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SSD prices are finally dropping

SSDs in general are dropping but Micron is having trouble from the Stock Market's perspective so they have been, in my view, trying to juice sales over the past couple of months.

Samsung will be releasing their 970 series in the coming weeks, so their 960 and remaining 950 inventory had a come down a bit recently.

970 is supposed to be much faster and less expensive in relative terms.
 
Warranty mostly.

But I must admit I’ve been buying SSDs since the Kingston 40GB and all still work fine.
Really like Samsung but for larger 2TB SSDs I’m going for MyDigitalSSD SBX Models.
I dropped 1100 bucks on a read intensive Samsung PM SSD and saw no difference in performance.
My love affair is over.
SBXs, large ones are on my short list.
 
These are sold in Canada as well with similar pricing. If one is located elsewhere I would check for local availability. Guessing these are available worldwide and cheap.
 
These are sold in Canada as well with similar pricing. If one is located elsewhere I would check for local availability. Guessing these are available worldwide and cheap.
can't find a similar offer in germany, that price is really good. weren't the micron SSDs the same like the Crucial SSDs?
 
And the Micron 1TB SSD for $199.95 today from B&H:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1326540-REG/sandisk_sdssdhii_1t00_g25_ultra_ii_1tb_ssd.html
Use coupon code INTERNALSSD to get free shipping and the discounted price.
 
I’m in the market for my first SSD but I know next to nothing about them except they are supposed to be good for streaming samples, and they are really expensive.

This seems like a good price for 2TB of storage.

Is this a good drive and would it be a wise first time purchase?
 
I’m in the market for my first SSD but I know next to nothing about them except they are supposed to be good for streaming samples, and they are really expensive.

This seems like a good price for 2TB of storage.

Is this a good drive and would it be a wise first time purchase?

My philosophy of hard drives is the same with SSDs: buy any of them (except Seagate) and trust none of them, i.e. back them up. I've always gone for whatever's on sale or priced well, under the assumption that it costs millions to set up a factory - there's no Joe's Acme Living Room SSD Outfit.

Now, when I voiced the same basic point about memory factories, the argument came up that some memory is made to looser specifications. I'm not convinced; I think if it's good for a few months, it's good for the duration. It would be worth checking the warranty on this particular drive, i.e. it should be three years.

In any case, $270 price for 2TB of SSD storage is the lowest I've seen by a mile. My 1TB drive was $200, but they went way up after that, and this is 2/3 of even that price.

It's a SATA 3 drive, which means it works on both 600 gigabits/sec and SATA 2's 300gb/sec busses, but that has nothing to do with the drive's ability to play samples, just with how many voices you can run before saturating the bus - how much data it can carry. My opinion is that I don't give a ff; I have both on my machine, and I've never come close to saturating either one.

But then I don't run three stereo mic positions of any sample library - e.g. Hollywood Strings - simultaneously.

Oh, and there's now an M.2 bus format that's even faster. I'd personally rather spend my money on SSD storage, even if my Mac were capable of running M.2.
 
Yes it’s a great buy, but many more large capacity NVMe and SSDs are coming.
Competition is great for us.

That's also true - there's absolutely no pressure to buy this drive right now because it's a one-time deal that you'll never see the likes of again.
 
Well in that case jump on it.

But Digitimes claims since RAM Manufactures tooled up for SSD demand, they have a glut of devices as they underestimated the popularity of hybrids, mechanical and enterprise storage.

Wish they’d screw up with RAM like that.
 
I was looking at this Crucial MX500 1TB SSD on sale right now:
Amazon product ASIN B077SF8KMGThe Micron has double the space but a slower read and write speed? How much difference does this make for use as an external sample drive? A 2TB drive would let me keep all my samples on one drive.

EDIT: I honestly want to know if there is a downside to the 2TB Micron for sample loading. The Micron sounds like a great deal, but I'm a little wary if the speed will be reduced. It would be housed in a cheap plastic USB3 external case.
 
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Related to that, is there a speed advantage to having samples divided between SSDs going into separate USB inputs? I'm not very knowledgable about these things.
 
EDIT: I honestly want to know if there is a downside to the 2TB Micron for sample loading. The Micron sounds like a great deal, but I'm a little wary if the speed will be reduced. It would be housed in a cheap plastic USB3 external case.

The Micron description says:
  • Sequential reads/writes up to 560/510 MB/s and random reads/writes up to 95k/90k on all file types
Is it the sequential or the random read/writes that matter? For the Samsung T3 (recommended by Christian Henson), it doesn't differentiate (see https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-T3-Portable-SSD-MU-PT500B/dp/B01AVF6UO8/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1526539671&sr=8-3&keywords=t3%2Bsamsung&dpID=41cm4reYFmL&preST=_SX300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch&th=1 (here)):
  • Superfast Read-Write Speeds of up to 450 MB/s

Also, the Micron is internal SSD; for those like me looking at external SSD, this is currently Amazon's recommended choice (currently $289 for 1TB and $389 for 2TB; compared to $495/820 for the T3 respectively). Anyone have experience in using this with VIs?
 
The random read and write times really don't matter with any current SSDs, and the write time is totally irrelevant for streaming (reading) samples. SSD are not as fast as RAM, but their seek and read times are all fast enough not to be a factor.

Now, I'd still only buy SATA 3 drives, but that's because they're not from the early days of SSDs, and I'm guessing manufacturers have learned a thing or two. It's not because of their specs.

Garry, I personally would just use an external SATA enclosure for an internal drive. You'll save a lot of money that way and end up with the same thing.
Related to that, is there a speed advantage to having samples divided between SSDs going into separate USB inputs? I'm not very knowledgable about these things.

Using two drives increases the bandwidth per drive, but it's unlikely to make any practical difference for streaming performance. However, having said everything I said about the SATA 2 bus being way fast enough, the USB bus actually could be a bottleneck (unless it's a USB 3.1, and I doubt that).

I'd use a different connection. Does your computer have an internal SATA bus?
 
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