Finding The Best Sub-$25 SSD (Adata, Inland, Lexar, Silicon Power)

[@poromise]

This is kind of a previously unfulfilled niche of content, in depth and quality reviews and tips centered around actually low cost gear with good production quality. Many channels either pass on the cheap stuff altogether, or they have terrible video and audio, no script, and rarely give you any more information than what it says on the packaging.

[@HardwareHaven]

Yeah I sort of agree. I really just wanted to start making the videos I wanted to see and I guess this is what happened. Thanks for the comment!

[@henryquinn1795]

You might also like Oz Talks HW.

[@InkWok]

really cool insight, subbed immediately. such good vibes

[@kieronyin8194]

Well done! Thoroughly informative as well as entertaining with a great video atmosphere overall. Its important to note that the existence of a DRAM cache (as in the Adata drive) will increase the longevity of the SSD, as it reduces the overall wear of the flash memory cells. I look forward to seeing this channel grow, keep up the great work!

[@HardwareHaven]

Yes! Dang it I meant to say that in the video 🤦🏻‍♂️ Thanks for adding that as well as for the encouragement

[@MaxUgly]

I love Adata drives! So much bang for the buck, always my go to when trying to go cheap.

[@brokeandtired]

@@HardwareHaven I use a 128gb SSD because my PC is just being used to play media and for use as a general usage PC. Its a rebuilt i5 3470 from my older scrapped PC. I sold my i5 10400 PC during the GPU gouge wars...Because I gave up and got a Series S while waiting. My older PC is good enough as a streaming media/basic use PC and I don't need more than a 128gb SSD for this.

[@JayVBear45]

Like your honesty. I've been building PC systems for about 26 years now but I really don't know a lot of computer/tech engineering stuff except for the absolute basics - yup, I'm still a hobbyist. My first computer was an Amiga 500 and I learned how to modify it with LOTS of help from user groups, BBSs and IRC channels. KZbin wasn't a thing yet back then. Later when I really wanted to build my own PC, I took a PC Repair correspondence course, read a beginner's guide on building PCs and made friends with a local computer repair shop owner who helped me pick my components for my first build and steer me towards resources I would never had thought of - dumpsters outside of other computer repair shops known to throw out older yet completely good parts such as slightly outdated monitors, cables, brackets etc. I bought ALL my major necessary parts new from my friend and he stood by me every step of the way till my PC was up and running. He was honest like you. He was a former electrical engineer and computer specialist for our local major university but was always patient and kind, humble to a fault. Now after 15 odd builds I'm still itching for my next, new build. Thanks for being here and providing good, thought provoking content.

[@mangosfx]

You and your channel are absolutely going places, without a doubt, dude. Simply fantastic stuff!

[@HardwareHaven]

Thanks!

[@jeremycarroll978]

Dude, fantastic work here brother. As someone who does video editing and has published content to youtube occasionally on another channel, I know the amount of work that went into this entire project. It shows your dedication to your passion and perseverance towards your craft. Keep up the work man! Looking forward to what comes next!

[@HardwareHaven]

😭 It really does take forever, especially being an amateur editor haha! Thanks so much for the encouragement

[@ntgm20]

Thanks for the data, and a good video. I've used mainly Kingston small SSDs, and agree that they are great for making an older system feel more usable without much cost involved. I also use them as OS drives in home servers, where even after years of updates they use less an 10GB.

[@geezergeek1637]

I had a A400 brick after short use. There are methods to try to unbrick them, but I did not pursue it. It soured me on this part of the Kingston lineup. Thanks for the testing. Your method seemed reasonable to me.

[@quentinbrown4117]

This is the first time one of your videos has shown up on my YT homepage. Nice production value and worthwhile content for the layman/casual user. Good luck with your channel.

[@HardwareHaven]

Thanks!

[@davidg5898]

Lower capacity SSDs are incredibly useful! I plop them into all kinds of systems. And these SSDs are so friggin' cheap! My last pizza delivery cost more than an SSD, and the pizza didn't last anywhere near as long. Good experiment, BTW. I've been using ADATA exclusively for my small capacity drive needs.

[@samuelmatheson9655]

lmao you can't eat the ssd

[@funfever8484]

SSD is for pc and pizza for your stomach no connection at all ADATA or what ever it is just no more salt.

[@typingcat]

Yeah, but what kind of pizza?

[@velazquezruedaomar3530]

Long live $7 bucks pizza

[@ShawnFX]

Can't believe someone compared a Sata SSD to a pizza😂 but wonderful David!

[@sillystev0n]

I work on old computers all the time and I love these smaller capacity ssds due to the cost/performance and the fact that most of my clients don’t do many local tasks now a days as most applications just need a web browser. Also great video! Love the editing style!

[@HardwareHaven]

So true. And thanks!

[@johnknightiii1351]

In reality even when the sp drive is at high capacity and is running slower, it is substantially faster then a mechanical drive. I've used 6 of them so far with no problems.

[@Alan-rt3se]

I bought four of the Silicon Power A55 SSDs, and each of them suffered a drastic reduction in write speed after less than 3 months' use. Initially, they worked fine, with Crystal DiskMark scores very similar to your report. The read and write speeds were around 400 MB/s. But after 3 months or so, the write speeds were under 100 MB/s. A couple of them had write speeds of around 15 MB/s, significantly slower than a hard drive. I was using these drives as storage, not the boot drive, and what apparently triggered the slowdown was when I copied the entire contents of a different drive to the SP all at once. The file transfer went well for the first 300 GB or so, then drastically slowed down. Afterwards, I tried deleting the partition and re-formatting the drive, but the write slowdown did not change, even when the drive was empty. The large file transfer appears to have permanently damaged the drive's write speed. I've done similar large file transfers using other brands of SSD and not had this problem with any other brand. I do not recommend the SP A55 drives.

[@DillyDally69]

Mine just died last night after around 6 months of use, overall i wouldn't recommend getting it.

[@JamesTsividis]

So using the drive killed it.

[@Alan-rt3se]

@@JamesTsividis Yes, it seemed like using the drive is what slowed it down. One of them slowed down after I copied about 500 GB from a smaller drive that I was replacing. I'm no computer expert, but I've had many other SSDs from different brands, and these Silicon Power A55's are the only ones I've ever had slow down like that.

[@thecorn2299]

@@DillyDally69 Similar deal but it only took 3 months. RMA service required paying to send it all the way to Taiwan which does not make a lot of sense cost-wise. It would probably be better to get a cheap drive that at least has RMA service in the same country.

[@DillyDally69]

Feels like they purposefully made the RMA process difficult to avoid refunding customers.

[@ovarb12]

I do tons of pc and laptop upgrades. Ppl don't need or want to spend for bigger hd. This waa something i always wanted to do. I use Kingston because you can always get them and its a name brand. Way to go on being honest. Doing videos and things like this is how you learn.

[@TCGView]

These smaller SSDs definitely still have their place. I recently got one and use it as a boot drive for my TrueNAS box. I am also thinking of getting another to replace the old mechanical HD in an old laptop to give it some extra life. Since I only use that laptop for business related stuff like writing proposals, posting things online, etc. it works perfectly.

[@wahidpawana424]

I use those smaller ssds for caching since i have primocache. For the same price as a 1tb ssd i could get a much higher capacity drive hdd with some extra cash. And i wouldn't be losing sleep over 3 seconds of slower load speed for gaming.

[@Mineav]

SSDs are such cool technology. I love watching any videos on them.

[@Murkymaid]

your editing is great hope you get more subs cause you deserve them :)

[@HardwareHaven]

Ah thanks!

[@BryantAvant]

I've put around 500 silicon powers in customer computers. Always a great upgrade to keep 4-10 year old computers moving at almost the same speed as new computers.

[@syarifairlangga4608]

How abou Adata and PNY? Have u had experience with it

[@BryantAvant]

@@syarifairlangga4608 I use adata sx8200 pro nvme's. They're good value for the speed. So far so good but I've only been using them for at most just over two years.

[@lgzy3]

A little sad to see the Kingston A400 couldn't make the list. I've used 5 of the 240GB model in several PC builds for friends and myself. I've only just upgraded to an nvme boot drive after 2 years. Great video again

[@HardwareHaven]

Yeah I kinda regret not waiting for a return. Had their return policy been more flexible, I probably would have

[@protoman-yj3ev]

even i use the same model 240 gb ssd drive

[@ikbintom]

Same for me! Worked great for many years before I switched to nvme two a month ago

[@budmonk2819]

Indeed, I think you should add those results in a new video. Great fan of the Kingston.

[@НиколаГеоргиев-ш2б]

I have 2 x 960GB A400s (one still unpacked). However, a friend reported a dead 480GB A400 after 4 years of use.

[@212days]

It's amazing that you can buy those things so cheap these days. I remember when they first came out and were the new "big thing" in computers. I think at that time I bought a 32GB hard drive for like $70 or something. 128GB was like the max size you could buy and they were like $300 or something. I don't remember the exact prices but something like that.

[@colorxproductions5228]

wow. time fly's by so fast

[@bickyboo7789]

4TB ones are $300 now. How awesome is that?

[@212days]

@@bickyboo7789 Wow that is amazing. I didn't even know they made them in that size. Back when SSD's first came out I don't think they even made mechanical hard drives in that size. 2TB was about the max in those days. My dad tells the story about buying a basic calculator for $300 when calculators first came out. Now days you can buy them for $5 at the local CVS.

[@sategllib2191]

​@212days you can find 4tb for $220 now

[@pochul]

@@212days 8 tb for 400 $ now

[@EweToobUsername]

I’m a huge fan of the Inland drives and they’re my go-tos when it comes to laptop hard drive replacement and rebuilding old office computers. Fun fact - add an ATA to SATA adapter to your XP-based Pentium III, Pentium 4, or Athlon that lacks SATA and you’ll get performance out of your machine you won’t believe.

[@DFX2KX]

considering that the more common conversion uses CompactFlash and that's both slow and expensive, you're right. There are other specialized adapters that'll let you bolt a sata drive into even older stuff with various caveats as well.

[@PainterVierax]

My Socket A motherboard already had Sata on it so it might be better for P4 or Athlon/Sempron owner to find a better motherboard instead of trashy converters.

[@stormwager9340]

I find ssd and the technology behind it interesting so that’s why I have a couple of MLC enterprise grade ssds, one of them has a 1.65TB capacity (pcie 4x) and a rated TBW of 9PBW! I got lucky and it was at 93% health so it is great for a storage drive (no nvme). In case you’re wondering, it is the Fusion-io scale2 pcie ssd (1.65tb)

[@bhoot1702]

Wtf 9PBW!!!!

[@stormwager9340]

@@bhoot1702 Yup. Came with its own software too, well, I had to scour the web for the software. If you run it through any standard disk utility (without formatting it) it will say all the sectors are bad...scared me real good. You have to have the VSL installed for the drive to be recognized by the system so its not as convenient as NVMe. Runs to the high 80s (celsius) if you don't have enough cooling. Guess that's how you know its some server grade stuff.

[@rogerokeefe3799]

You did a great job of explaining the disks operation without getting overly technical. if any ssd experts criticize you they probably had no reason to even view your your video in the first place

[@twiceshy6226]

For Servers, Raspbery Pis and many other scenarios the cheap 120GB 2.5" SSDs are more than sufficient, I have roughly 8 of these SSDs laying around and in use. Great Review thanks a lot, was fun to watch.

[@TheReid2DecoderTech]

I've had my Adata SU800 128GB SSD for almost 5yrs now and still kicking in life, back then ssd's were more expensive than now but it was the best investment I've ever made.

[@WTI00]

Is the performance still the same as you bought it initially and is the one you get on aliexpress the original product?

[@ikbintom]

Secondhand ssds are also an option if you want to go cheap! For the last ten years, ssds have become much more resistant to wear, so it's not as risky as people tend to say anymore.. also nice that it avoids a little e-waste

[@HardwareHaven]

Very true! I’m still running a Samsung 850 evo (I think ?) in my main desktop that I bought off of craigslist

[@Omega_Mark]

If you want longevity, do not buy QLC drives.

[@ikbintom]

@@Omega_Mark nowadays it's really not something anyone needs to worry about anymore, but I guess if you buy an SSD that's more than a decade old your advice is solid

[@Omega_Mark]

@@ikbintom There were no QLC drives a decade ago. QLC relies on size to write less to one cell, as that one cell is used to store FOUR states of the information. Samsung 980 PRO is TLC and there was a crapstorm due to it not being MLC anymore (even though it has a better cache).

[@ikbintom]

@@Omega_Mark you're right, good point

[@kattz753]

I have several Adata and Silicon Power drives in various sizes. They might not be the fastest out there but they have been reliable.As I have upgraded, I put them into external USB cases. They're handy to keep around

[@ferfromla]

Great video and beneficial information. I like to use these cheapos to test Linux distros on a real drive before committing to a larger drive for a complete system. I like doing that better than a virtual drive, as I can see what real hardware will do on a system. Concerning my experience, I can echo your findings with ADATA, which I think is worth the extra $4. I have also had a good experience with the Silicone Power. I have recently purchased some Inland drives, but it is too soon to render a judgment, and I have only used a Lexar once, so that one I also don't have enough experience with to give an opinion. I like having some of these cheaper drives on hand as people will sometimes give me their old Windows 7 computers which I can recondition with Linux and give to kids and people who just need something to use for everyday computing. It saves these old machines from being thrown in the trash, and putting in a cheap SSD gives them more power than a Chromebook.

[@kayneahnung3661]

About SSD: I recently discovered a nice little SATA 2 M.2 enclosure (for about 40$) that lets you add two M.2 (SATA) SSDs with RAID1 in one 2.5" case - that should easily be the smallest Hardware Raid available right now - pretty cool for booting servers - it gives you redundancy with low power consumption, it only uses one external sata port but still gives you a raid. For example with your e350 Board you could use one of these and 3 standard 3.5" drives in Raid5-mode and get a decent backup server out of it.

[@HardwareHaven]

That's awesome!

[@skyline8121]

Can you share the name of the enclosure?

[@kayneahnung3661]

@@skyline8121 the enclosure is a delock 62590. Delock is a german company, but its only a trading company. So even if this brand is not available outside of the EU it should be available with a different label. There are also enclosures for two sata drives available from icybox (eg Icy Dock EZConvert Pro MB982SPR-2S R1).

[@PainterVierax]

Hardware RAID is generally a very bad idea since recovery is limited to the same controller so be prepared to lose stored data when the chip fails. Better use soft RAID combined with passive PCIe to M.2 adapters and eventually some riser cables.

[@kayneahnung3661]

@@PainterVierax can't generally agree on that, especially for boot devices it is simply less trouble to have a hw raid 1. If you are worried about loosing the OS Config you can always do regular backups onthe sw raid for data (there I can agree - its better to have the data raid as sw raid) also those controllers are pretty reliable, I have 10 of them (most are sata to sata, not sata to nvme) and so far none failed ( the oldest ones are from 2014). Btw: qnap also offers those small hw raid enclosures. Both sata 2 sata and sata to nvme.

[@UVClay]

I've used cheap SP, TEAMGROUP, Lexar, and Inland SSDs in my desktops and, more specifically, in my servers. The only drives I've consistently had bad results with are the Lexars. The two that I had both died within 6 months and were basically only used to house the OS on my NAS. I think the final totals were less than 100 gigs written and maybe 1100 hours of being powered on when I chucked em. I replaced them with two TEAMGROUP drives and never once had another issue. I've honestly lost count at how many SP drives I have, some NVMe most SATA, and I've never had any issues with reliability. The only bad SP drive I've dealt with just needed a firmware update, which was actively noted on their support site when I visited the page for the drive I had to resolve the issue I was having, and that was 2 or 3 years ago at this point.

[@jdo248]

First of all, I love the Intro POST splash screen. Also, when my grandma downloads Ransomware, where will she store it. You know 128GB is going to be over faster than my data cap.

[@HardwareHaven]

Thanks! I thought it was fun haha And that’s a fair point lol

[@sebastian19745]

My first SSD was a ADATA and the second one was Kingston. Both were 32G, that was a good size back then. The Kingston started to wear (long boot times, random BSOD) after not even 6 moths under Windows 7, (8GDDR3, core I5 laptop) and swapped it with a mechanical HDD. ADATA was keeping up very well under Windows XP (some Intel dual core with 2G DDR2) and after almost one year installed Slackware on it. It still works like a champ today, after more than 10 years. The Kingston one, died under Linux completely; I don't used swap partition on either SSD. Since then, my go-to brand of SSD is ADATA. I tried Kingston some time ago and again, it failed, while ADATA showed no wear on the same PC under the same conditions. I don't know, maybe I had bad luck?

[@MyNameIsBucket]

I've been using Inland SSDs for years. Though I've hardly been thrashing them, they last just fine.

[@xif_loyola]

here in indonesia, our "budget" 128gb SSD choices are priced at around 15$, with many brands you will never heard of, like RX7, NCT, valuetech, flyjiie, kingsmax and there are still more of em. maybe more comparison vs those legit brands like the above will be cool

[@DFX2KX]

kingsmax is the only brand I've actually seen online here. They also make SD cards If I recall right. Never bought one, though.

[@bertnijhof5413]

I have the Silicon Power A55 but the size is 128GB, in that additional 8GB I can store my OS Ubuntu. I used it for some time as boot drive and now I use it as SSD cache for my HDDs. I have it now for 4 or 5 years and I never had any complaint.

[@relaxingnature2617]

It's nice to see videos about sata ssd's ..most channels only talk about nvme

[@iknowdawae893]

"just a PC for grandma who is only going check facebook and maybe download some ransomware" relatable lol

[@CarlosGomez-vt9pk]

Fantastic video. Microcenter has Inland 128 and 240 GB SSDs, so I have quite a few of those for linux experiments and such. No failures yet, but I don't torture them either.

[@HardwareHaven]

Man I’m so jealous if you micro center folk, haha! Thanks for the comment

[@gsmith7162]

Awesome video, keep them coming!

[@livinglegend2106]

This guy is awesome cos he legit goes about his videos with the research process in mind very simple explanations leading up to a comprehensive analysis explanation. This guy is awesome please don't change. I like his process of explanation he doesn't talk too fast and that helps with comprehension Keep the good work flowing dude

[@dandewhurst8916]

Just come across this channel and the content is superb! I personally like the silicone power drives.

[@HardwareHaven]

Thanks Dan!

Great video. It would be nice to see their TBW though. Nearly all the TBW tests usually run for high capacity well-known brands.

[@HardwareHaven]

Are you asking to test that or just to list the manufacturer’s info?

@@HardwareHaven I was talking about testing that without knowing if it is an easy task or not:)

[@HardwareHaven]

I could TOTALLY be wrong here, but I think the only real way to test that would be to have a bunch of them, run them until they start to fail, and then generate averages. It would be awesome if I could do that, but I doubt it haha

[@Gamepalooza]

I use a lot of smaller SSDs in project similar to what you described. Appreciated this vid. Thanks so much.

[@boysonicrevived]

Thought I'd mention it, but my A400 started to throw IO errors within 10 months of putting it in use. I'm thrashing it until it dies, but, no longer in "production" since it made the host unstable. It was an A400 240GB, but all the same. :)

[@HardwareHaven]

Ah that’s sad to hear… they seem to have good reviews, but looks like you and I both have had bad luck haha

[@reubenjoshbonifacio6882]

Nice review. Your voice is something man !

[@XanderRowlet]

Looking forward to the results, I need an SSD for my OG Xbox and I don’t wanna spend 50 bucks just for a console mod

[@johncate9541]

Glad to see these results. I always buy Adata for cheap SSDs. I bought one Silicon Power when they were on sale at Newegg a year ago and it was fine, but Adata is my go-to. Always had good results with them.

[@ZverseZ]

I just got one from Amazon but I was worried since it has fast read/write speeds like a dram ssd, it might be pushing limits and die quickly. I hope it lasts more than a year fingers crossed

[@justinchampion5468]

This was a decent primer on the bargin-basement tier! Have a sub! :)

[@NoTekRc]

Installed a few silicon power SSD in a few builds. No issues after a few year. I will look into the adata in the future for sure.

[@0tiochico]

Amazing content in this video and the channel overall. Also, a video like this but concerning RAM, GPUs and CPU would be amazing for people building it's own rigs.

[@jnb756]

These 128gb drives are awesome as an external boot drive when paired up with Ventoy. I literally can boot from any of 12 different ISO files and there is plenty of room to add more. This comes in handy when installing Windows 10, 11 Server 2012, 2019 etc... At the same time I have multiple Linux distros at my fingertips to check out as a live version and can install to another drive in a system at will. I am not affiliated with Ventoy - I just love the software and you should check it out if you get a chance

[@patricktrakzel9657]

I use Ventoy on a 32 GB stick and have more than 8 iso's on it. Handy for repair, recovery or just plain installing an OS. Love it as well. Add/remove iso's in minutes.

[@norndev]

I just buy refurbished big name branded ssds on ebay for pennies for small projects, usually the sellers list the health but it's always a gamble. Paid off a lot of times for me. I've been using brand new Kingston drives on my own builds for years and haven't had one die yet.

[@patrickdulfo7792]

Adata is a good brand, thank you for testing it for me before I buy it

[@TheCocoaDaddy]

Great video! I've seen the ADATA drives for sale but never decided to try one. I've installed several Silicon Power 512GB and 1TB drives and they've worked well. I'll try out an ADATA drive and see how well it works. :) Thanks for posting!

[@HardwareHaven]

Glad you enjoyed! Just a heads up that I have a Kingston A400 review coming up, and I'm looking into the ADATA SU800 even more in that video.

[@TheCocoaDaddy]

@@HardwareHaven Sounds good. Quick question: when you used CloneZilla to clone the Windows installation, did you do a normal Windows installation on one of the SSDs and then use CloneZilla to clone that to the other SSDs? Thanks!

[@HardwareHaven]

@@TheCocoaDaddy Good question, yes.

[@ZverseZ]

What a beautiful video, I wish more people would cover budget pc computer parts so we finally know who the reliable cheap brands are, however I know these videos are expensive so bigger channels need to step up too

[@lilChet]

vouch for the inland professional 120gb. I bought one 4 years ago and it's still going strong as a windows test bench drive, with no noticable slow downs

[@zalankhan5743]

Hi if only wanted to buy it just for gaming is it a nice option

[@lilChet]

@@zalankhan5743 probably go for something higher capacity for games, you can't fit much on 120 gigabytes lol but inland makes a 240 gig drive just like this for a bit more money, and you have my recommendation 👍

[@dominick253]

I have four of the Kingston drives. Two 120, one 240 and a 500gb. All work great for years. For the price they're hard to beat. But I'll try an adata next time. Dram would help a lot with big files.

[@coolraul07]

New subber; loving your content. Suggestion for next time: take note of each drive's warranty and TBW (TB written) rating. SSD cells have a limit to the # of times they can be written to, so that affects its usuable lifespan. Warranty is often tied to this (e.g., x years or ### TBW, whichever comes first). I have found similarly priced SSDs (and M.2 NVMe) with similar advertised specs that vary significantly with warranty and TBW. For example, some had 5 yr warranty and a TBW of 200 times to drive's size, yet another brand had 3 yr and a TBW of 600x drive size. This definitely influenced my purchasing decisions based on use case.

[@NeoKayos]

Banger. Best vid so far. Keep it up.

[@HardwareHaven]

I was honestly really nervous about this one. Thanks!

[@lbsiuk]

Absolutely fantastic video! Once I had finished the video I checked your sub count and my god was I surprised. You deserve a lot more! You've earned a sub from me, well done!

[@HardwareHaven]

Wow, thank you! I appreciate it, but I'm already blown away by the support I've received in the last few months. It's crazy to me haha

[@mercix_vt]

as a person who used SILICON POWER A55 250GB before, its really good tho, bought for only 24$ back then and it performs almost same as my Samsung gen3 m2 ssd in my laptop

[@ShawnFX]

Hi Hardware Haven! Just a thought, you should put Amazon affiliate links of the products in the description. That way if someone buys the product(no extra cost to them) using that link you can get a small kickback from it! And honestly you deserve it for making this great video!

[@HardwareHaven]

Thanks for the tip! I actually use affiliate links, just didn’t in this video for some reason. Thanks for pointing it out haha!

[@NightMotorcyclist]

The Inland brand SSD has done me well in the past few years while brands like SanDisk have failed on me months after purchasing and getting an RMA was a pain in the arse. I've bought high performance Inland NVMe drives that have high endurance and moderate speeds for both Gen 3 (Premium) and Gen4 (Perform) and both have onboard cache at lower prices than those of Samsung. The Gen 3 drive has been in my system for about 2 years now and going strong despite my PC being on for more than 10 hours a day with quite a few instances of 24 hour operation. A really good buy if you live near a Micro Center store.

[@junkie2100]

i cant speak for most of those brands, but i will say i do NOT recommend adata, ever, for any reason, unless you need a paperweight. i have had 2 of them, both su650s, both bought at the same time in may 2019, one lasted 6 months in a laptop that i barely turn on, one lasted 1 month, no forced shutdowns or any funny business, just corrupted all my data and refused to recover or format or do anything, cant even post with the 1 month one installed in any machine, there was a crucial and pny both installed in that machine before, during, and after the incident, my first ssd, a 128gb kingston from 2014, still around, no errors, the computer im using now has a samsung, fine for years

[@HardwareHaven]

I think there is some justification for not buying from a brand after having a bad experience, but to be fair, I wasn’t reviewing the SU650. That drive could absolutely be a piece of junk for all I know. Just a thought, and thanks for the comment!

[@THEpicND]

Just want to say that if you are on an old pc that still boots off hdd, don’t fret ab what to buy, ANY ssd will be the single biggest performance improvement you can do for your pc.

[@HardwareHaven]

But you might as well get the best one of it’s the same price, right? I get what you’re saying though haha

[@THEpicND]

@@HardwareHaven oh absolutely. Being and informed consumer is always better. Loved the video gave it a like bc I haven’t seen this niche done before (and it was well done!). My point was just that you really can’t go wrong here

[@HardwareHaven]

@@THEpicND For sure. Thanks for the like!

[@K-SHABAB]

i came on this video its 1year ago and iam going to buy a Adata su650 thanks it was very informative

[@4RedDwarf3]

I always use drives of this size, 1 smaller partition for windows, 1 larger for apps, mostly portable ones, plus net stuff like browsers. I then add other large mechanical drives, 1 for games, 1 for TV and films.

[@MtFoxt]

Yeah same, for me I have another 256gb of nvme for caching my game using primocache

[@souta95]

I can echo your findings on the Kingston drives. I used to work at a place where a lot of cheap, small SSDs were purchased and I found the Silicon Power drives to be the best all rounders, and the Kingston drives the most failure prone. I didn't get any AData drives as we were pinching every penny.

[@raylopez99]

A lot of people hate Adata drives tho... but who knows? Sample size is the key.

[@Yuriel1981]

Actually just built a NAS using an Inland 128gb and an old PC I had lying around. Running TrueNas using one of your video tutorials.... lol. Have 8Tb with 4Tb of parity. Actually kind of glad I went for Inland. A couple of reasons include I live near a Microcenter, it is their in house brand. And I got it sub 20$ on sale. Another is it's fairly middle to higher placing on the charts in all of the scenarios. Which lend to it being a bit more versatile. So not to bad even without a dram cache.

[@frankenstein3163]

Cloud/streaming gaming server has a use for small drives. Each vm needs its own drive to prevent multi user's from bottlenecking one drive.

[@jamesnasium4035]

Silicon power is the only SSD ever to fail on me in my life, and I've had a lot of SSDs from all sorts of brands.

[@charleshines1553]

I got a silicon power S55 and and it is similar to the A55 with SLC cache. I know some multi layer chips can work as SLC but there is a real SLC NAND flash that is significantly more expensive per GB. The fact is that nearly all flash memory found on store shelves in Bestbuy or Walmart is not SLC. Most people would not pay so much despite being a much faster and longer lasting memory type. These days there is 96 layer flash memory and I cringe thinking of how short its life must be. It also makes me cringe to hear they are adding more layers too. I just hope they are doing SOMETHING to mitigate that severe longevity hit! We buy storage devices to RELIABLY store our files not be kept up at night with nightmares of all important files lost for good.

[@churblefurbles]

Results scale with size, and yes the lexar seems to retain consistent when full which is interesting.

[@Jasontyo]

I tinker with old PCs running different linux distro's and some old macs. Having a pile of 120GB class SSDs is always useful

[@andrez3640]

Fair and honest review ....we don't need high tech info just the stuff that matters..nice video enjoyed ..

[@kazriko]

I use plenty of 120-256gb drives in small projects here. For example, to try out different OSes on laptops. I also use a 120gig for my pfsense firewall, they'd probably be great for a HTPC as well if you're just streaming video and audio from a NAS. A 120gig would probably be overkill for something like ArcaOS or Haiku too.

[@t1luso609]

interesting to see some cheap sdds tests. Not bad imo. I have MX500 from Crucial (1TB Models) and no regrets so far very solid for the money I have put in.

[@PainterVierax]

TBH, the MX500 240GB are built better and not that much expensive than those 20usd 128GB.

[@t1luso609]

@@PainterVierax oh yeah but still it´s good to see what makes it a good ssd or a weaker ssd.

[@fantv525]

Thanks for this very useful video.

[@metalwolf112002]

If you still have all 4 drives, can you post the SMART data? For instance, not all SSD show "drive life remaining". I just checked one of the HP SSDs i have in a VM server and that parameter is missing.

[@adamsaint2890]

Fully agree that the 120/128gb SSDs are just fine for many use cases. My niece just plays Roblox on her PC and occasionally some homework. Less than half the 120gb capacity (Patriot Burst) is filled.

[@MaximumRD]

I've been very satisfied with the balance of performance and cost with ADATA products in general.

[@MagnumMike44]

Interesting test results. The one thing I need to say about SSDs is they should not be referred to as Drives but rather Storage Devices. A drive is a device with mechanical elements built into it, mainly the spinning disk and its related components for reading and writing. 🙂

[@HardwareHaven]

That’s fair I guess, but SSD is technically an abbreviation for Solid State Drive. Even though it might technically be incorrect in the engineering/mechanical context, I think it’s just commonly accepted. What do you call flash drives?

[@JeffWaynee]

A small SSD is perfect for a system drive. I like to keep created or added data separately anyway, and only put the OS and apps on the system drive, which for me uses about 70GB.

[@StormKnight1]

Sp: "Remarkable!" Hardware Haven: remarks were made ✔️ I love you so much 😂😂😂

[@NatesRandomVideo]

Nice work. Definitely need a follow-up with the Kingston.

[@HardwareHaven]

In the works!

[@RHTORAS]

The best budget drives in my country are Patriot and Intenso. Adata are well known too but they tend to get hotter than usually. You could test the drives i mention. BTW i use 128gb disk drives on pc's i want to code lightly and surf the web for various things. Another brand which is value too although not in the 128gb but 240 and 480gb series is Kioxia which is the same brand as Toshiba. If you could find one i am interested on these. p.s i have an 128gb ssd nvme from aliexpress called "kingspec" and for the money was awesome...

[@chrisw1462]

Never heard of Inland before watching this, so of course I didn't know that it's MicroCenter's store brand. They're good enough to have me wondering who MicroCenter gets them from.

[@SidneyCritic]

It would've been interesting knowing the controller, eg, SM2258H is SiliconMotion, and who made the memory. But then again they change chips at a drop of a hat in the same model when they source something cheaper - lol -. 11:55 If you see a 4 digit number, it can be the manufacture date, eg, 2118 is 2021 week 18.

[@rappidralph8863]

Just too say that I have a fx6300 ram 16 gig it used to build up in about 2 minutes off a 500 gig sata drive ,I got a m.2 drive 128gig with adapter too SATA connection it now takes 20 seconds to build up and 8 seconds shut down best upgrade ever this was 2 years ago.

[@tim36332]

I really don't see the point in these multi cell level NAND flash memory types (triple, quad, penta). It seems the only clear benefit is capacity - more bits stuffed into each cell. But Single Level Cell memory provides better reliability, greater lifespan (more program/erase cycles), and good speeds. Personally, In 2024, for a budget SSD I'd just save $5 more and get a well reviewed model with SLC memory/cache. The 480gb Gigastone Game Pro (which is currently $30 on Amazon) would be my choice as it has 0 low star ratings, indicating a very low fail/DOA rate. It benches close to its advertised read and write speeds of over 500Mbps, and it's SLC cache for better longevity. Pretty simple imo; the more levels, the greater wear. DRAM cache is very good but only benefits write speeds, which don't help gaming performance, media consumption, browsing etc. it would only really speed up transferring files etc which personally I don't particularly think is worth seeking out or paying more for unless your use case involves writing or uploading huge amounts of data.

[@repairman2be250]

I use smaller SSD drives in my Dell R720 Server's for boot OS. Replaced the DVD/CD drive with a caddy type that hold an SSD drive and boot from it. Works like a treat.

[@edhirxtrastrange]

I myself run a 120 GB Samsung EVO 850 for my main drive. It's purely for windows installation. My games and programs are on their own m.2s so the next time I need windows refresh, it's just windows get affected

[@xanderveal]

I literally just bought the Kingston like a week ago in 240gb model. Works fine so I think you just got unlucky. I was a bit suspicious when I picked it up though, it’s crazy light

[@SVW1976]

Every time I buy an SSD I get screwed. I look for reviews and benchmarks. I go and get the one that best suits me. Its underperforms and I find out they changed controllers or something but kept the part number the same.🤣 Good job though 👍

[@crazydwarfer]

Awesome video. It would be great though, if you mentioned the specific model names for each drive, and their bigger brothers, 256, 512, and 1TB brothers.

[@ardithconley2628]

I play around a lot with these drives due to Raspberry pi4 that I have. I have a bunch of these but never tested them. Thanks for doing my homework.

[@kztech1319]

Great video! Though have you also tried a comparison with used but high health with DRAM and with high end brands (Samsung Intel Crucial/Micron Hynix)? I know that test would be much harder to run but I tend to lean towards those used drives than these brand new ones, especially because there is a selling tax for new items here, which makes the used products much more appealing. Those old high end SSDs also come in metal casing instead of plastic (The Kingston is the only one with metal casing I believe), which should help more in terms of cooling and longevity, despite the SSDs being older.

[@kparserpcs6699]

Dude your videos are so high quality

[@HardwareHaven]

Glad you think so! I'm trying my best haha

[@robertmaxa6631]

I learned that setting the power settings, in Windows 10, to high performance, makes a difference in read/write speeds, on an ssd.

[@MrBram85]

Thanks for all the hard work

[@HardwareHaven]

Thanks for the support!

[@r3b0rn80]

I just paid 115€ for the Silicon Power A55 2 TB (SATA) and it has 1000TBW endurance… quite nice given the price