How Not to Buy a SSD • Hacker News Board

Re: How Not to Buy a SSD

#161

Post by Panzer04 » Sat, Aug 23, 2025, 5:46 AM UTC

krackers wrote: post #155

Panzer04 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you joking? You bought 30 64GB SSDs from 2010 in 2021? You realise 3k buys you much faster, much higher capacity modern SSDs with the same longevity characteristics? Hell, if it really matters there's still some optane floating around, with 100k cycle endurance ratings and much, much better performance.

Not the same longevity characteristics, I thought newer SSDs are TLC compared to SLC of old SSDs

Typically true. The more expensive the drive the more likely it'll be MLC or SLC, and if you're willing to go out of spec it's usually possible to reprogram a drive controller to operate in SLC mode.

Re: How Not to Buy a SSD

#162

Post by lmz » Sat, Aug 23, 2025, 5:51 AM UTC

morninglight wrote: post #109

p1mrx wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ValiDrive is Windows-only and closed source. Does it have any advantages over https://github.com/AltraMayor/f3 ?

ValiDrive was designed to be fast and nondestructive - In a random, non-repeating sequence, at each of 576 separate evenly spread locations on any drive, ValiDrive reads the current contents of that region. It then fills that region with random “data noise” then reads back the region's contents to verify that the “data noise” was actually stored. ValiDrive then always rewrites the region's original data to restore wh…

How is a "write random data and undo it later" test considered "nondestructive"? Unless it has fs knowledge and only does it to unallocated sectors.

Re: How Not to Buy a SSD

#163

Post by yonatan8070 » Sat, Aug 23, 2025, 7:01 AM UTC

nfriedly wrote: post #143

yonatan8070 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

KSP https://ksp.co.il/

When I click that I just get a giant error page from cloudfront saying that I have been blocked. Do they block all non-Israeli IPs or am I special?

Good question, I haven't tried to browse from abroad, so I have no idea, but it could be the case since they only operate in Israel.

I don't have a VPN to test, but I did ask ChatGPT [1] to try browsing it from its IP and it also failed. Afterwards I asked it to tell me what it sees from https://icanhazip.com, and it returned `74.7.36.81`, which is in London according to [2]

[1] https://chatgpt.com/share/e/68a9670d-d44c-8008-9a78-0d89662b... [2] https://whatismyipaddress.com/ip/74.7.36.81

Re: How Not to Buy a SSD

#164

Post by PeterStuer » Sat, Aug 23, 2025, 7:41 AM UTC

lazide wrote: post #108

PeterStuer wrote: post #62

At the start of the eCommerce business, people flocked to Amazon because they had trouble trusting smaller retailers. These days it is the opposite. These brands went from trusted sellers to whitewashing marketplaces for the most dubious fraudulent drop-shippers by means of things like "sku-pooling" (you by design can not and never will know who shipped your specific item into the giant pool at Amazon). So now I shop…

I don’t remember it as not trusting smaller retailers (as in they would sell you fraudulent goods). I remember it as they would have old stock and try to charge you crazy high prices for it, if they had it at all. Smaller online retailers, yeah there was trust issues, but a lot of that was due to ‘do they even exist’ and card fraud (due to someone stealing the numbers). That someone would just ship you bullshit was a…

At the very start it was mostly not trusting a website with your visa card data.

Re: How Not to Buy a SSD

#165

Post by archi42 » Sat, Aug 23, 2025, 12:53 PM UTC

bullen wrote: post #131

Havoc wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big fan of 2nd hand enterprise SSDs strategy too but wow not like that. The slightly more modern intel MLCs like S3700 crush the early SLCs across the board - including endurance. Would have cost you 1/3rd the price for vastly superior specs.

No MLC lasts 5 years tops. I have 5x SLC (40-60GB) drives from 2010 still running. Not a single SLC has failed for me ever. I also have 5x MLC (120-400GB ones) drives that failed. All MLC have failed for me. The stats don't look too good.

That's pure anecdata. We don't even know your workload or configuration.

Contrary anecdata: I just replaced my old SSDs: 2013 64GB 20nm MLC at 19% wear level and a 2018 500GB TLC at 34% wear level. Not because they failed, but because I had the OS on a 64GB RAID1 and needed more space. Only optimization was setting "noatime".

But that's still a horrible small N, so even the comined data is essentially meaningless.

btw, I replaced them with a bunch of HGST DC SS200 1.6TB from 2018, two of which have about as much capacity as your 30 disks. The 15nm MLC NAND is rated for 3 DWPD and has a 3% wear level. The dual ported SAS3 interface is overkill for me.

I went for a 5 disk RAID6, and could replace it another 8 times while still keeping some spare change for a visit at a gourmet restaurant.

Re: How Not to Buy a SSD

#166

Post by archi42 » Sat, Aug 23, 2025, 1:07 PM UTC

thisislife2 wrote: post #43

crinkly wrote: post #13

I usually buy second hand enterprise SSDs off eBay. No one bothers to fake them and they last longer than the consumer ones even if they are a few years old.

I hear this a lot online - buy used enterprise stuff online, it'll be cheaper and lasts long (at least you get your money's worth). But when you start to explore the online market for these used enterprise hardware, you find that nobody really sells it for cheap any more, at a price that makes sense to buy it. For example, if a new enterprise class SSD is $250, you may find a used one for $125. But then, brand new co…

You can monitor https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php - they have a "Great Deals" and a "For Sale/..." section. There is a 'Enterprise SSD "small deals"' topic with recent activity. That's relevant for both EU and US: https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/enterprise...

I got my enterprise SSDs (1.6TB, 3DWPD, drawback: SAS3) from our Craigslist-equivalent. First I got 2 for 150€ and had a nice chat with the seller, who seems to had a big box of these. A week later he offered me his remaining 3 disks for another 150€. On eBay it seems you have to make offers.

Some local info: I also noticed on the German eBay getting Chinese cards to be much more expensive than on eBay in the US. The same seller asking 80€ or 100€ for the same LSI 9400. However, finding the article on eBay.com and then using the item ID on eBay.de allowed me to get it for the better price.

Re: How Not to Buy a SSD

#167

Post by npn » Sat, Aug 23, 2025, 1:32 PM UTC

I have bought like 20+ used enterprise ssds from taobao (for my various PCs). Only a single one dies because I forgot to add the heat-sink. I think the most important thing is how trustworthy the seller is.

Re: How Not to Buy a SSD

#168

Post by vel0city » Sat, Aug 23, 2025, 1:44 PM UTC

traceroute66 wrote: post #45

moepstar wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> even sold by Amazon Honest question: after all the reports of co-mingled inventory, plain fakes etc. being sold by Amazon - for years i might add - do you really consider Amazon being a reliable source for anything that is not some unimportant trinket? I went from spending > 10k€ per year to less than 5%, probably not even that, on there, all by their own fault. And i see no reason to buy there anymore: - the defau…

> do you really consider Amazon being a reliable source for anything that is not some unimportant trinket? Not the person you're asking, but yes, I do. You know the biggest reason wny ? Their no-bullshit returns policy. Seriously. Click button, get your returns label. The refund is sent to you as soon as the courier or post office has scanned the barcode. Hell, sometimes Amazon just refund you and don't even want the…

Sure, Amazon is fast at returns and usually pretty good about processing them.

But you know what I find even faster? Not having to process a return in the first place because I actually got what I ordered and it wasn't cheap bullshit or counterfeits.

Plus it seems like half the time I'm dealing with their support because they just failed to actually seal the bubble mailer. So that two day shipping that actually took three days to show up really took me nearly a week because of their inability to actually mail things properly. 30% of my orders over the last few years have been this exact problem.

In the end sure, their support is pretty good and fast. But I've had to get their support on over half the orders I've placed with them because the item arrived damaged, the item was clearly used but sold as new, the item was a fake/knockoff, or I ended up with an empty bubble mailer on my doorstep that was clearly never sealed.

Meanwhile I haven't had to interact with support on any of the other online retailers I've used, and I placed way more non-Amazon orders than Amazon orders.

Re: How Not to Buy a SSD

#169

Post by tengwar2 » Sat, Aug 23, 2025, 1:54 PM UTC

hangonhn wrote: post #144

dotancohen wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you notice that the media was thinner? On passenger vehicles at least, the filter media is in a stainless steel cup that precludes examination.

BMW at least has the media completely exposed. There is no canister like you might find on Honda oil filters. Basically on BMWs the oil filter housing is permanent. I don't think it's a BMW specific thing. Might be a German car thing?

Similar with VAG.

Re: How Not to Buy a SSD

#170

Post by elevation » Sat, Aug 23, 2025, 1:57 PM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #157

ChiefNotAClue wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, been buying from Amazon for the past 15 years or so, and not once received a counterfeit product. Granted, I still don't like they they mix up their inventory, but I think it's a smaller problem than people make it to be. Most people are buying household supplies off of Amazon; that's not really a category that gets affected by counterfeits.

I can say I've received counterfeit camera and laptop batteries, counterfeit chargers and USB chargers (like Anker), and SD/microSD cards from Amazon. All of that stuff I buy now from BH or Adorama.

B&H is a hidden gem. I came across them because I needed a camera, but they sell lots of other stuff and their sales team consists of actual humans who have physically used the products they sell, and a supply chain they actually control. In the past, I’ve talked to a real human there who:

* verified the un-advertised compatibility between an accessory and the device I was buying it for (hours of googling had not been able to confirm this for me)

* explained their personal experience with both the Sony and Canon cameras I was considering

* nearly price-matched another vendor’s sale on a large purchase of Dell monitors

They have their own warehouses with real physical stock ordered directly from suppliers, (no drop shipping and no third party sellers.) One order I received even came with a hand written note signed by the salesman who’d help me select it. A nice touch, but impossible for an operation at Amazon scale.

These days B&H is my preferred vendor for PCs+components, AV gear, SMB network equipment.