# What's the preferred 2tb SSD - at the moment?



## Zoot_Rollo (May 11, 2019)

i'd like to act fast on this.

my local Best Buy has this for $249.

*SanDisk - Ultra 2TB Internal SATA Solid State Drive*

thoughts on better? cheaper?


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## jneebz (May 11, 2019)

I’d go for Crucial or Samsung and steer clear of SanDisk:

Crucial: 


Samsung EVO:


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## lp59burst (May 11, 2019)

Agreed on the Samsung or Crucial choice.

I also have a WD SSD that works great too.

The Crucial 2TB SSD's are $236 right now on Amazon with free same day delivery if you're a Prime member.


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## kitekrazy (May 11, 2019)

I have a San Disk, no issues. You have to wonder if any of these 2TB drives would really go bad since they would be for libraries and that means less writes to the drive. I'd eventually go with WD since I like their RMA service.


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## Virtuoso (May 11, 2019)

I have a ton of SSDs acquired over the years, mostly used for capturing/editing ProRes RAW video, and a few more for sample libraries. They are a mix of 1-2TB Samsung EVO/Pro and Sandisk Ultra/Extreme Pro.

For video use, it is critical that they are reliable and maintain a steady high data rate. None of them have caused me any problems at all and they all perform pretty much identically in real world use. Bear in mind that you are limited to SATA bandwidth of around 500MB/s anyway, so none of them will reach anything like the 3.5GB/s speeds of NVMe M.2 SSDs.

In summary - just grab the SanDisk. It will be fine!


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## Robert_G (May 11, 2019)

I have the WD 2TB internal SSD and it has great read/write speeds.
Amazon.com has it for 224.....no brainer.


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## brek (May 11, 2019)

This seems pretty tempting:

https://flash.newegg.com/Product/20-167-461


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## Zoot_Rollo (May 11, 2019)

brek said:


> This seems pretty tempting:
> 
> https://flash.newegg.com/Product/20-167-461



all three of my m.2 slots are filled.

recommended!

only things spinning in my tower are 7 fans.


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## Nick Batzdorf (May 11, 2019)

What's the problem with SanDisk?


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## Manuel Stumpf (May 11, 2019)

Been using SanDisk SSDs, absolutely no issue.
Maybe people just judge by brandname instead of personal experience.


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## Dewdman42 (May 11, 2019)

SSD's are SOOOO much more reliable then HDD, There are no moving parts. I think there is a lot more latitude between brands then the days of HDD when you really had to read the reviews, even on specific models, some with higher fail rates then others. I've definitely experienced my share of HDD failures. But with SSD it comes down more to the software that is on them and the chips that are installed as to how they will perform, or whether they might burn out over time, they can still go bad, just like ram can, but its far more uncommon then HDD days.

Read the reviews, check the R/W specs and reported results if you care about max performance. I have nothing against SanDisk or any other brand of SSD frankly, but that being said, so far I have gone with Samsung and Crucial, and I tend to just wait until there is a killer sale. Over xmas sales I got 2 Crucial MX500 2TB for $200 each. They were not the fastest available at the time, but fast enough and good price for lots of storage.


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## whiskers (May 11, 2019)

Intel 660p if you can support nvme or crucial mx500 or Samsung 860 Evo if you cannot


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## kitekrazy (May 12, 2019)

Manuel Stumpf said:


> Been using SanDisk SSDs, absolutely no issue.
> Maybe people just judge by brandname instead of personal experience.



I have San Disk and my Intel choked to where I thought I would have to do a RMA.


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## Zoot_Rollo (May 16, 2019)

Crucial MX500 2TB for $267.15 (incl 10% WA tax) may win this one.


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## Hywel (May 16, 2019)

Samsung now have 3 types of SSD that can be used in docks - the expensive PRO, the mid price EVO and now a relatively cheap QVO - which in the UK at least, is about HALF the price of the PRO and for a 2TB drive £100 cheaper than the EVO.
I know folks around here like the EVOs but has anyone any experience of the QVO?


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## Zoot_Rollo (May 16, 2019)

Hywel said:


> Samsung now have 3 types of SSD that can be used in docks - the expensive PRO, the mid price EVO and now a relatively cheap QVO - which in the UK at least, is about HALF the price of the PRO and for a 2TB drive £100 cheaper than the EVO.
> I know folks around here like the EVOs but has anyone any experience of the QVO?




watching - i've noticed the QVOs as well.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/samsung-860-qvo-2tb-internal-sata-solid-state-drive-with-v-nand-technology/6317303.p?skuId=6317303

update: hmmm, after reading, i think i'll stick with the EVO or Crucial.


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## Mornats (May 16, 2019)

I grabbed the 2TB QVO recently as my main sample drive. Speeds are at least as quick as the SanDisk Ultra II 480 it replaced. Far too early to say anything about reliability yet of course 

I'm a hobbyist by the way so I have less stringent requirements to the pros.


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## Zoot_Rollo (May 16, 2019)

now i am seeing 4tb and chatter of 8tb.

back to a holding pattern.


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## Zoot_Rollo (May 24, 2019)

Gave in on one of these.

8tb internal now.

I can reinstall Halion 6 in prep for 7.


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## Robert_G (May 24, 2019)

I have the Western Digital 2tb ssd....love it....fast and reliable.


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## NYC Composer (May 26, 2019)

https://www.rakuten.com/shop/adata/...NXA&siteID=NKa3hZyYoHA-ZPgNo2x2QiOfdZxtBGUNXA


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## Robert Kooijman (May 26, 2019)

Just ordered an Intel 660p 2TB NVMe SSD from amazon.de (220 €, free delivery to Sweden).

As the two NVMe slots of the motherboard already are occupied with Samsung 970 2TB Evo's, I also ordered a PCIe to NVMe card (only 10 €).

The 660p is only half the price compared to the Samsung Evo!

For sample playback in Kontakt (mainly reads), the 660p offers currently IMO most bang for the buck. While not as fast as the Evo's, they're still a lot faster then any SATA SSD.


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## Richard Wilkinson (May 26, 2019)

Easily samsung t4 - brilliant for mobile rig compatibility too.


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## NYC Composer (May 26, 2019)

Don’t other bottlenecks (like CPU) render the super fast 4K reads of more expensive drives into something of a waste?


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## Robert Kooijman (May 26, 2019)

Here's a nice read comparing SATA with NVMe. Not only raw speed but also latency is much improved using NVMe.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/7843/testing-sata-express-with-asus/4

In real life, the differences will surely be less spectacular then the graphs suggest. Not sure the almost double 4k read performance of the Samsung Evo justifies it's much higher price over the Intel 660P when not used as a system / boot drive...

Afaik there are few reliable SATA vs NVMe performance tests recently done with an up to date DAW / Kontakt using fast multicore CPU & RAM. All I can say is that our non-SATA DAW with VEPro on the same machine feels very snappy and is a joy to work with


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## kavinsky (Nov 11, 2019)

Robert Kooijman said:


> Here's a nice read comparing SATA with NVMe. Not only raw speed but also latency is much improved using NVMe.
> 
> https://www.anandtech.com/show/7843/testing-sata-express-with-asus/4
> 
> ...


could you please update us on your experience with 660p and especially if the drive is filled up 75%+?
is the speed drop noticeable?


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## colony nofi (Nov 11, 2019)

In case anyone's interested, I have 2 X 4TB samsung QVO's doing duty here, and cannot notice any difference (real world noticable to me in a creative sense) compared to working with EVO's or even samsung pro's (which we also have at the studios!) . I have a couple of the 2TB as well for project drives and they're working just fine inside a blackmagic dock. I have a faster "on the road" glyph 4TB drive (cost an arm and a leg over 12 months ago!) which gets me faster sample loading speeds, but it makes no difference on my mac pro, just the macbook pro!
A NMVE * 4 setup (using something like the OWC case) could be interesting (and would get the required 8TB space I use for samples / libraries etc) but its a fair bit of money compared to 2 X 4TB QVO's - and I already had the blackmagic dock.

The QVO's are definitely slower for writes, but since most of my use are reads, this really doesn't effect me!

Also for READS, it really doesn't matter if you fill your drive to 95%. The read speed will not slow down. One of the 4TB drives here is currently at - er 99% - and its more than fine!


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## Peaky Blinder (Nov 12, 2019)

colony nofi said:


> In case anyone's interested, I have 2 X 4TB samsung QVO's doing duty here, and cannot notice any difference (real world noticable to me in a creative sense) compared to working with EVO's or even samsung pro's (which we also have at the studios!) . I have a couple of the 2TB as well for project drives and they're working just fine inside a blackmagic dock. I have a faster "on the road" glyph 4TB drive (cost an arm and a leg over 12 months ago!) which gets me faster sample loading speeds, but it makes no difference on my mac pro, just the macbook pro!
> A NMVE * 4 setup (using something like the OWC case) could be interesting (and would get the required 8TB space I use for samples / libraries etc) but its a fair bit of money compared to 2 X 4TB QVO's - and I already had the blackmagic dock.
> 
> The QVO's are definitely slower for writes, but since most of my use are reads, this really doesn't effect me!
> ...




@colony nofi Would you choose QVO's over MX500's for read drives? There pretty much the same price for size.

Stay away from Sandisk, high failure rates.

Crucial and Samsung have never failed on me.


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## sostenuto (Nov 12, 2019)

QVO 2TB just added and all cool so far. $199. from Amazon in US.  
Have several EVO 500 GB for few years without issue.


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## Robert Kooijman (Nov 12, 2019)

kavinsky said:


> could you please update us on your experience with 660p and especially if the drive is filled up 75%+?
> is the speed drop noticeable?



So far the supposedly slower 660p works very well. When it comes to loading times, I can do a test tomorrow using the same Kontakt library read from an Intel 660p vs. Samsung 970 Evo, both almost filled 2GB SSD's connected directly to the motherboards NVME slots. 

I have no longer any SATA drives hooked up, so can't compare with these...


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## colony nofi (Nov 12, 2019)

Peaky Blinder said:


> @colony nofi Would you choose QVO's over MX500's for read drives? There pretty much the same price for size.
> 
> Stay away from Sandisk, high failure rates.
> 
> Crucial and Samsung have never failed on me.


Honestly, I think once you look closely at the failure rates, and realise that it really doesn't make a huge difference to risk management either way - just go with whatever you wish. I went with samsung as they offered 4TB in one drive, and to my knowledge, the MX500's only go up to 2TB.

I have 4 X 1TB sandisks that I used to use (my first portable raid system for samples in a pegasus J4!) and they are still going strong. They must be 6 or so years old....


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## kavinsky (Nov 14, 2019)

Robert Kooijman said:


> So far the supposedly slower 660p works very well. When it comes to loading times, I can do a test tomorrow using the same Kontakt library read from an Intel 660p vs. Samsung 970 Evo, both almost filled 2GB SSD's connected directly to the motherboards NVME slots.
> 
> I have no longer any SATA drives hooked up, so can't compare with these...


thank you! Id certainly love to know how they compare
I already ordere one actually, but its great to know it can deliver


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