what m.2 ssds to stock

[nlinecomputers]

Yes, Phoenix has at least 5 Amazon fulfillment centers, so most major electronic components are local. If I order Prime 2nd day before 11am, I've got about a 80% chance it's going to show up that afternoon otherwise it shows up tomorrow. The problem I have is the delivery can't make up its mind, there are times it's here at 11am, and times it's here at 11pm. Most of the time it's the latter, so my stuff tends to show up between 4pm and 8pm most of the time. So tomorrow is nice, but it's end of day tomorrow.

Still, that means I'm working on it within two days, which is plenty fast enough for me. If your'e a business and you need faster repairs, that's when you do things proactively, or keep things new and under warranty. Electronic components devalue too quickly to risk having them in stock. SSD prices specifically are dropping substantially every other week. You want to take those losses? Be my guest... For myself, I'm always up against whatever Amazon sells the thing for right now. Customers aren't willing to pay much more than whatever that rate is.

Oh I don't keep stock. I just can't turn that fast being 400 miles to the nearest Amazon Center.

 

[Sky-Knight]

@nlinecomputers There's one in Fort Worth, that's only 300 miles!

But yeah, in TX only Dallas / Forth Worth, San Antonio, and Houston have decent coverage. AZ isn't that differen't Phoenix has all of them, though they did just open a new one down in Tuscon. But really, those are the only two cities in AZ large enough to support one.

Though I do wonder why there isn't one in Midland or Abilene...

 

[nlinecomputers]

Most of what I order seems to come out of San Antonio but the UPS hub is in Mesquite TX(a suburb of Dallas) so that is where everything is sent. Like I said UPS sucks.

 

[Porthos]

I just recently started to keep my little supply of drives. Just yesterday a regular client could not do his monthly Image with Macrium and was having freezing issues all of a sudden. Quick check with crystal disk and showed drive was failing. Had a 500 gig Crucial in stock and client had the image from the beginning of the month. Used Fab's on the drive and got the current data restored the image to SSD and applied the Fab's backup and ran Windows update. Same day service. $130 profit and a happy client.

 

[MDD1963]

With Intel 660P being at a 'whopping' $220 for 2 TB and only $109 for 1 TB models, they'd seem obvious candidates for having one or two SSDs on hand, along with perhaps a 970 EVO Plus...; a smattering of 860 EVOs and Crucial MX500s, and, well....

Anyone wants anything else, they can wait the 3-4 days.

 

[brandonkick]

As others have stated, the core differences are: Form factor and speed


SATA based SSD's

SATA based SSD's in M.2 form factor

NVMe based SSD's in M.2 form factor


They are listed in order of expected performance from slowest being SATA based SSD's in SATA 3/6 form factor to NVMe based SSD's in M.2 form factor being fastest.


For MOST people, the average SATA 3/6 based 2.5" SSD will be day and night faster than the mechanical drive (well for all people) AND they really won't notice a difference between the SATA 3/6 2.5" version or the NVMe M.2 version. While it is true the NVMe drives can offer significantly more performance, the vast majority of all users not using a stop watch and a synthetic bench marking tool will never realize the difference.

I'd probably keep ONE M.2 NVMe drive on hand (500GB ish or bigger) and then just a couple of your run of the middle 240/250 and 480/500 GB SATA based drives on hand. Three or four of each and call it good? Then just order and replace as you use. Never run into a situation where you don't have one and you have likely less than $400 worth of SSD's in stock.

I don't see a huge demand for the faster based NVMe drives. If you do order them, just be careful. The cheaper lower capacity drives can be attractive and most people have the attitude of getting smaller to save money and only using it for a boot drive and most commonly used programs... the smaller drivers do not have high density in terms of memory chips. It causes a 120GB NVMe to be significantly slower than a 500GB NVMe. Like write speeds of 1000 MBps vs speeds of 2000 MBps. If your going to bother spending the scratch on an NVMe drive, get one that is actually "fast" enough to warrant the extra money. I saw a video on youtube showing how dramatically the performance drops off on extended writes when using small SSD's.... the larger drives can sustain the higher performance a lot longer.

 

[MDD1963]

The 660P is indeed 'only' a PCI-e x2 lane drive, with half the hypothetical throughput of a top of the line 970 Pro, etc....

Still...$109 for 1 TB M.2 at 1700 MB/sec? An 860 EVO (SATAIII, obviously) at 1 TB is $147, by comparison...; the Intel has 3 times the speed, and 2/3rds the cost....

I like 850/860 EVOs, of course, but, when an M.2 NVME slot is open at that cost.....why think much!