Samsung 870 QVO MZ-77Q2T0BW 2TB , Samsung V-NAND, SATA III 6GB/s, R/W(Max) 560MB/s/530MB/s, 2.5". 7mm, 3 Years Warranty
Lowest price ever according to Pricespy
1TB version available for $129
Part of PB Tech's 29th Birthday sale
Other notable deals
Razer DeathAdder v2 X HyperSpeed Wireless Gaming Mouse - $59
Logitech G305 LIGHTSYNC Wireless Gaming Mouse - White - $63.87
Feel free to share other deals in comments
Agreed. QLC is garbage. I wouldn't risk my data on it.
Also apparently Samsung has quietly released its first DRAMless SSD. So don't be tricked by the 980. You can no longer safely say, "All Samsung SSDs have DRAM"
I agree that QLC is bad too, however the Samsung 870 QVO read/write speeds are much better than those Crucial MX500 series. Just make sure you install the dreaded Samsung Magician and use the Optimise performance settings to enable DRAM caching via your computers Physical RAM (look up virtual disk/ramdisk for more information). Over Provisioning helps too but you can do that without software. Not bad for 2TB of data for 2.5" SATA drives.
Oops i stand corrected the 1 TB 870 QVO does have DRAM
@NightRaven797: It's not the read/write that makes QLC abhorrent (although it's not good either, that's a side note as NAND performance is more than anyone needs for general compute). More bits per cell exponentially lowers the reliability of the NAND. It's not a linear worsening as the voltage variance is unchanged but the tolerances shrink.
https://media.kingston.com/kingston/content/ktc-content-solu…
DRAM reduces the write cycles to NAND, so improves the reliability, and it's much faster, improving performance but it doesn't make it as good as fewer bits per cell.
SLC + DRAM > SLC > MLC + DRAM > MLC > TLC + DRAM > TLC > QLC + DRAM > QLC
But QLC is so bad that no drive manufacturer makes a QLC drive without DRAM, hoping to hide how shit it is for at least a year.
@danvelopment: Thanks for the info on the perils of DRAM-less SSDs. Hope it's not gonna be the next big trend, or that at least there should be a huge price advantage.
Do you think the below article (written by manufacturer themselves) is nothing more than face-saving, self-promo for their newer inferior product line?
https://insights.samsung.com/2021/06/25/dram-vs-dram-less-ss…
Today, you can get the price benefit of a DRAM-less SSD with the life span of a DRAM SSD thanks to Samsung’s 980 line.
Loool
@kenshiro: It's more been the perils of QLC than absence of DRAM. There is a place for DRAMless SSDs. And that's cheap and nasty storage, eg a secondary drive for games or data.
On that subject, though:
DRAMless drives have always been a trend that existed. Basically the cheapest SSDs are almost always DRAMless, the more expensive ones have DRAM. So Crucial BX100, DRAMless, Crucial MX500, DRAM.
RAM costs money. Samsung are a RAM manufacturer, and until now if you bought a Samsung drive, it had DRAM, without exception.
From now, you have to carefully read the spec-sheet from Samsung in the same way that you do for every other drive manufacturer to determine whether it has it or not. It's like Toyota quietly releasing a model of Prius that isn't a hybrid.
Until then, you knew if you were buying a Prius, you were buying a hybrid. If someone said the word "Prius" you thought "Hybrid", but that is no longer the case. Now if you hear "Samsung SSD" you can't automatically think "has DRAM".
For your article, they use lots of misdirection, for example as you see in the quote below, they're trying to tie the fact that they offer 5 year warranties whereas some other manufacturer's offer 3, as being evidence that the lifespan is not reduced.
That's not evidence the lifespan has not been reduced, that's evidence the manufacturer has run the numbers and concluded the reduced manufacturing costs across the line will be greater than the cost of increased warranty claims.
A test to see how many writes the two drives can take before becoming read only is evidence it doesn't affect the lifespan.
Additionally they explain how DRAM improves the lifespan of SSDs, none of which mentions that heat is a factor, then throw in the fact that they have better cooling as being a reason that lifespan isn't reduced after the DRAM is removed.
"Most SSD life spans are based on the number of times a memory cell is written over. Traditionally, there’s a significant difference in life span between DRAM-less SSDs and SSDs with DRAM because when the CPU constantly has to go back to the NAND flash memory, it’s putting wear onto the drive in the form of additional data that’s written, rewritten and accessed over and over. This can decrease the life of the drive, and it’s also why many manufacturers offer only a three-year warranty on DRAM-less SSDs, as opposed to the standard five-year warranty that comes with SSDs featuring DRAM.
This doesn’t apply to Samsung’s DRAM-less SSDs, though. The company’s new line features the same five-year warranty as its DRAM SSD offerings, and since the DRAM-less 980 line also includes the same Dynamic Thermal Guard technology, nickel-coated controller and heat spreader label solutions found in Samsung’s high-end 980 series, there’s no worry about overheating or slipping performance."
The average fridge will run for 10 years or more, but they all have a one or two year warranty. If they increased that to three years, it doesn't prove their fridges are any more reliable than fridges with a 2 year warranty, it just says it's economically viable to fix them under warranty for longer.
They also say shit like this:
You’re also getting much more speed than you would with an equivalently priced SATA SSD, as the DRAM-less 980 line can achieve speeds up to six times faster than a standard SATA SSD.
SATA SSDs are limited by the SATA interface, not by their NAND. If you stuck a SATA interface on the NVMe 980 it would go no faster than any other SATA SSD. It has absolutely nothing to do with whether there's a negative effect of removing DRAM from their SSDs.
@danvelopment: Whoa, thought I was reading the same paragraphs - what a huge difference it made with you wading through the crafty spin and suggestive languages. Had hoped that times have changed and big technological firms can afford to be academic.. It appears the old saying is never too old, should always read with a big grain of salt when the "insight" article comes from the seller.. Props to you @danvelopment
@danvelopment: Hey Danvelopement, Thanks for sharing your thoughts too, so many people caught out on dram less drives or less dram with the smaller 256gb compared to 512gb or 1tb etc. It's good to see we have a few techies here too. I was surprised to see qvo with dram, but it makes sense since it will most likely return with refunds and complaints and bad reviews. Regarding speeds I forgot to mention that you should check the cache size as that will impact performance of the drive too, hopefully for those that did some review checks they will see the ssd performs slower than hdd once that sweet spot runs out.
For those that have invested in the dram less drives, you can still use the ram disk (assigning temp folders to the ram disk etc, just do some research about power outages etc before committing to it if you are DIY) or just use manufacturers software to use your system ram to act as dram. Alternatively don't put any major important files on it or back up via gdrive, external etc
I would add to this Logitech MX Keys on sale for $152.56
https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/KEYLOG4623029/Logitech-MX-K…
About as low as you will find them.
Would people generally recommend the DeathAdder X2 Hyperspeed or the G305 Lightspeed?
Depends on what your other gear is. I prefer Logitech G502, but I also have headphoness G432 (gaming) and H600 (work) and they all link to the G hub software where I can control everything under one application with driver updates etc…Personally I quite like the Razer DeathAdder X2 Hyperspeed over the G305.
DeathAdder:
G305:
- has built in battery, but when that battery dies you will need to get a new mouse.
- ability to use micro usb cable and still use the mouse when its charging or full.
rest is just depends on your hand size and if you are left handed etc.. look up DPI max and low, Polling rates and good luck buddy.
Thanks for the thorough response, I own a G203 - which is a wired G305 yeah? and went in PB just now.. walked out with the Deathadder. The non ambidextrous mouse feels right - coming from a mx master 3 for work use.
So glad you went with the DeathAdder too, you will enjoy those extra left buttons. Yeah the G203 is definitely a wired version of the G305. You should notice a big difference going from Wireless back to Wired later with the responsive of the mouse movement and lack of wires hahah.
Here's the USB batteries I was talking about, I brought a bunch for my VR Gear from Amazon.
https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/BATPAB00001/Pale-Blue-USB-R…
(The above is not a deal just demonstrating what the batteries are).
@NightRaven797: Those batteries are cool! Will keep in mind for next time, but for now the eneloops should do the trick!
@NightRaven797: I'm curious, what do you use your vr gear for? I have a quest 2 but am struggling to find reasons to pick it up anymore after the first 2 weeks
@Bill: Hey Bill,
Replayable: Beat Saber, Space Pirate Trainer
One off: Job Simiulator > ( try Virtual Virtual Reality or Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-Ality) , The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR (last forever really)
Recommended if you have friends that use their VR too: Arizona Sunshine (scary), Raw Data
But yeah you do need to switch it up a little its hard to compete with some AAA games outside of VR.
@NightRaven797: Thanks, will have a go at some of them tonight. Only game I've played out of them is beat saber.
What headset do you use?
I last started playing the walking dead saints and sinners since I heard it was supposed to be the best vr game but found it a bit boring so I haven't been back to it after playing the first hour.
Some of these games seem to be pcvr, I don't want to get in that right now which limits me to just games natively playable from the oculus store. I just watched some gameplay of raw data and arizona sunshine and it looks really fun.
Out of those games, from what I could find, it is raw data, rick and morty and skyrim that require pcvr.
@Bill: Oops forgot to mention my VR is PC with inbuilt sounds on the goggles Samsung HMD+) , quest is definitely a cheaper way of doing it without all/much setting up pc and calibration of cameras etc hence why I ditched the Rift/Vive style setups in favour of slightly slower specs but faster setup. I think superhot might work for your quest which is awesome too.
There are some good deals but I don't think the ssd is one of them.