Newegg via Ebay: 512GB Intel 545s $55

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Stereodude

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Feb 21, 2016
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What's the appeal of these drives? They're decent SATA performers and the price per gig is good, but I don't see a compelling use case. They're not big enough for bulk storage and they're bigger than they need to be for a boot drive.
 

WANg

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Jun 10, 2018
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Hm. The Crucial MX500 500GB Models were going for $65 new during Black Friday, and I think Samsung were selling their 860 Evo 1TB model for about $120 at the same time. It's decent for upgrading older machines (I got the Evo to upgrade my 2011 Mac Mini, which is used as a fairly heavily trafficked iTunes jukebox). My concern about buying from things like that on eBay is that newegg will only accept returns on damaged/DOA items, and whether those are idle new stock, or reconditioned RMA/refurb drives.
 
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WANg

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Jun 10, 2018
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Damn can't even post a $55 NEW, INTEL, 512gb SSD without someone claiming no use, not a good deal, etc..
Well, what do you expect, really? New process node densities mean that the pricing on SSDs are coming down, and are projected to do so until at least 2020. Considering that I was buying 7200 rpm 2.5" 500GB laptop HDDs for around $60 about 2 years ago, the fact that similar capacity mainstream SSDs reached pricing parity with them is great news for consumers and pretty indicative of where things have been and where things are going. If given a choice between buying the 545s for 50 and MX500s for 60, I'll go MX500. Slightly better perf, and more importantly, newer NAND chips and a 5 year warranty.

If Micron actually were able to get QLC SATA drives out to market without their performance shortfalls I am sure that you'll see another pricedrop soon (of course, whether it's a good investment is something altogether - sooner or later buying new SATA drives will be chasing bad money with good, like buying mSATA drives)
 
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mmo

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Sep 17, 2016
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Damn can't even post a $55 NEW, INTEL, 512gb SSD without someone claiming no use, not a good deal, etc..
there was a Samsung Evo 860 1tb for $116 on sale at the same time and i dont even bother to post it since people here is more enterprise i think? these drives are very good and more than enough for regular usage on desktop/laptop.
 

WANg

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Jun 10, 2018
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Ya like that thread the other week where we were all informed that there is no place in the world for P3700's :confused:
What, this thread? Well, it is a valid debate about whether it makes sense to buy off-lease/refurbished datacenter class SSDs versus new consumer class NVMe drives. It depends on whether you are setting up something that will go on consumer level hardware re-purposed for homelab purposes, or you have a rack at home with off-production enterprise grade stuff and you want to go "ball-deep", so to speak. So one set of sentiments is as valid as the other.
 

Aestr

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Oct 22, 2014
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It turned into a a good discussion. The initial response effectively came across suggesting it was not a deal. I'm always happy to see discussion and suggestions on how we can all achieve what we're looking for in a cheaper fashion is great. I just see a number of threads where the response isn't opening a discussion and appears to leave the thread starter less inclined to post things they find in the future.

An example of a good discussion starter is your post in this thread about alternatives at similar price points with details on why you prefer them.
 

T_Minus

Build. Break. Fix. Repeat
Feb 15, 2015
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I got 2 of them for home desktop use, for the $ hard not to call this a great deal on BF week.


I've had crucial for desktops and the majority of them start having issues\not being detected, has happened in family member systems and friends as well. It was over a couple year period. I stopped buying Crucial after this. Others here on STH warned about Micron and server usage... even their higher-end enterprise drives.... I got a "great deal" on some Micron, and returned them all for problems. So I don't go for the micron or crucial "great deals" as my exp. that's never been the case :(



1TB 860 Evo For $105 - Great too I just don't need 1TB in one but 512 in 2x systems :) I must have missed this deal too.
 

WANg

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Jun 10, 2018
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It turned into a a good discussion. The initial response effectively came across suggesting it was not a deal. I'm always happy to see discussion and suggestions on how we can all achieve what we're looking for in a cheaper fashion is great. I just see a number of threads where the response isn't opening a discussion and appears to leave the thread starter less inclined to post things they find in the future.

An example of a good discussion starter is your post in this thread about alternatives at similar price points with details on why you prefer them.
Heh, I really should mention the real reason why I didn't like the 545s even if they are brand new - while their performance is (on average) better than the Crucial MX300 mainstream drives from last year, the performance is not as good as the Samsung 850 EVO (the performance leader from 2017) or the newer MX500 (which came out in June 2018 and is the average performance mainstream drive of today). For my spending dollars, unless the pricing is so much better than the product that replaced it, it's almost not worth going back in tech just to save a few bucks.
 
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WANg

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Jun 10, 2018
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I got 2 of them for home desktop use, for the $ hard not to call this a great deal on BF week.

I've had crucial for desktops and the majority of them start having issues\not being detected, has happened in family member systems and friends as well. It was over a couple year period. I stopped buying Crucial after this. Others here on STH warned about Micron and server usage... even their higher-end enterprise drives.... I got a "great deal" on some Micron, and returned them all for problems. So I don't go for the micron or crucial "great deals" as my exp. that's never been the case :(

1TB 860 Evo For $105 - Great too I just don't need 1TB in one but 512 in 2x systems :) I must have missed this deal too.
Hmmm, I had MX300s/BX300s and Intel X25M/Ps, and the 320/540s in play from 2011 to 2014 as boot drives for SuperMicro X8/X9 blades, and I actually had the opposite experience. The Crucial/Micron drives seem to be more reliable, while Intel drives tend to either crap the bed/lose their data or die altogether. That being said, my Sandy Bridge HP EliteBook with the BX300 seems to show sense detect errors once in awhile, but I suspect that it might be something else altogether.
 

T_Minus

Build. Break. Fix. Repeat
Feb 15, 2015
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Heh, I really should mention the real reason why I didn't like the 545s even if they are brand new - while their performance is (on average) better than the Crucial MX300 mainstream drives from last year, the performance is not as good as the Samsung 850 EVO (the performance leader from 2017) or the newer MX500 (which came out in June 2018 and is the average performance mainstream drive of today). See, unless the pricing is so much better than the product that replaced it, it's almost not worth going back in tech just to save a few bucks.
I'd take an 850 with a warranty of a 545 too :)

For desktop "storage"... I'd rather have the low power, no sound, no vibration of a SSD so 512gb with warranty, etc, perfect for me. I don't have one 3.5"\spinner inmy system at all. I just add 512gb SSD as that's the perfect-price point the last 2 years. I have 1 or 2 lower-end drives that gets labeled, and is basically a scratch disk for recordings, downloads, etc...
 

WANg

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Jun 10, 2018
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I'd take an 850 with a warranty of a 545 too :)

For desktop "storage"... I'd rather have the low power, no sound, no vibration of a SSD so 512gb with warranty, etc, perfect for me. I don't have one 3.5"\spinner inmy system at all. I just add 512gb SSD as that's the perfect-price point the last 2 years. I have 1 or 2 lower-end drives that gets labeled, and is basically a scratch disk for recordings, downloads, etc...
I hear ya. The t730 thin client (that I use as a virtualization appliance) got an MX500 because the performance was on-par with the 850 Evo while it does have a 5 year warranty. That being said, I do like that 1TB Samsung deal. I was actually surprised that I spent nearly 80% less money on Black Friday compared to last year, mostly because I didn't find any ridiculously good spinner deals. I kind of expected 8/10TB standalone drives to be at the $160 price point, but it wasn't the case (I don't really like the idea of shucking multiple external drives just to get those drives for my NAS). Feels like nothing much changed in terms of areal density for those spinners for the past 3 years.
 
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T_Minus

Build. Break. Fix. Repeat
Feb 15, 2015
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I hear ya. The t730 thin client (that I use as a virtualization appliance) got an MX500 because the performance was on-par with the 850 Evo while it does have a 5 year warranty. That being said, I do like that 1TB Samsung deal. I was actually surprised that I spent nearly 80% less money on Black Friday compared to this year, mostly because I didn't find any ridiculously good spinner deals. I kind of expected 8/10TB standalone drives to be at the $160 price point, but it wasn't the case. Feels like nothing much changed in terms of areal density for those spinners for the past 3 years.
I'm glad my storage needs are minimal for home :) I think 12TB free <5 used? It's small.


This year the deals are around NVME for Enterprise and some killer CPU deals... I see ES CPU for sale for more than retail! It's crazy.
 

fossxplorer

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Mar 17, 2016
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I don't believe everything i read in user reviews, but this drive seems to have issues for many buyers, which makes me believe that QA of this drive is perhaps...