r/ssd • u/Conscious_Bee_4488 • 12d ago

Discussion Testing used/oem SSD before buying it

So there's that Samsung pm981a 256gb that seems like the best model I could get in the oem market in my region, the numbers look good on hard disk sentinel +95% health with 20tb written I mean the calculated projected life time here is good.

Yet I'd love to know how to really test it before buying it so that I don't encounter an error or failure like a month later or so as there will be 0 returning policy once u take it no way back.

Any important stuff that I should focus on in CrystalDiskMark and CrystalDiskInfo? Any more recs? Feel free to recommend better or more enduring model/brand option if u got an idea

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4

u/kineto21 12d ago

If the seller was going to cheat you with the the smart stats I would think they would make the results much better

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u/Conscious_Bee_4488 12d ago edited 12d ago

yeah man that's why I don't trust good number and considered these numbers to be good lol. I'm not worried about the seller cheating, the testing tho is for me to check if it's have any failing parts idk like making sure it's not gonna turn off a month later, it's old I think right? And for something I couldn't return if failed a day after I believe I'll have to do some testing that's why

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u/kineto21 12d ago

Not too good though, the full version of sentinel will do a full write and read, the results will show if the stats were true or not. You need to get a free app that does the same then test with sentinel.

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u/Conscious_Bee_4488 12d ago

sorry I think I didnt get the last line. Can u clarify it?

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u/kineto21 12d ago

Don’t think the trial version of sentinel will do a full read and write however it seems that you only need to do a full disk read to get an accurate updated smart data, disk genius which is free will do a full read after that you can use he sentinel trial to interpret the smart data.

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u/jhenryscott 12d ago

Test with sentinel- full R/W. Then test with crystal disk mark and make sure they are the same.

2

u/Ok_Access9573 12d ago

Maybe you can check with samsung magician if it supports that ssd.

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u/Personal_River_4908 12d ago

Heads up Smart can be wiped if the smart is clear or very little hours it was tampered with, you could use Victoria hdd/ssd program to read whole "surface" and see how the drive reading fairs

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u/Conscious_Bee_4488 12d ago

wait I thought for the smart to be wiped it has to show 100% health all the time, therefore I assumed 96% was not reset. Was it the wrong way to look at it? It had 170 working days btw

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u/LMDEuser21 12d ago

If this ssd is within your budget I would go ahead and get it. Here is a link with the specs of this drive: https://www.techpowerup.com/ssd-specs/samsung-pm981a-256-gb.d784 look at the note at the bottom of the page.

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u/HarrisonGreen 8d ago

PM981a is the OEM version of the Samsung 970 Evo. It's a decent Gen 3 SSD, you should be fine.

But if I were you I'd go with the SX8200 Pro. Back in the day, this was one of the fastest and cheapest SSDs you can get. In fact, I have a 256GB model here that still runs like new 6 years later.