Mini storage review

Been running low on SSD space for a while, have been keeping an eye on prices and bought some MX500 off Amazon for £90. Still chance they'll go down more, but prices tend to start going up in H2 due to "back to school" and end of year festivities, which impacts supply.

Thought I'd run a quick benchmark against the drives on my computer for comparison.

I've got an Intel PCIe NVMe drive, which was eye wateringly expensive, but is very quick. Good for complex work loads etc. Then I've got my existing SSD stripe array of two Samsung 840 EVOs, and another array of good old (very old now) WD Black spinning rust.

For a giggle, I also benchmarked my camera's SD card (allegedly 150MB/s) that was in a USB 3 reader at the time:

https://i.imgur.com/slc6JtG.png

I didn't think there was much between SATA attached SSDs, even a slightly older model like the 840, but the MX500 nudges out a lead in most tests over the Samsung array.

Sequential reads the SD card can't match the hard disks, but for random work it is generally much faster. Which is to be expected as HDDs have a seek penalty whilst the head moves about.

I have noticed that whilst SSDs aren't generally required for playing most games, there are a few oddities that stand out. Payday2 being the most significant. Whilst there is no difference in game between the drives, Steam updates for the game take forever when on HDD and are blisteringly quick when on SSD. I assume the patching mechanism in use is very random, or parallel in its nature.

Would I spend an obscene amount on a more "pro" drive again? No, whilst the read rate is impressive, the write rate can be matched by simply striping two SATA drives. Whilst I will definitely get NVMe again, it won't be in this build as I've run out of PCIe slots.

Thanks for the review!!

FalLout 4 just loves SSDs,and if modded can become unplayable without one!!

I've got pretty much all HDD in my NAS apart from OS drives. But I can easily see HDD going completely from desktops over the next few years. The wife doesn't have one in her computer, I can't see me replacing mine. I'm out of RAID capable SATA ports now, so it's likely that the HDDs will be replaced with two 1TB drives in five years or something.