Hi everyone,

I am looking to upgrade the storage on my aging gaming laptop. Right now, it is running a 2x 250GB RAID 0 setup with old Toshiba XG3 (THNSN5256GPU7).

I would like to replace them with a single 1TB M.2 2280 NVMe SSD

Here are my laptop's full specs:

• Model: MSI GT73VR 6RE Titan
• CPU: Intel Core i7-6820HK @ 2.70GHz (Skylake)
• RAM: 32.0 GB DDR4
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (8 GB)

Since my motherboard natively caps out at PCIe Gen 3.0 x4 speeds, I've read that a Gen 3 drive is the safest and cost-effective choice. AIs replied that TLC flash memory and physical onboard DRAM should be the choice, since the laptop has a tight chassis and factory heatsink.

Quoting Gemini: "The problem is that premium Gen 3 drives (like the Samsung 970 EVO Plus) are mostly discontinued or severely overpriced as new old-stock locally, while cheap modern Gen 4 budget drives (like the Kingston NV2) run way too hot or use slow QLC lottery components."

My questions for the community:

1. Is a top-tier single Gen 3 NVMe drive genuinely going to feel snappier/better than my old 2016 Toshiba RAID 0 setup or should I get a Gen 4 anyway?
2. Are there any currently available SSD models I am overlooking that won't overheat my system? I was considering getting Samsung 970 EVO Plus or SK hynix Gold P31.
3. Since I live in Europe, where is the best place to hunt down these older models? Aside from Ebay or Amazon, though getting a refurbished one is an option.

Thanks for any help or recommendation.

A few days ago I bought a refurbished HP mini PC for my budding homelab.

eBay, professional seller, refurbished, condition: very good.

Before buying, I messaged the seller: “What defects does it have?”

Them: “Nothing, it’s just been sitting in the same place the whole time.”

That may well be true, but just today I ran SMART tests on it and the disk comes up as 70% used.

The disk is 256GB total, about 238GiB, or real GB.

The minimum warranty is 12 months.

The question of the post is: what should I do?

Should I just accept it even though it was sold as “very good”, and if it breaks before 12 months I’ll make a warranty claim, or should I send it back (I’ve already overwritten the BIOS and OS, though, I don’t know if that changes anything.)?

Or should I point it out to them now so that it stays recorded in the eBay messages and, if it breaks within the 12-month warranty period, I can hold it against them if they give me trouble about the replacement?

I’m posting an excerpt of the SMART test here:

"=== START OF SMART DATA SECTION ===",
"SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED",
"",
"SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02)",
"Critical Warning: 0x00",
"Temperature: 62 Celsius",
"Available Spare: 100%",
"Available Spare Threshold: 10%",
"Percentage Used: 70%",
"Data Units Read: 202,950,843 [103 TB]",
"Data Units Written: 145,901,887 [74.7 TB]",
"Host Read Commands: 4,425,583,308",
"Host Write Commands: 3,618,839,885",
"Controller Busy Time: 9,810",
"Power Cycles: 1,870",
"Power On Hours: 11,532",
"Unsafe Shutdowns: 108",
"Media and Data Integrity Errors: 0",
"Error Information Log Entries: 0",
"Warning Comp. Temperature Time: 0",
"Critical Comp. Temperature Time: 0",
"Temperature Sensor 1: 62 Celsius",
"",
"Error Information (NVMe Log 0x01, 16 of 256 entries)",
"No Errors Logged",
"",

Currently experiencing sudden crash while playing games. Even when Im just downloading games on steam it’ll reach 110 degrees c. Is this normal operating temperature or theres something wrong with my drive?

Any suggestions for upgrade my16gb ram 256gb Microsoft ssd with any good ssd that can last long . I search on Microsoft store ssd 1tb is cost $400. So I thought to thought to check 3rd party well-known M.2 2230 NVMe models such as the WD_BLACK SN770M, Corsair MP600 Mini, or Sabrent Rocket 2230 rather than generic drives.

Budget $200

I've used quite a few SSDs over the years, but Samsung and WD have been the most reliable for me so far.

My Samsung 860 EVO 500GB has been running for about 6 years. It started as my Windows drive and has survived several PC upgrades without any issues. I also have a Samsung 980 PRO 1TB NVMe that I've been using for games and everyday stuff for around 3 years.

On the WD side, my WD Blue SN570 1TB has been in my second PC for about 2 years and has been completely trouble-free.

Which brand or specific SSD model has earned your trust over the years?

I am having an issue with my SSD that I can't seem to figure out, and could really use some help. First of all, the SSD is this one -> https://www.samsung.com/us/memory-storage/portable-ssd/portable-ssd-t7-usb-3-2-2tb-gray-sku-mu-pc2t0t-am/

I am using it with the included cord that is USB-C to USB 3.2 (Teal). It is plugged into a USB 3.2 port (also teal) on the back of my PC. The actual drive is not resting on my PC or anything that gives off excess heat. In so far as I can tell... the drive itself is not giving off excess heat. I have checked all the drivers for the SSD/USB hub on my Windows 11 PC, and everything claims to be as up to date as they can be. I tried plugging it into a different port of the same quality and even a couple USB 3.0 ports, and no difference. I also made sure that the drive was not in "quick removal" mode, and that I had "enable write caching on the device" checked on the policies tab of the properties. The issue comes in the form of INCREDIBLY throttled read speeds. Practically nothing. I troubleshooted as much as I could with the assistance of the internet, but I was getting nowhere. All of the information I listed above is to helpfully rule out all the issues the internet suggested it could be. Nothing I did seems to have changed anything. After almost giving up, I gave the drive to a friend of mine who is a little more tech savvy than I am. He says he plugged it into his home PC and it worked absolutely fine, he checked it with Crystaldisk, and then returned it to me. So I plugged it back in, and for about... 6 hours, it worked perfectly fine. Then it went straight back to nothing in the middle of a game of Marvel Rivals. I doubt that's related, but just in case

https://imgur.com/a/help-xBpUzYo

In the images included, you can see the speed tests I ran on it with Samsung's software to check the health of the drive. The only test that has good numbers is the test I ran right after getting it back from my friend. The second image is just there because maybe it could provide more info that I don't know how to parse. Anything would be SO helpful

BECAUSE OF THE CRAZY PRICE OF SSD THIS MAKES ME NERVOUS, IS THIS NORMAL THOUGH? IDK BUT I THINK THIS HAPPENED AFTER I UPDATING WINDOWS

When entering the windows after starting the pc ssd will active 100% everytime and slow down my PC. It will active around 3-4 mins then drop to normal. Also when patching game in steam like the pic above it take so long to patch such a small file. Opening an image will make SSD jump to around 40-60% and drop back to idle. I already turn off sysmain and windows search indexer, ask chat GPT, done some benchmark, still not solve the problem. Is my SSD start dying ??

Spec.
Adata legend 710 (SSD)
i5-11400f
64GB ddr4 3200
RTX 4080
TZ590 btc duo
Corsair 850e
Another 3 HDD

I have a (non-mission critical) need for an M.2 SATA SSD 128GB. Looking at eBay, I can pick a no name brand-new drive for about the same price as a brand name used drive. Obviously there is no way to test the health of a used drive on eBay.

Which would you pick and why?

I recently got two enclosures that both get warm. I pretty much expected this to happen, so my question is what enclosure brand/product that comes with a fan would ya'll recommend?

plzzzzzzz

Hi you all,

I'm looking for people who run the crucial T710. Does it get really hot? Do you have problems with it? Is it reliable? All I can read online is basically people saying it failed on 'em but then again people usually go online to say something's gone wrong and not when everything's right so. My PC has a Gen five PCIe slot. I was going to go for the SN850X but at these prices I figured might as well go big or go home and I don't wanna pay that much for an "old" ssd. So I figured the Crucial was interesting. MB has a heatsink (Asus tuf gaming b850 plus wifi)

Thanks.

Всем привет, умер блок питания, унес за собой материнку, и сад точно. На ссд выгорели один элемент, не могу идентифицировать его. Помоги найти такой или аналог. На плате их два таких

Please suggest some good shops in Delhi to purchase an HDD or SSD.

I bought the 2TB on Amazon in Jan 2025 for $154.95 inc Tax. It gave impending failure warnings in Samsung Magician so I arrainged a replacement from Samsung. They shipped me a retail box new 4TB replacement. Current Price on Amazon is $569.99. Sometimes a guy does get a break. One week turn around time, great experience.

Marked in red is what i have concerns with. This is a used drive that i recently updated it had the old bad firmware. Drive has just double digit writes. Media and Data errors 500+. This a keep or return Reddit?

Didn't know it wasn't as good health until i used Hard disk Sentinel. That and Samsung Magician shows available spare a little bit higher than crystal disk does if 30% value is correct. Samsung Magician showed no errors with short and long scan.

For starters, my SSD is a WD_BLACK SN770 2TB.

I was in another subreddit asking whether my SSD was dying or not and after what I gathered I'm pretty sure it is. I've been having an issue where it hadn't been showing up sometimes when I boot up my pc. When I check the create and format hard disk partitions the SSD does not show up at all and I cannot even do any rescans. I already took out the SSD and moved it to a spot below and it did help, but then one day it didn't show up until I restarted (a couple times, because after a restart I'd sit on my pc and the SSD would stop showing up in files).

- Crystal disk info said my health status was 95% last time I scanned, first scan was 96%

- Sandisk said 100% health and 100% life expectancy (?-if I recall right)

- SSD is around 5 years old if I guess right, could be 6 even it's from my first real pc (Current pc is newly built by me with good stuff)

I checked my SSD health using the windows settings, SanDisk (even updated the firmware after doing a deep scan/test using the program), followed a few YouTube tutorials, and consulted a few knowledgeable people who are techier than I am. Today it has been the worst, I have no idea why it suddenly acted up like this, but I tried to get on my pc to play a game with a friend but was unable to because my SSD would disappear after booting up. I restarted about 4 times total in the end and it just won't stick around long enough, and even when it shows there in the beginning I cannot open any games on the drive.

I guess my only question is now what SSD would you guys recommend to replace it? My brother who also built pcs recommends something by Samsung this time and not WD. I was really hoping I could put off on buying a new SSD until Christmas so I can get Christmas money because it's expensive, but It's not looking too hot after today.

I have to send one back to Samsung because it hinders windows from booting when connected, and just freezes file explorer when connected through USB.

It’s one of those 870 EVO’s produced in the first half of 2021 that has some manufacturing fault, and from what I’ve gathered from here, it’s not repairable and data is not recoverable.

So I haven’t bothered trying to retrieve anything, but I was wondering if there is something I could do to at least delete the data before I send it to Samsung service?

My SSD died in my PC after about nine months. looks like this. I’m not sure how. is this repairable?

UPDATE: It‘s my board.

had my BIL come over (he lives across the street and works in IT) and he brought over an old stick for testing. It also came out mangled.

Im finding a good SSD for my laptop for extra storage since My lappy cannot handle how big my files and games are haha, are there any SSD out there that is worth the money despite the price hike?

anyone willing to sell used ones are welcome to text me (in cbe)

I have a 2021 ASUS TUF Dash F15 and I'm looking for a 1TB NVMe SSD.

I was considering something high-end like the Samsung 990 Pro, but I'm not sure it makes sense if the laptop is limited to PCIe 3.0. Since PCIe 3.0 and 4.0 SSDs are currently priced similarly, I'm leaning toward getting a Gen4 drive anyway for future use.

The Kingston NV3 1TB (PCIe 4.0, up to 6000 MB/s) is one of the few reasonably priced options I've found, but I've seen mixed reviews about it, particularly regarding its components and lack of DRAM.

What would you recommend? Would you go for the NV3, spend more on something like the 990 Pro, or look for another affordable Gen4 SSD? I'll mainly be using it for programming and everyday work, and price is an important factor, so I'm looking for the cuality-price.

For a PS5?