Samsung PM953 960gb m.2 $179 and new

[kdub]

I think that would be a factor of the motherboard and not the actual drive itself.

My understanding is for legacy bios motherboards, devices have to present an OpROM to be bootable whereas UEFI utilizes drivers. The Samsung 850 Pro reportedly is one of the last ssd drives to include both driver for UEFI and an OpROM making it legacy compatible. Somewhere it was mentioned the PM953 is something like an OEM version of the 850 Pro. But the literature on PM953 is pretty much non-existent. Just wondering if anyone has tried so I don't have to waste time and money testing.

 

[josh]

Is buying used TLC drives really worth the cost savings? Seems dangerous not knowing how badly the cells are worn out.

 

[RTM]

Is buying used TLC drives really worth the cost savings? Seems dangerous not knowing how badly the cells are worn out.

First of all, not all TLC disks have low endurance, there are plenty of TLC disks that have 3+ dwpd ratings (5 years), like the Samsung pm1725a and Intel P4610 (I am sure there are even higher endurance disks than the ones I just found).

With that said, yes the rating for these (pm953) disks isn't terribly high (1.3 DWPD), however it is still more than many consumer grade disks and the stories about people buying disks with no endurance left are few and far between.

So yes, if you buy from a reasonable seller I believe the risk is effectively managed.

 

[josh]

First of all, not all TLC disks have low endurance, there are plenty of TLC disks that have 3+ dwpd ratings (5 years), like the Samsung pm1725a and Intel P4610 (I am sure there are even higher endurance disks than the ones I just found).

With that said, yes the rating for these (pm953) disks isn't terribly high (1.3 DWPD), however it is still more than many consumer grade disks and the stories about people buying disks with no endurance left are few and far between.

So yes, if you buy from a reasonable seller I believe the risk is effectively managed.

My concern is that these bulk SSD sellers are most certainly removing it from heavy usage machines. The purpose of NVMe drives are most likely scratch drives which would see much more usage than regular consumer SSDs. I'd love to hear the hours on those that bought from this particular seller.