy.

I use the WD Blues as well - the included Acronis makes it more or less easy, although it's not as fast, simple, and straightforward as the Samsung cloning software. However, the price differential can be significant. Since most of the SSD upgrades I do are the 2.5" form factor, the recent NVMe debacle doesn't apply.

 

[Sky-Knight]

@backwoodsman I do not use Crucial anything due to the warranty issues too. I do use their RAM from time to time... because I'm simply not likely to need the warranty. But yes, their customer service is terrible.

I've had much more consistent results from WD on that front. UNLESS I'm working with Hitachi drives... WD hasn't completely merged them in, and with WD, GTek, and HGST brands still in play, there are still three separate RMA departments. It's a giant chore getting the right one sometimes.

@carmen617 Yeah I do far more 2.5in drives too, but I also use the WD Blue NVMEs, haven't had an issue yet and they're supported the same way.

 

[sapphirescales]

I've had major failures with Crucial, Silicon Power, and Inland. I've also had a few SanDisk failures. WD (before SanDisk bought them) were rock solid, as were Intels. Samsung used to be great, but now they're doing bait and switch tactics with their SSDs (making a good quality SSD to get lots of good reviews online, then replacing the NAND with cheaper, low quality garbage while not changing the model number). I don't trust Samsung any longer because of this. I've never had a failure with Kingston or PNY and they're significantly cheaper than Samsung so I've been using those a lot lately.

Inlands used to be better quality before they changed their sticker and packaging. SSD reliability is going down as manufacturers are looking to cut costs. This will be good for us in the long run as it will force people to bring their computers in. I'm also stressing cloud backup more because SSDs don't seem to be as reliable as they once were. I killed a $650 2TB WD AIC SSD in 4 months using Chia. I know Chia is write intensive, but that's completely unacceptable for an expensive "enthusiast" SSD. Replaced it with 2x 3.84TB SAS Enterprise class Samsung SSDs on a custom PCI-e card and so far so good, but this isn't practical for regular consumers.

The internet has ruined everything when it comes to quality. Everything is about cheapness nowadays. I'll pay the extra $5. Put in some decent NAND!

 

[River Valley Computer]

We have exclusively used Inland (they are distributed mainly by Microcenter) for approximately 3-4 years with a few others thrown in. I have a friend who is the store manager at Microcenter in Overland Park, KS and he told me several months ago that he has had no returns on Inland SSDs. We have not either. Now that doesn't mean that Monday 20 people will bring their computers in with bad SSDs from Inland.

 

[Sky-Knight]

We have exclusively used Inland (they are distributed mainly by Microcenter) for approximately 3-4 years with a few others thrown in. I have a friend who is the store manager at Microcenter in Overland Park, KS and he told me several months ago that he has had no returns on Inland SSDs. We have not either. Now that doesn't mean that Monday 20 people will bring their computers in with bad SSDs from Inland.

Lol yeah you'd better find some wood to knock on stat!

Still, even then I'd only be worried about drives that were installed in the last 30 days, unless the wear leveling breaks down every SSD I've had that's older than a month is still alive with rare exception.

I've got a 120gb Samsung 840 EVO here that's still chugging along, and I used it in my Untangle for 5 years. My script says the wear was at 0%, but Samsung Magician still says "good". Now it's in a laptop around here somewhere for the kids to muck with.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Crucial is our first choice.
And...second choice, and third.
Once in a blue moon, if a batch of WD Blues are on sale (SSD only, no way the Blue spindles)....we'll pick up a few. WD bought Sandisk..and the model that Sandisk used for their highest end SSD, is what WD rebranded as their Blue SSD. Good drive.

But yeah, for over 25 years we've had a wholesale account with Crucial for memory, and we also get their drives. Couple of thousand of their SSDs have gone through our hands, I can think or 2 maybe 3 issues...and those were software issues, not physical failure.

Rule of thumb we always do, update firmware on the SSD itself, and update BIOS of the host rig. Helps ensure fewer issues...and based on the number of drives we've cloned over the years, and how few real issues we've had...I'd say that combo works.

I have had Samsungs fail...a large healthcare org we took care of until a hospital bought them out, had a large fleet of Dell Latitudes with sammies in 'em, had a couple of failed ones.

And have seen other brands fail....have had most brands go through our hands at one time or another. (not sold by us, but serviced).

 

[SAFCasper]

WD Blue is our main drive. Doesn't match Samsung Evo on performance but still very respectable and of course the deciding factor = it's cheaper. Been installing them for a few years we must be well into the hundreds now and I'm yet to see one fail. For that reason I can't comment on warranty but to be honest at £35 for a 250gb drive it's barely worth my time anyway. I'd just buy a replacement and move on.

Also never use the bundled migration software so that makes no difference to us. We always use Macrium Reflect if cloning a drive.

Only seen 2 SSD's fail in my lifetime. One was a budget Sandisk which suffered a complete failure all data lost. The other was in fact a Samsung! One of their OEM only models PMxxx something or other which came pre-installed in a Dell OptiPlex. It still worked but locked up whenever put under heavy load or sustained read/write. Had to copy the clients data off in small batches.

 

[tek9]

Last year, when I was desperate for laptops to resell and couldn't get anything from my distributors, I bought five Lenovo Thinkpads on Amazon. Specs looked similar to what I would get from my distributors, core i5, 8G RAM, 256G SSD. Sold them all to one customer. Within 2 months 4 out of the five wouldn't boot. Opened them up and they had been upgraded aftermarket by the Amazon seller. All had failed Silicon Power SSDs. Swapped them out for Samsungs.

 

[sapphirescales]

I've been buying laptops wholesale from a company for the past 1.5 years now. It's a Canadian company and they use some knockoff SSD called KingFast. So far there have been 0 failures. They warranty their computers for a year and you can purchase an extended 3 year warranty for $10 so obviously they have faith in their products.