question Replacement SSD for a dead Hitachi laptop drive

[apairofpcs]

The 500GB Hitachi hard drive in my Toshiba Satellite A505-S6965 laptop died. What do you think about this as a replacement?.....SAMSUNG 840 EVO MZ-7TE250BW 2.5" 250GB SATA 6Gb/s TLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) How about this?.....Intel 530 Series SSDSC2BW240A401 2.5" 240GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

 

[ddrueding]

The Intel drives are nice, and I would still consider them the more reliable option (despite some issues in the past). But I'm having great luck with the evos lately, I have 2 750GB and 4 1TB units destined for servers sitting on my desk right now.

 

[Handruin]

I have two machines each with a single 500GB Samsung EVO. No issues with either of them so far. I'll have to check how long they've been running but it's been many months.

 

[P5-133XL]

At the same price, I prefer the Intel. It is just a question of toggle vs MLC.

 

[apairofpcs]

Thank you ddrueding and Handruin.

Newegg - The Samsung is $152, with 3 yr. warranty. The Intel is $165 with 5 yr. warranty. Same shipping cost. The Intel for $13 for an additional 2 yr., seems right.

What is the preferable standard - TLC or MLC?

 

[Handruin]

Thank you ddrueding and Handruin.

Newegg - The Samsung is $152, with 3 yr. warranty. The Intel is $165 with 5 yr. warranty. Same shipping cost. The Intel for $13 for an additional 2 yr., seems right.

What is the preferable standard - TLC or MLC?

I imagine many might say MLC because of technical details regarding the superiority of the chip components but I feel that so long as the read/write performance of the drive can stay consistent and you agree with the price, consider it a black box and move on. There are links published elsewhere on this forum indicating how durable both MLC and TLC drives are that you or I under "normal" use aren't likely to encounter a fraction of the abuse tested on these drives. I'd venture a guess you will be happy with either of the two drives you inquired about.

 

[apairofpcs]

I imagine many might say MLC because of technical details regarding the superiority of the chip components but I feel that so long as the read/write performance of the drive can stay consistent and you agree with the price, consider it a black box and move on. There are links published elsewhere on this forum indicating how durable both MLC and TLC drives are that you or I under "normal" use aren't likely to encounter a fraction of the abuse tested on these drives. I'd venture a guess you will be happy with either of the two drives you inquired about.

Thank you for the explanation. I am indeed a low power user, with the majority of my usage being internet access, video file downloads and some pc health maintenance measures. Either unit would suit me well.

 

[Handruin]

Thank you for the explanation. I am indeed a low power user, with the majority of my usage being internet access, video file downloads and some pc health maintenance measures. Either unit would suit me well.

In case you're interested, here is the thread linking to the TechReport article on longer-term stress test on various SSDs.

 

[apairofpcs]

In case you're interested, here is the thread linking to the TechReport article on longer-term stress test on various SSDs.

While the Samsung I have in mind was tested, the Intel 530 was not. They tested the Intel 335, instead. It's too expensive for me.

 

[apairofpcs]

I didn't want to be a burden on those whom I've involved in my SSD buying decision, so I ordered the Samsung SSD. Newegg already shipped it Next Day from their Edison NJ warehouse, at their own expense, and I'll have it by noon tomorrow. I've never had a grievance with Newegg. I only have good things to say about them.

Thank you all for your guidance in this extremely short thread.

 

[ddrueding]

No burden Let us know how it goes. Do you plan to image your current system over or re-install?

 

[jtr1962]

Reading the the longevity testing Doug linked to, consider that all those drives are still working well after 600 TB of writes. To put things in perspective, I've had my Intel 240 GB SSD running since October 2012 and it has 3.08 TB of writes. At this rate it'll take well over 300 years to reach the number of writes in the test, and it will likely still have life left in it. It's looking like most casual users like us will be hard pressed to actually wear out an SSD. The electronics and flash RAM my degrade with age and number of power on cycles, but I'll bet most SSDs will last for decades in casual use.

Semirelated to all this-I'm thinking of ordering a 500GB Samsung Evo to migrate the data from my Maxtor to. Newegg has it for $252 shipped. Anyone here think the price will fall even more over the Memorial Day weekend, or should I just order it today?

 

[apairofpcs]

No burden Let us know how it goes. Do you plan to image your current system over or re-install?

If you're referring to returning data to my Toshiba's drive, I can tell you that it's no longer accessible. Before it went south, I planned on checking for any data files that I didn't copy onto my desktop drives via my wireless FiOS network. But I waited too long. I wasn't able to open Windows Explorer for any file transfers. I know that I haven't lost much data. I'll know for sure when I find it isn't on any of my desktop drives. By the way, my Toshiba and Lenovo laptops are the backups for my desktop.

After the SSD is installed in the laptop, I'm going to consult with jtr1962 for his recommendation for an image based backup. You helped him out of a jam a few days ago. From now on, I have to do better than depend on System Restore when things get hairy. In my case this effective tool couldn't solve my problem, because the drive acquired physical damage that corrupted so much data that none of the desktop shortcuts in GUI Mode or Safe Mode worked. I had a pretty screen full of useless shortcuts. The drive would stop responding, and the only way to remedy this was to hold down the power button until it turned off. We all know that this is a sure way to damage a drive. I did this about 10 times this morning, having no other choice to get things back on track. How sad that my replacement drive on the out of warranty Toshiba, needs replacing. Well at least I'm up to speed with technology in choosing an SSD instead of a HDD. Things are not that bad after all.....

 

[apairofpcs]

Reading the the longevity testing Doug linked to, consider that all those drives are still working well after 600 TB of writes. To put things in perspective, I've had my Intel 240 GB SSD running since October 2012 and it has 3.08 TB of writes. At this rate it'll take well over 300 years to reach the number of writes in the test, and it will likely still have life left in it. It's looking like most casual users like us will be hard pressed to actually wear out an SSD. The electronics and flash RAM my degrade with age and number of power on cycles, but I'll bet most SSDs will last for decades in casual use.

Semirelated to all this-I'm thinking of ordering a 500GB Samsung Evo to migrate the data from my Maxtor to. Newegg has it for $252 shipped. Anyone here think the price will fall even more over the Memorial Day weekend, or should I just order it today?

You've been in tune with Newegg's way of doing business and know when they drop their prices. Is there any indication how long the 500GB Samsung will remain at the current price, before going back to it's default price? If you call Newegg, they may be able to share some "inside information" with you. I believe that the Memorial Day Madness items are on display on their home page now. There's a 48 Hour Sale, as well.

Based on the test results, it looks like an SSD will be a much better dollar value in the long run, than an HDD. In a way, I'm glad my laptop's drive failed.....

 

[Handruin]

I didn't want to be a burden on those whom I've involved in my SSD buying decision, so I ordered the Samsung SSD. Newegg already shipped it Next Day from their Edison NJ warehouse, at their own expense, and I'll have it by noon tomorrow. I've never had a grievance with Newegg. I only have good things to say about them.

Thank you all for your guidance in this extremely short thread.

Hopefully the drive remains trouble-free for years to come. I've had gripes with newegg in the past dealing with mechanical HDDs. A dead on arrival drive required me to pay return shipping which annoyed me. Which makes it worse is their shipping and packaging let a lot to be desired. I now just buy my HDDs from Amazon.

Since you bought an SSD you should be fine.

 

[Handruin]

Reading the the longevity testing Doug linked to, consider that all those drives are still working well after 600 TB of writes. To put things in perspective, I've had my Intel 240 GB SSD running since October 2012 and it has 3.08 TB of writes. At this rate it'll take well over 300 years to reach the number of writes in the test, and it will likely still have life left in it. It's looking like most casual users like us will be hard pressed to actually wear out an SSD. The electronics and flash RAM my degrade with age and number of power on cycles, but I'll bet most SSDs will last for decades in casual use.

Semirelated to all this-I'm thinking of ordering a 500GB Samsung Evo to migrate the data from my Maxtor to. Newegg has it for $252 shipped. Anyone here think the price will fall even more over the Memorial Day weekend, or should I just order it today?

I completely agree which was my point to steer the conversation away from the MLC vs TLC debate and look at those figures as a way to say that we won't likely wear out these drives with normal user operations. The key variables will be drive performance consistency over time and initial price.

As for price I have no idea. The Samsung EVO is at or near the lowest it's ever been. I bought it at over $300 and I thought it was at a low point then. You can take a look at camelcamelcamel to get an idea of price trends.

http://camelcamelcamel.com/Samsung-...MZ-7TE500BW/product/B00E3W19MO?context=browse

 

[apairofpcs]

Hopefully the drive remains trouble-free for years to come. I've had gripes with newegg in the past dealing with mechanical HDDs. A dead on arrival drive required me to pay return shipping which annoyed me. Which makes it worse is their shipping and packaging let a lot to be desired. I now just buy my HDDs from Amazon.

Since you bought an SSD you should be fine.

Thank you for your good wishes.

Being the skeptic that I am regarding a drive that "seemed to be dead", I decided to install Win 7 Home Premium Edition....and it worked. In fact it's surprisingly stable now, with me still working on the return to it's previous condition. For now, the Toshiba laptop is still alive. So that the forum members can determine just how alive it is, I attached the files from HD Tune's Health tab and Error Scan results, showing "irregularities" besides the 9 reallocated sectors that appeared after the drive's mishap. I'm not expecting a "prognosis" from anybody, but I'd like to know what the "irregularities" mean.

Due to a UPS mishap, namely attempting a delivery at 10:36AM yesterday when the service Newegg chose specified a 3PM to 7PM delivery, I missed yesterday's delivery. I'll have the drive today, though. I'll be on high alert!

In the event that any of my drives need diagnosis in the future, would anybody recommend an elaborate program for me to use? HD Tune is way too simple to get deep, deep deep into the drives "true essence."

Isn't it amazing that a company that is the greatest thing since Wonder bread for many, is a company from hell for many others? I've had plenty of the latter, but Newegg has been good to me. I'm sorry for your bad experiences, Doug. By the way, although I've had too many problems with Amazon, the resellers not Amazon.Com, it still happens to be my favorite online source "for everything." Due to the nature of people to "misbehave" when not face to face with others, online purchases are going to be more difficult than in-store purchases, forever. Such is life, huh?

 

[apairofpcs]

I completely agree which was my point to steer the conversation away from the MLC vs TLC debate and look at those figures as a way to say that we won't likely wear out these drives with normal user operations. The key variables will be drive performance consistency over time and initial price.

As for price I have no idea. The Samsung EVO is at or near the lowest it's ever been. I bought it at over $300 and I thought it was at a low point then. You can take a look at camelcamelcamel to get an idea of price trends.

http://camelcamelcamel.com/Samsung-...MZ-7TE500BW/product/B00E3W19MO?context=browse

At the time I ordered the Samsung 840, I didn't want to do my typical "exhaustive research" to save a few bucks. The $152 price for the drive, combined with free next day shipping, was good enough for me considering my urgent need for a drive replacement. As it turned out, I decided I'm going to install the "new in box" Intel 530 SSD I've had for the last five months into the Toshiba laptop, and reserve the Samsung 840 SSD for the desktop pc.

Competition is so stiff for most pc components, that you can't go wrong after you do a little research. As jtr1962 stated above, an SSD should last at least the rest of our lives, based on our usage patterns and the lab test results.

 

[apairofpcs]

Reading the the longevity testing Doug linked to, consider that all those drives are still working well after 600 TB of writes. To put things in perspective, I've had my Intel 240 GB SSD running since October 2012 and it has 3.08 TB of writes. At this rate it'll take well over 300 years to reach the number of writes in the test, and it will likely still have life left in it. It's looking like most casual users like us will be hard pressed to actually wear out an SSD. The electronics and flash RAM may degrade with age and number of power on cycles, but I'll bet most SSDs will last for decades in casual use.

Semi-related to all this - I'm thinking of ordering a 500GB Samsung EVO to migrate the data from my Maxtor to it. Newegg has it for $252 shipped. Anyone here think the price will fall even more over the Memorial Day weekend, or should I just order it today?

Call today and ask the rep. if you can get a heads-up on the drive you want, before the formal Memorial Day Weekend disclosure this Friday. If it's not part of the sale, order it STAT before the price goes up. Your reason for getting this drive is valid, so don't let a little matter such as $$$ get in your way.