Best high TBW PCIe 4 SSD?

[Etern4l]

Hello, after a brief research the answer seems to be clearly FireCuda 530, nothing else comes close to 2500 TBW for 2TB. Performs reasonably well too.

 

Any experiences with this SSD, or perhaps some alternatives I missed?

 

How is the real-life reliability?

[jaybee83]

13 hours ago, Etern4l said:

Hello, after a brief research the answer seems to be clearly FireCuda 530, nothing else comes close to 2500 TBW for 2TB. Performs reasonably well too.

 

Any experiences with this SSD, or perhaps some alternatives I missed?

 

How is the real-life reliability?

 

only had mine for like a week or so in use so too early to tell 😄 

[tps3443]

13 hours ago, Etern4l said:

Hello, after a brief research the answer seems to be clearly FireCuda 530, nothing else comes close to 2500 TBW for 2TB. Performs reasonably well too.

 

Any experiences with this SSD, or perhaps some alternatives I missed?

 

How is the real-life reliability?

I bought a Corsair M600 Pro XT Hydro. They have 3,000 TB write life I think?  It’ll be going in the new 13900KF build. 

 

While mine is the watercooled model and kinda silly, the air cooled model runs very cool too. Much cooler than the prior generation. 
 

The Corsair M600 Pro XT 2TB is only $219.99 USD.

 

I did not do a tremendous amount of research based on the endurance of these SSD’s or other models. And that’s because I have (2) Intel M.2 660P’s in a Raid 0 configuration and they have lasted absolutely for freaking ever! I’ve had them over 2 years now, and both still at 97%. The thing is, I’m always uninstalling massively huge games and re-installing the same games or even new games on a daily basis and vice versa rinse repeat. They only have a 100 TBW rating which is like that’s it?? I can’t kill them it’s (2) little 512GB Intel 660P M.2’s in raid 0 providing a total of 1TB of storage. They both work wonderfully to this day. I would not over think TBW too much though.  I will hammer an M.2 SSD really hard. Far worse than most, always reinstalling Windows probably 6+ times per year, and then constantly filling my storage and removing games to reinstall other games lol.

 

 

 

 

 

[Etern4l]

Strong option, many thanks. TBW is actually 1400 for the 2TB model vs 2.5k for the Firecuda but that's decent. The reason I'm looking for high TBW is that the usage will be fairly heavy, might easily run into tens of TB per month so looking for something with a bit of headroom. I actually have a 2TB Corsair drive, has been good for me but mostly used as storage. Will def read some reviews on this. 

[jaybee83]

12 minutes ago, Etern4l said:

Strong option, many thanks. TBW is actually 1400 for the 2TB model vs 2.5k for the Firecuda but that's decent. The reason I'm looking for high TBW is that the usage will be fairly heavy, might easily run into tens of TB per month so looking for something with a bit of headroom. I actually have a 2TB Corsair drive, has been good for me but mostly used as storage. Will def read some reviews on this. 

nice extra for the firecuda is also the three year data recovery service thats included. so no worries on losing any data in the first three years 🙂 

[Etern4l]

7 hours ago, jaybee83 said:

nice extra for the firecuda is also the three year data recovery service thats included. so no worries on losing any data in the first three years 🙂 

Yeah I'm a little sceptical about that service, therefore I would be hedging my bets. Really the main concern is Seagate's short track record with the Firecuda's SSDs, some people say the 520 wasn't that reliable. 

[jaybee83]

15 hours ago, Etern4l said:

Yeah I'm a little sceptical about that service, therefore I would be hedging my bets. Really the main concern is Seagate's short track record with the Firecuda's SSDs, some people say the 520 wasn't that reliable. 

 

if reliability is your first and foremost priority, then id wait for the shortly upcoming 990 Pro, u just cannot beat Samsung in terms of SSD reliability.

only reason i went with the Firecuda this round was that it provides higher TBW and a bit higher performance than the 980 Pro did.

[Etern4l]

On 10/20/2022 at 10:38 PM, tps3443 said:

I bought a Corsair M600 Pro XT Hydro. They have 3,000 TB write life I think?  It’ll be going in the new 13900KF build. 

 

While mine is the watercooled model and kinda silly, the air cooled model runs very cool too. Much cooler than the prior generation. 
 

The Corsair M600 Pro XT 2TB is only $219.99 USD.

 

I did not do a tremendous amount of research based on the endurance of these SSD’s or other models. And that’s because I have (2) Intel M.2 660P’s in a Raid 0 configuration and they have lasted absolutely for freaking ever! I’ve had them over 2 years now, and both still at 97%. The thing is, I’m always uninstalling massively huge games and re-installing the same games or even new games on a daily basis and vice versa rinse repeat. They only have a 100 TBW rating which is like that’s it?? I can’t kill them it’s (2) little 512GB Intel 660P M.2’s in raid 0 providing a total of 1TB of storage. They both work wonderfully to this day. I would not over think TBW too much though.  I will hammer an M.2 SSD really hard. Far worse than most, always reinstalling Windows probably 6+ times per year, and then constantly filling my storage and removing games to reinstall other games lol.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The crazy thing about the Corsair Mp600 is that all the models come with some sort of heatsink (which seems permanent), as if they didn't know that high-end boards have heatsinks built in. Have to cross that one off :(

[jaybee83]

2 hours ago, Etern4l said:

 

The crazy thing about the Corsair Mp600 is that all the models come with some sort of heatsink (which seems permanent), as if they didn't know that high-end boards have heatsinks built in. Have to cross that one off 😞

 

haha i actually got the heatsink version of the 530 but tore it off due to the mobo heatsink. was quite tricky but worth it in the end 🙂 

[cylix]

I bought a Kingston ck3000 for my new build. One of the fastest drives around and pretty good reliability aswell but if you can wait take the 990 pro.

[Etern4l]

Just now, cylix said:

I bought a Kingston ck3000 for my new build. One of the fastest drives around and pretty good reliability aswell but if you can wait take the 990 pro.

 

Thanks, I saw this ranked high by TH but couldn't find it for sale initially. 1600 TBW for the 2TB model is second only to the Firecuda, runs on the same Phison E18 controller. Will read through. If it's as reliable as Kingston RAM then def a very strong option.

[cylix]

1 hour ago, Etern4l said:

 

Thanks, I saw this ranked high by TH but couldn't find it for sale initially. 1600 TBW for the 2TB model is second only to the Firecuda, runs on the same Phison E18 controller. Will read through. If it's as reliable as Kingston RAM then def a very strong option.

I will build my desktop this weekend and i will do some benchmarks on the kingston. 👍

I got mine from Amazon and it was cheaper as firecuda and the s850 from wd.

[jaybee83]

2 hours ago, cylix said:

I will build my desktop this weekend and i will do some benchmarks on the kingston. 👍

I got mine from Amazon and it was cheaper as firecuda and the s850 from wd.

oh good thinking! reminds me that i havent done any benching yet on the SSD. but in any case, still need to bench the whole friggin system lulz. Hyperion completely set up now though 😁 and had my first gaming session last night, playing through the newer Wolfenstein series once more, love those games! started off again with The New Order - unfortunately, that game is fps locked to max 60 fps and all workarounds entail sped up physics, bleh. on the flipside, the 4090 was running at like 15-20%, maxing out at 100-150W with everything cranked up to the max LOL

[cylix]

Did a quick bench of the KC3000

 

[jaybee83]

28 minutes ago, cylix said:

Did a quick bench of the KC3000

 

noice! ill follow right up with my firecuda 530 😁👌🏻

[jaybee83]

here we go:

 

On the read side all very comparable, except for random 4K Q1T1, where mine runs 10% slower. might be due to background crap running or crappy win11 pro performance (yeah yeah i know, im already regretting it 😄)

write side sequentials also quite similar. random 4k writes are interesting though, whopping 37% faster for high queue sizes (due to more chips on the 4TB disk?) but also 24% lower Q1T1 performance (could be win11 again).

[cylix]

Why you went with w11? Hate that POS 😁

[jaybee83]

20 hours ago, cylix said:

Why you went with w11? Hate that POS 😁

weeeell....i have no idea what kinda short term insanity rode me there. i guess i at least wanted to give it a chance to prove itself. but nope, its crap, eats up SO MUCH performance, not even funny anymore. so lets hope and see if and when updates will fix this. cuz for now i dont really have time or nerves for another OS install 😅

[cylix]

11 hours ago, jaybee83 said:

weeeell....i have no idea what kinda short term insanity rode me there. i guess i at least wanted to give it a chance to prove itself. but nope, its crap, eats up SO MUCH performance, not even funny anymore. so lets hope and see if and when updates will fix this. cuz for now i dont really have time or nerves for another OS install 😅

yeah i had it also for a test run on my office pc, from the begging when i saw the middle taskbar i realize is not for  me, even after i put it left..also the explorer is awful!, all that extra menus..what a piece of crap microsoft did..

[jaybee83]

3 hours ago, cylix said:

yeah i had it also for a test run on my office pc, from the begging when i saw the middle taskbar i realize is not for  me, even after i put it left..also the explorer is awful!, all that extra menus..what a piece of crap microsoft did..

the design changes actually dont really bother me all that much. just the fact that esp. 22H2 currently has huge performance issues with Zen 4. no bueno!

[ryan]

3000tb use? geez Im probably downloading and deleting 1 tb per week. 3000 weeks seems weak. how long should a nvme ssd last year wise

[Custom90gt]

3 hours ago, ryan said:

3000tb use? geez Im probably downloading and deleting 1 tb per week. 3000 weeks seems weak. how long should a nvme ssd last year wise

 

I would be shocked if you're downloading 1TB a week unless you're working with uncompressed photos/video on a professional basis.  Aren't you on mobile data in your house?

[Etern4l]

Yeah, I think one needs a specific use case to start worrying about TBW, one such use case would be reinstalling a gigantic Steam collection every week for some reason 😉

Heavy swapping can also deal a blow here, but a) few people push their systems that far b) the solution is to get more RAM.

 

I went with a Firecuda 530 based on the leading max TBW and pricing/availability, thanks everyone for their feedback.

[ryan]

On 10/30/2022 at 2:02 PM, Custom90gt said:

 

I would be shocked if you're downloading 1TB a week unless you're working with uncompressed photos/video on a professional basis.  Aren't you on mobile data in your house?

perhaps it wasn't the best guess im just going by what my internet usage is like..writing and caching pages youtube ect games wise im constantly shuffling games as im like a adhd kid when it comes to contentment with games im always shifting...but 3000 tb doesnt seem like much

 

what does a typical HDD get?

[Custom90gt]

15 hours ago, ryan said:

perhaps it wasn't the best guess im just going by what my internet usage is like..writing and caching pages youtube ect games wise im constantly shuffling games as im like a adhd kid when it comes to contentment with games im always shifting...but 3000 tb doesnt seem like much

 

what does a typical HDD get?

 

Mechanical hard drives do not have limited write endurance.  One way you can check for how much lifetime you've written to your SSD is to run Crystal Disk Info and see what it says, I think it's going to be far less than you're imagining. If one really needs high write endurance then enterprise level drives are really the only solution, but they are typically older and slower.  My old HGST 400GB (yes small) SAS SLC drives can write 35PB - these are what I use for caching or frequently written data.  They only have read/write speeds in the 500mb/s range but in RAID0 that's fast enough to saturate 10GB/s network speeds.