These seem to have taken a tumble despite inflation elsewhere, around £200
for 4 TB.

I have been looking at an external Crucial 4 TB device, looks as if it has
an NVMe in it from its shape. There was a question on Amazon about garbage
collection and Crucial responded:

"On a PC, power on with the SSD installed and enter your system's BIOS or
UEFI (please refer to your system manufacturer’s documentation on how to
access the BIOS). Leave the system in this menu for 6-8 hours, which will
power the SSD but not execute any operations, allowing Garbage Collection
to run."

That seems an astonishing long winded procedure.

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
The true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you do not
expect to sit.

On 4 Jun 2023 at 10:53:51 BST, ""Jeff Gaines"" <jgnewsid@outlook.com>
wrote:

>
> These seem to have taken a tumble despite inflation elsewhere, around £200
> for 4 TB.

Watch out - there are various grades of SSD, and the larger cheaper ones
will be the cheaper grades unsurprisingly. For primary use - OS drive
rather than bulk storage - look for ones with a decent cache and not
quad (slowest, most liable for flakiness) or triple (next slowest etc).
Quad is "four bits per cell" which means 16 voltage levels have to be
stored to define those four bits; triple is three bits, 8 voltage levels
etc.

You can generally tell by the price. If a given mfr has two the same
size but one is half the price, that's the shit one.

> I have been looking at an external Crucial 4 TB device, looks as if it has
> an NVMe in it from its shape. There was a question on Amazon about garbage
> collection and Crucial responded:
>
> "On a PC, power on with the SSD installed and enter your system's BIOS or
> UEFI (please refer to your system manufacturer’s documentation on how to
> access the BIOS). Leave the system in this menu for 6-8 hours, which will
> power the SSD but not execute any operations, allowing Garbage Collection
> to run."
>
> That seems an astonishing long winded procedure.

There's no need to do this with normal operating systems. Windows and
Mac will sort it at as you go and in quiet periods, Linux I expect it
depends on which filesystem and options you have.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of
producing random digits is, of course, in a state
of sin. -- John von Neumann

On 4 Jun 2023 at 16:03:58 BST, Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:

> On 4 Jun 2023 at 10:53:51 BST, ""Jeff Gaines"" <jgnewsid@outlook.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> These seem to have taken a tumble despite inflation elsewhere, around £200
>> for 4 TB.
>
> Watch out - there are various grades of SSD, and the larger cheaper ones
> will be the cheaper grades unsurprisingly. For primary use - OS drive
> rather than bulk storage - look for ones with a decent cache and not
> quad (slowest, most liable for flakiness) or triple (next slowest etc).
> Quad is "four bits per cell" which means 16 voltage levels have to be
> stored to define those four bits; triple is three bits, 8 voltage levels
> etc.
>
> You can generally tell by the price. If a given mfr has two the same
> size but one is half the price, that's the shit one.

This /looks/ OK?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-MX500-NAND-Internal-560MB/dp/B09FRRWVWX?th=1

--
Cheers, Rob, Sheffield UK

On 4 Jun 2023 at 19:17:59 BST, "RJH" <patchmoney@gmx.com> wrote:

> On 4 Jun 2023 at 16:03:58 BST, Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:
>
>> On 4 Jun 2023 at 10:53:51 BST, ""Jeff Gaines"" <jgnewsid@outlook.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> These seem to have taken a tumble despite inflation elsewhere, around £200
>>> for 4 TB.
>>
>> Watch out - there are various grades of SSD, and the larger cheaper ones
>> will be the cheaper grades unsurprisingly. For primary use - OS drive
>> rather than bulk storage - look for ones with a decent cache and not
>> quad (slowest, most liable for flakiness) or triple (next slowest etc).
>> Quad is "four bits per cell" which means 16 voltage levels have to be
>> stored to define those four bits; triple is three bits, 8 voltage levels
>> etc.
>>
>> You can generally tell by the price. If a given mfr has two the same
>> size but one is half the price, that's the shit one.
>
> This /looks/ OK?
>
> https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-MX500-NAND-Internal-560MB/dp/B09FRRWVWX?th=1

Tom's Hardware like them, they're three-level but reliable anyway.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crucial-mx500-ssd-review-nand,5390.html

Old review, but the 4TB appears to be the same tech.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++
makes it harder, but when you do, it blows away
your whole leg.
-- Bjarne Stroustrup

Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:

> On 4 Jun 2023 at 19:17:59 BST, "RJH" <patchmoney@gmx.com> wrote:
>
>> This /looks/ OK?
>> https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-MX500-NAND-Internal-560MB/dp/B09FRRWVWX?th=1
>
> Tom's Hardware like them, they're three-level but reliable anyway.
> https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crucial-mx500-ssd-review-nand,5390.html
>
> Old review, but the 4TB appears to be the same tech.

RealHardwareReviews generally likes it too, confirms the 4TB is also TLC

<https://realhardwarereviews.com/crucial-mx500-4tb-review/13/#split_content>

On 4 Jun 2023 at 19:28:15 BST, Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:

> On 4 Jun 2023 at 19:17:59 BST, "RJH" <patchmoney@gmx.com> wrote:
>
>> On 4 Jun 2023 at 16:03:58 BST, Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:
>>
>>> On 4 Jun 2023 at 10:53:51 BST, ""Jeff Gaines"" <jgnewsid@outlook.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> These seem to have taken a tumble despite inflation elsewhere, around £200
>>>> for 4 TB.
>>>
>>> Watch out - there are various grades of SSD, and the larger cheaper ones
>>> will be the cheaper grades unsurprisingly. For primary use - OS drive
>>> rather than bulk storage - look for ones with a decent cache and not
>>> quad (slowest, most liable for flakiness) or triple (next slowest etc).
>>> Quad is "four bits per cell" which means 16 voltage levels have to be
>>> stored to define those four bits; triple is three bits, 8 voltage levels
>>> etc.
>>>
>>> You can generally tell by the price. If a given mfr has two the same
>>> size but one is half the price, that's the shit one.
>>
>> This /looks/ OK?
>>
>> https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-MX500-NAND-Internal-560MB/dp/B09FRRWVWX?th=1
>
> Tom's Hardware like them, they're three-level but reliable anyway.
>
> https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crucial-mx500-ssd-review-nand,5390.html
>
> Old review, but the 4TB appears to be the same tech.
>
> Cheers - Jaimie

Please excuse the thread hijack, but I'm looking at these as I move away from
a NAS. I'm after a 4TB disk that'll need to be portable, occasionally moving
between the TV and computer for DVD rips etc. Considering this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-CT4000X6SSD9-4TB-Portable-SSD/dp/B08W1KDM9K/

Obviously not as quick as the SSD in a caddy, but convenient and a bit cheaper
.. . .
--
Cheers, Rob, Sheffield UK

RJH wrote:

> https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08W1KDM9K/
> Obviously not as quick as the SSD in a caddy, but convenient and a bit cheaper

Given that is is USB3.2 it could well be faster than a SATA drive in a
caddy, provided your computer(s) have suitable type-C ports ...

On 5 Jun 2023 at 15:24:24 BST, "Andy Burns" <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:

> RJH wrote:
>
>> https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08W1KDM9K/
>> Obviously not as quick as the SSD in a caddy, but convenient and a bit cheaper
>
> Given that is is USB3.2 it could well be faster than a SATA drive in a
> caddy, provided your computer(s) have suitable type-C ports ...

Indeed! It boasts 800meg/sec while SATA3 is limited to 600meg/sec (ish).

Cheers - Jaimie
--
"The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted"
-- Bertrand Russell