NVMe SSD: WD Black or Samsung EVO

[kiddingguy]

I am thinking of getting a 2 TB SSD (OS and for gaming).

Which one is better?

Western Digital Black SN750 or Samsung 970 EVO Plus?

The Samsung drive a is lot cheaper (129 vs 175 EUR)

[Sulphy]

Both are pretty decent ... I personally, have always gone for the Samsung m.2's... you should be able to find some sweet deals on 980 Pro's instead... review comparisons and make your decision i guess  

Something along the lines of this: Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1TB vs Western Digital WD Black SN750 SE 1TB: What is the difference? (versus.com)

[spaceelf]

On 10/03/2023 at 02:53, kiddingguy said:

I am thinking of getting a 2 TB SSD (OS and for gaming).

Which one is better?

Western Digital Black SN750 or Samsung 970 EVO Plus?

The Samsung drive a is lot cheaper (129 vs 175 EUR)

I've used a lot of SSDs and unless they're getting too hot, you're not really going to notice a difference.  I'm not saying always go with the cheaper model, but in this case I don't think they're meaningfully distinct.

[Ixion]

I have multiple NVME SSDs and you'll realistically never see the difference in performance outside of bench-marking apps. Currently I have a Gen 4 Seagate Firecuda 530 OS, Adata SX8200 Pro Games drive (Gen 3) and a Western Digital Black 850 and they're all just fast. I also have a Samsung 870 Evo SATA drive and other than big file copies even that holds its own pretty well.

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

Yeah, I have a 970 EVO, but not the pro version.

I also have a WD Black SN750 SE. Had a good sale on it.

I never seen a difference between the two..

Go with the better price, both are good companies  

[Brandon H Supervisor]

your comparisons aren't quite 1:1 with the two drives so clarifying a couple items could help you decide.

what gen of nvme does your mobo support? PCI 3 or PCI 4 speeds? if your mobo doesn't support PCI 4 nvme then you won't get much extra benefit from the SN750 since it's a PCI 4 device. The EVO would be the better option if this is the case. This is also why the large price difference between the two drives.

If your mobo DOES support PCI 4 nvme then I'd consider a Samsung Pro instead of an EVO to compare against the SN750

edit: nvm looks like I'm partially mistaken about the SN750; looks like it has gen3 and gen4 variations. Was not aware WD had split the model like that, odd thing to do as it just adds confusion like mine lol

[kiddingguy]

I have a Gen 3/PCI3 on my mobo.

So both are a good option. The Samsung one is around 25% cheaper...

[kiddingguy]

Almost same price... WD_BLACK SN770 NVMe SSD 2 TB
(it's PCI4, but can run on my PCI3; and more future-proof in case I decide to replace my notebook within the next 5 years or so...)

[ThaCrip]

Without even looking up the details, I would almost certainly default to the cheaper one as it's a meaningful money savings and they are already beyond standard SATA based SSD's speed anyways as even standard SATA based SSD's are already plenty fast enough for most usage.

if the price differences was barely anything I would just get the 'faster' model.

but Mindovermaster pretty much summed up what I would have guessed without doing any research between the two models. because speed wise I would not expect any meaningful difference and brand wise both should be reliable enough so at that point it pretty much comes back to price.

p.s. when it comes to standard SATA based SSD's from Samsung, I would say EVO is better than PRO overall because price is quite a bit lower and write life is still quite high, especially on somewhat larger drives. because the last I knew the EVO's had a 5 year warranty and PRO's had a 10 year warranty. I would say it's unlikely a EVO will die within 10 years anyways (my Samsung 850 EVO (250GB) will be 8 years old in May 2023 and total data written is 27.100TBW (official write life rating is 75TBW and will likely go well beyond that before failure occurs)). if the PRO was only slightly more money it might be worth buying over the EVO. but one can buy 500GB or 1TB (and fairly lately even 2TB models are starting to become more reasonably priced) and it's write life is quite high to where unless someone is really hammering it every single day the drive is simply not going to fail from writing data to it for more than 10 years easy (short of those occasional faulty hardware batches as I would assume a very high percentage of say my Samsung 850 EVO will make it 'at least' 10+ years before they fail).

[ThaCrip]

On 10/03/2023 at 13:58, kiddingguy said:

Almost same price... WD_BLACK SN770 NVMe SSD 2 TB
(it's PCI4, but can run on my PCI3; and more future-proof in case I decide to replace my notebook within the next 5 years or so...)

Sadly, I don't even know why they replaced the more time proven SATA for most general devices since that connector should be more future proof in general for most computers. even for laptops, besides physical space savings, it seems like they would be better off with standard SATA overall.

I am not a fan of changing connectors unless there is a real reason, especially given SATA has been quite standardized for a long time now. I get that newer SSD tech can transfer large files at much higher speeds but unless someone is routinely transferring large files between to really fast SSD's, then the speed advantage of connectors with speeds higher than SATA is pretty much null. hence, I would argue SSD's with a SATA connection would be preferred for most people in this regard since it's common/standardized and probably is not going away anytime soon.

note: obviously I am not faulting you or anything as you are just trying to work with what you have, but that's another reason I am not a fan of laptops in general. desktops are superior across the board short of portability pretty much.

p.s. hell, while I don't plan on dumping my current main computer (which it's motherboard will be 11 years in in May 2023) anytime soon. I think even when I do get around to building another computer, there is a good chance ill continue to use SATA based SSD's because they are more standardized as it's a safer bet one can use these in a wider range of hardware than any other type of connector and I can't imagine I would see much difference between SATA and whatever connector/standard is the 'latest-and-greatest' in the vast majority of uses.

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

On 10/03/2023 at 09:45, Brandon H said:

your comparisons aren't quite 1:1 with the two drives so clarifying a couple items could help you decide.

what gen of nvme does your mobo support? PCI 3 or PCI 4 speeds? if your mobo doesn't support PCI 4 nvme then you won't get much extra benefit from the SN750 since it's a PCI 4 device. The EVO would be the better option if this is the case. This is also why the large price difference between the two drives.

If your mobo DOES support PCI 4 nvme then I'd consider a Samsung Pro instead of an EVO to compare against the SN750

edit: nvm looks like I'm partially mistaken about the SN750; looks like it has gen3 and gen4 variations. Was not aware WD had split the model like that, odd thing to do as it just adds confusion like mine lol

Yeah, but in real world use, I doubt he'll see a difference between PCI 3 and 4..

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

 

The Samsung 970 EVO Plus is a PCIe 3.0×4 NVMe SSD.  It uses a 5-core, 8-channel controller, has a DRAM cache, and contains either 96- or 92-layer TLC NAND. Max read is 3,500 MBps and max write is 3,300 MBps.  It has its endurance rated at 1,200 TBW, and a 5-year limited warranty.

The Western Digital Black SN750 is a PCIe 3.0×4 NVMe SSD.  It uses a 3-core, 8-channel controller, has a DRAM cache, and uses 64-layer TLC NAND.  Max read is 3,400 MBps, and wax write is 2,900 MBps.  It has its endurance rated at 1,200 TBW, and a 5-year limited warranty.

I have used both Samsung and Western Digital SSDs and no complaints about either.  The Samsung 970 EVO Plus model slightly edges out the Western Digital Black SN750 model, spec-wise, but the difference may not be so noticeable in real-world use, so you may want to look at other factors, such as cost, bundled software, preference for a particular retailer, and so forth.

Regardless of what brand drive you choose, I would strongly suggest that you visit the manufacturer's website and download whatever management tools and utilities they offer for it.  Both vendors offer dashboard/toolbox-type software that lets you check and update the drive's firmware and view various performance and usage characteristics for the drive.  It is not unusual for SSDs to ship with older firmware, and in some cases updating it can improve firmware and prolong the life of the drive.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky
 

[kiddingguy]

I like the BLACK brand by WD.

If specs-wise it doesn’t really make a real difference in real world scenarios, I think I’d opt for WD. Can still change the order…

Unless you guys are saying it’s the worst decision to make to go with WD BLACK…

[farmeunit]

Get the WD.  If price was the same, I would say Samsung, but either is fine.  I have bought many different drives over the years and they are all about the same in day to day usage.  I currently have 980 Pros because they were on sale, but my others machines are Inland and they perform well for the price.  

[kiddingguy]

I just came across - same price range more or less - the Kingston KC3000 2TB.

How's this one compared to Samsung and/or WD Black?

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

On 13/03/2023 at 08:08, kiddingguy said:

I just came across - same price range more or less - the Kingston KC3000 2TB.

How's this one compared to Samsung and/or WD Black?

Any well known brand is alright. 

Like Kingspec vs Kingston. Just an odd kickoff.

[kiddingguy]

The specs of the Kingston KC3000 seem to outperform [on paper] the WD Black one...

I changed the SSD-order to Kingston.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

On 13/03/2023 at 11:07, kiddingguy said:

The specs of the Kingston KC3000 seem to outperform [on paper] the WD Black one...

I changed the SSD-order to Kingston.

Kingston is one of those that doesn't get talked about a lot but their stuff is actually pretty solid.

[kiddingguy]

On 13/03/2023 at 17:14, Brandon H said:

Kingston is one of those that doesn't get talked about a lot but their stuff is actually pretty solid.

I know them mainly from DDR-memory and memory sticks. And these are indeed solid.

I used to to have some of their HDD also back in the days, but changed for some reason (maybe due to availability or price at that time I guess) to Intel/WD and Samsung SSD.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

On 13/03/2023 at 11:39, kiddingguy said:

I know them mainly from DDR-memory and memory sticks. And these are indeed solid.

I used to to have some of their HDD also back in the days, but changed for some reason (maybe due to availability or price at that time I guess) to Intel/WD and Samsung SSD.

yeah they were never really big in the HDD space. They more handled everything flash storage, so mostly RAM and USB drives and such before SSDs started taking over and they joined that race.

[kiddingguy]

On 13/03/2023 at 17:47, Brandon H said:

yeah they were never really big in the HDD space. They more handled everything flash storage, so mostly RAM and USB drives and such before SSDs started taking over.

Remember OCZ... ?!

Let's see how this Kingspan NVMe will do. Looking at some reviews it's pretty top-notch.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

On 13/03/2023 at 11:51, kiddingguy said:

Remember OCZ... ?!

Let's see how this Kingspan NVMe will do. Looking at some reviews it's pretty top-notch.

yes actually. I had an OCZ SSD in my first computer I built around 2011. Never had it fail and just retired that system last year. I think it was a Vertex 3 or 4

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

On 13/03/2023 at 11:51, kiddingguy said:

Remember OCZ... ?!

Let's see how this Kingspan NVMe will do. Looking at some reviews it's pretty top-notch.

My OCZ 30GB SSD actually died. Had a good 3 years out of it. One day it couldn't read it, and it went on my shelf..

[farmeunit]

We use hundreds of Kingstons at work.  No failures that I can remember.  Mostly SATA, but some mSATA and moving to NVMe now.  Some KC models, but they have another and think they are mostly that one.  The only model I stay away from is PNY.  Had a terrible time with them dying.  Just one model, but never bought them again.  Lost almost half of them due to a firmware issue.  Had to send them back.  They fixed them, but a pain.  After updating firmware on the rest, it wiped the drive so had to re-image.

[hellowalkman Reporter]

Why not the crucial p5 plus? Pcie 4, has dram cache, great speeds too; and it's $123 for 2tb:

https://www.neowin.net/deals/looking-for-nvme-you-shouldnt-miss-the-crucial-p5-plus-ssd-deal-samsung-980-pro-drops-too/