Category Archives: Hard Drive Reviews

SanDisk SSD PLUS Solid State Drive Review

If you are in search of a solid-state drive to speed up your programs and data this SanDisk drive could be a great option for those on a budget. A great drive for anyone who needs to save data or doesn’t trust the clickity clacking sound of doom you may witness from an HDD. SanDisk was somewhat recently bought out by Western Digital. Which, is a very trusted brand in the hard drive business. For this reason, SanDisk may be a reliable option for consumers. Along with reliability, there is a 3-year warranty to go along with the drive.

SSD Specs:

  • 2 TB storage capacity
  • SATA III connection
  • Read speed of 545 Mbps
  • Write speed of 450 Mbps
  • 6 Gbit/s Transfer Rate
  • MLC

Now let’s talk about price. For hard drives, the price usually is lower for an HDD, mid-range for an SSD SATA, and most expensive for an M.2 drive. This is due to the read/write speeds of the hard drives. M.2 drives usually have the fastest speeds of hard drives. While HDD drives usually have the slowest due to their mechanical components slowing them down.

 

References:

https://www.newegg.com

Note:  This review is part of a classroom project.

2TB M.2 PCI Drive-Samsung 980 Pro Review

 

This SSD is a huge step in the advancement of hard drives. It is extremely fast, holds 2TB of data, and lasts a long time. The SSD has a dynamic buffer, which is what allows it to go as fast as it does and last so long. It uses this SLC buffer to put it further ahead of the competition.  The specs are as follows:

  • Size: 2TB
  • M.2 2280 M Key 
  • Reads up to 7000 MB/s 
  • Writes up to 5100 MB/s 
  • It has a dynamic buffer, meaning it adjusts to the size based on workload. 
  • 1,200 TBW (Terabytes Written Before Failure)
  • 5 Year Limited Warranty
  • IOPS: 1 Million
  • TLC
  • Although it may not last as long, it makes up for it by having 2TB, which means overall you will likely not use as much. 
  • 7,000 MB/s Transfer Speed

This is a great buy if you are looking for something high speed and carrying a lot of data. Personally, I have always gone for Samsung hard drives, it just feels more compatible with everything in my computer. Not to mention a ton of other hard drive creators are terrible at customer service. Overall review: 10/10, a great buy for your PC (especially if you are going to be playing games, things load uber fast!)

https://www.samsung.com/us/computing/memory-storage/solid-state-drives/980-pro-pcie-4-0-nvme-ssd-2tb-mz-v8p2t0b-am/

 

Note: this review is part of a classroom project.

https://www.newegg.com/

 

Western Digital Black SN850 Review

Western Digital is one of the leading manufacturers of Hard drives and Solid State Drives, which is also the parent company of former companies such as SanDisk and G-Technology. one of their more notable productions of HDD/SSDs is the WD BLACK SN850 Solid State Drive. (picture below)

this SSD comes in capacities varying from 500GB to 2TB, with or without Heatsink. regardless of what combinations you’re looking for, the prices will be anywhere above $100.00 USD.

the specifications vary based on your retailer but are suggested that you look at the official website of the manufacturer’s website (i.e. Western Digital or Seagate) but are listed as follows on the Manufacturer’s site: 

 

Works Cited:
https://shop.westerndigital.com/products/internal-drives/wd-black-sn850-nvme-ssd#WDS500G1X0E-00AFY0

Note:  This review is part of a classroom project. 

Samsung 970 EVO

Samsung 970 EVO

This hard drive is for a gamer motherboard; it is very good for an M.2. When trying to find a hard drive this one can do the trick on what you’re trying to do with your motherboard. It has a lot of features and things that will add to your best experiences for your gaming.

Some of the specs are:

Size: 1TB

Connection Types: M.2 PCI

Read/write speeds:  Max Read: Up to 3400 MBps and Max Write: up to 2500 MBps

 

Mean time Before Failure (MTBF): 1,500,000 hours

Warranty: 3 years for parts and labor

SDDs:

Read IOPS: QD32-  Up to 500,000 and QD1- Up to 15,000 

Write IOPS: QD32- Up to 450,000 and Qd1- Up to 50,000

64L V-NAND MLC

The price of this Hard Drive is $172.65 and for a 1TB, it is at a pretty good price for all the things you want this Hard Drive to do for you.

 

Source (s):

Newegg

Note: this review is part of a classroom project

Western Digital 500 GB Blue SSD

The WD SSD 500 Gb blue edition was the top solid-state hard drive during 2017. this extraordinary SSD is still great for booting your os and your games a lot faster than an original Hard drive “Spinny Drive”. not only will this SSD load your programs a lot faster but it will last you a lifetime before it goes bad “dies”.

knowing that this SSD has many great qualities it does not just stop there it also has benefits. benefits such as a 5-year warranty that was provided by NewEgg. another benefit is if you decide that you don’t, believe me, then you can buy it and try it for 30 days whether or not you like it or not you can get a full refund at no cost to you.

Specs

Max Sequential Read Up to 560 MBps

Max Sequential Write Up to 530 MBps

4KB Random Read Up to 95,000 IOPS

4KB Random Write Up to 84,000 IOPS

the lifetime in hours Up to 1.75M hours

or 199 years

2.5’’ hard drive

 

WD Blue SSD Review

<![CDATA[Western Digital is an American computer data storage company and one of the largest computer hard disk drive manufacturers in the world, compared to its main competitor Seagate Technology (Western Digital Wikipedia).

The 500GB model of this memory gives the best value for a price of $129.99 . They offer a 3 year warranty period for parts and labor, and provide a MTBF of up to 1.75 million hours (Tom’s Hardware).
The WD Blue’s performance is far from exciting. As a hard disk drive manufacturer, Western Digital is having trouble keeping up and updating with optimized solid state drives. Many hard drive companies fail to create newer and updated products when they are consumed in an old mindset. Although the 1 TB Blue SSD breaks the 10,000 random read IOPS barrier, the price for this performance is steep (Tom’s Hardware).

Specifications (For 500GB) :

Capacity-500 Gb
Read
– 560 MBps
Write– 530 MBps
IOPS Read– 95,000
IOPS Write– 84,000

Overall, the WD Blue is not worth the effort. If you’re paying the cheaper option, you’ll definitely see it in the performance. If you choose the better performance option, the price is ridiculous. It is just another piece of evidence that older companies that get stuck in their old ways are bound to fail.
Note:  This review is part of a classroom project.
References:
www.newegg.com
http://www.tomshardware.com
en.wikipedia.org
www.wdc.com]]>

Toshiba P300 – The Unexpected Failure

<![CDATA[Toshiba— Founded July 1875 in Tokyo, Japan has a rich history of innovative technology. They’re continuing to expand the limits of mobile computing but their passion for innovation is hardly new. In fact, it dates back centuries (as they claim)
The P300 can either be a good buy or a bad buy. On Benchmark.com shows that the age months on this hard drive is 29. That means this hard drive will average about more than a 2 year life span, and too bad the warranty ends in 2 years. But by looking at the reviews on Newegg it seems like you will never know if it will last 2 years or 2 weeks.

  • Storage: 1 TB
  • Speed: 7200 rpm
  • Age Months: 28
  • Access Time: 4.17ms
  • Read/Write: 153 MB/s
  • Buffer: 64 MB

Warranty: 2 year limited
After seeing these bipolar reviews I decided to do research for myself. With the product having a 4 egg review seemed weird. It was either a hit or miss, some people said it was great and it lasted more than two years and still working. While 25% of the reviews varied from failing right after the warranty ended, to not working out of the box.
I bought 4 of these hard drives to use a RAID 5 array, and see the failure rate based off of the reviews. All four came in and only 3 worked out of the box. After an hour of setting up, one of the hard drives kept crashing the BIOS. Finally getting it to work, that hard drive lasted for about a week before all three hard drives died. I sent all four drives in for RMA. There online RMA process was simple enough, however it has been 10+ weeks since they received the drives and approved a reward card in exchange and no rewards card has arrived. Whats worse than a bad hard drive? A bad hard drive company.
In conclusion, never buy a hard drive from Toshiba. A lot of people lost TB of information with these drives. Along with everyone else in the reviews… spend your money on a hard drive with a nice warranty from a good company like (Western Digital).
References:
https://www.newegg.com
http://www.toshiba.com/tai/
http://www.kitguru.net
Note:  This review is part of a classroom project.]]>

HP S700 SSD Review

<![CDATA[
This is a review of an Hp S700 SSD that is compatible with any motherboard that supports a SATA III port connection. This HP S700 SSD is also a Kaby Lake version. This CPU is to be used for a faster gaming PC. This is an up to date model and it can be used for gaming purposes. While you could use this for lower end use like for home use, it is not the purpose that it is being reviewed for.

The HP S700 solid state drive is manufactured by Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company is an American multinational corporation and technology company which focuses on the development of SSD’s (solid state drives), also known as the data storage device of the computer. They are headquartered in Palo Alto, California. They started up their corporation on November 1, 2015. They are widely considered a top drive manufacturer. (HP Wikipedia) For more information about HP see their website.
Image result for palo alto caImage result for palo alto ca HP headquarters
Specifications:

  • 2.5″
  • Size: 250Gb
  • Max Sequential Read Up to 555 MBps
  • Max Sequential Write Up to 515 MBps
  • 4KB Random Read Up to 55,000 IOPS
  • 4KB Random Write Up to 80,000 IOPS
  • Buffer: 32 Mb
  • TLC (is able to take in more per cell)
  • MTBF Lifespan: 2,000,000 hours
  • Warranty: 3 years

Image result for HP SSDs S700
With these specifications, it worked really well and really fast for my  ASRock H170A-X1 home motherboard. When I found these specifications of the SATA III ports fit my motherboard. This HP S700 SSD was a great find for me to use for my home motherboard. I recommend you get it too, I got mine from Coleton’s Computer Parts distribution company. The final price for it was $69.99 as seen on Newegg.
Note: This review is for a classroom project.
References: https://www.hpe.com/us/en/home.html
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2W063A9944
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hewlett_Packard_Enterprise]]>

WD Blue 500GB SSD Review

<![CDATA[*This is a part of a classroom experiment.
Our Verdict 

  • The Good: The WD Blue SSD is faster than any regular hard drive and you can write a ton of data to it before it wears out.
  • The Bad: The drive is expensive and doesn’t justify the added cost. It has a short warranty.

About Western

  • Western Digital Corporation (commonly referred to as Western Digital and often abbreviated as WDC) is an American computer data storage company and one of the largest computer hard disk drive manufacturers in the world.
    Headquarters are located in San Jose, California.
  • Western Digital was founded on April 23, 1970, by Alvin B. Phillips.
  • Western Digital employees over 76,000 people.
  • Such longevity and experience in the hard drive industry makes this drive even more reliable.

Product Details

  • The Western Digital solid state drive is a fast drive. Programs load so much quicker and windows itself loads so much more rapidly with this solid state over most traditional drives.
  • The major flaw with SSD’s though is the cost. This drive has a sale price of $158.33. Yes this is much more expensive than traditional spinney drives.
  • However our purpose for this specific drive was for an everyday business PC.  With a solid state such as this our business PC was able to perform at maximum speeds. Programs on your PC run much faster with a SSD as such.
  • This SSD just doesn’t have enough storage nor will it last a long time. Therefore, we recommend having a traditional hard drive which you can keep all your important files on to keep for a very long time. Yet by having this SSD you can run programs at much faster speeds.

WD Blue 500GB Internal SSD Specs

  • Capacity: 500GB
  • Interface: SATA III 6Gb/s
  • Form Factor of 2.5inches or 7mm
  • Firmware: X41000WD
  • Controller: Marvell 88SS1074
  • Sequential read: up to 545MB/s
  • Sequential Write: up to 525MB/s
  • Random Read IOP’s: up to 100K
  • Random Write IOP’s: up to 80K
  • Meantime to Failure (MTTF): 1.75Million hours
  • Endurance Rating 200TB (Terabytes written)
  • WD FIT Lab Certification for compatibility across a wide range of laptops and desktops
  • Free downloadable WD SSD Dashboard to monitor the status of the drive and Acronis True Image backup utility
  • 3 Year limited warranty
References:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/get-windows-10?step=Win10Question1
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2W04ZF1443
https://www.wdc.com/about-wd.html]]>

Seagate Constellation ES.2 HDD Review

<![CDATA[hard drive failure rates by model
Seagate and Western Digital are commonly known as the top two HDD manufacturers in the industry today. Now while they both have similar problems, I decided to choose a Seagate HDD because they had a lower fail rate. According to the graph on the left, Seagate has five HDD’s that had some of the lowest failure rates, compared to Western Digital’s three HDDs (Backblaze).
 
Seagate Technology was created in 1978 by Al Shugart, Tom Mitchell, Doug Mahon, Finis Conner and Syed Iftikar. They produce hard drives, hybrid drives, and solid state drives. In 2015, Seagate produced around 45.9 million hard-disk drives including Samsung’s HDD output (Seagate owns Samsung’s HDD production). And in 2017, Seagate‘s annual revenue was $10.77 billion.
Image result for seagate

Seagate Constellation ES.2 HDD


Specifications:

  • Price: $79.99
  • Size: 3 TB
  • Transfer Rate: 155 MB/s
  • MTBF: 1.2 million hours
  • Warranty: 5 years
  • Speed: 7200 RPM
  • Access Time: 4.16ms
  • Read/Write Speed: 8.5/9.5MS
  • Buffer Size: 64 MB

The Seagate Constellation ES.2 is labeled as a enterprise class hard drive, which means that it is geared more towards business use (company servers, important storage arrays, etc.). The Constellation ES.2 brags about it’s low power consumption use and I was thoroughly surprised when the ES.2’s consumption was 17% less than the ES model. When tested against other models of the Constellation HDD’s read/write sequences, the 3TB SATA model triumphed reaching higher speeds (Storage Review). The price is pretty good for size/capacity with each GB costing .03 cents. Overall, this hard drive can be used for gaming, but would be fully utilized if used for business purposes.
Note:  This review is part of a classroom project.
References:
<https://www.backblaze.com>
<https://www.newegg.com>
<https://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/>
<http://www.storagereview.com>
<https://en.wikipedia.org>
 ]]>