ADATA SX8200 Pro 1TB $129.99

Bait & switch is a common deception technique that's as old as time itself, but usually it's only seen being done by bad actors. What if I told you that this is happening today, right now, on sites like Amazon and Newegg, with some of the best selling SSDs?

This should be illegal… - Manufacturers are swapping SSD components

Thank you. I already know about the bait-and-switch fiasco. At $129.99, what would you recommend?

Looked pretty hard and found these at the low end: SN550 (DRAM-less), A2000 (lower seq performance), NV1 (black box, but probably worse than A2000), Teamgroup (less known brand), any QLC stuff (not even considering). I might be missing others but chances are they all have disadvantages of their own.

If ADATA's reputation gets ruined by sensational click baits and had to cut price, it is to my benefit. That's RFD's spirit, isn't it. (We're just bargain hunting.)

Friends don't let friends buy Adata anymore.

Is this historical lowest price ? I need to add 1 secondary ssd in my laptop.

Other then bait & switch. Is there anything wrong with this device performance?

My recollection is that this is the historic low. However, this is also the all-time-low for bait-and-switch, too. Read this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comme ... rformance/

If you are specifically looking at a low-end drive, what else can you buy at such a low-end price which is actually better? I did my research and couldn't find any.

If you have $20 more to spare, there are lots of choices from the big names, e.g. SN750 occasionally gets down to $149. Samsung 980 (DRAM-less) is $149 too.

I personally have cancelled my Amazon order, however, based on all the downvotes. Will see if I can wait until BF before upgrading.

Netuser wrote: ↑ Is this historical lowest price ? I need to add 1 secondary ssd in my laptop.

Other then bait & switch. Is there anything wrong with this device performance?

If your laptop has 2 NVMe slots and you have a backup solution (e.g. I use Synology Active Backup for Business) then will you be able to run 2 identical SSDs in RAID 0?

I have an alternative speculation of what happened. Looking at what got changed, I do not believe e.g. a SM2262G controller is materially cheaper than a SM2262ENG or that a Hynix or Samsung FLASH is materially cheaper than Micron. What actually might have happened might have been that ADATA spent a lot of time tuning the original so that it did well in synthetic benchmarks to garner rave reviews. They subsequently swapped parts based on availability but didn't tune again for the new parts because they thought as an old product no press spends time reviewing it again. They were wrong and they get hammered. If my alternative speculation were true the most ethically questionable part is actually the original. (i.e. the bait part, not the switch part.) But here on RFD I do not believe we discuss ethics. We discuss price and value.

conurus wrote: ↑ I have an alternative speculation of what happened. Looking at what got changed, I do not believe e.g. a SM2262G controller is materially cheaper than a SM2262ENG or that a Hynix or Samsung FLASH is materially cheaper than Micron. What actually might have happened might have been that ADATA spent a lot of time tuning the original so that it did well in synthetic benchmarks to garner rave reviews. They subsequently swapped parts based on availability but didn't tune again for the new parts because they thought as an old product no press spends time reviewing it again. They were wrong and they get hammered. If my alternative speculation were true the most ethically questionable part is actually the original. (i.e. the bait part, not the switch part.) But here on RFD I do not believe we discuss ethics. We discuss price and value.

I don't think what ADATA did was necessarily malicious. I don't believe they started with an intent to deceive customers and the change in components may have been necessitated by supply constraints affecting the entire industry.

However, it was still harmful to customers who didn't get the components they expected. I don't blame anyone for being upset, especially enthusiasts who put so much time and effort into perfecting system builds and upgrades. From this POV, one might want to see ADATA punished with a bad rep so another company isn't tempted to do the same.

The SN750 was $139 at scam egg a week or two ago so if you can wait, id wait. Once a company scammed, who knows what else they've done that we don't know yet

scoutermike wrote: ↑ Friends don't let friends buy Adata anymore.

are all sizes affected? i bought the 2TB last April from AMZ. been ok and mostly hit the benchmarks as advertised. maybe 5-10% difference,

konig1 wrote: ↑ are all sizes affected? i bought the 2TB last April from AMZ. been ok and mostly hit the benchmarks as advertised. maybe 5-10% difference,

The 5-10% is probably from different components.

I have 2x 1TB and they're both different Still a good drive but I don't like their shady changes. Wouldn't buy again

Don't buy this. My 8800pro had problem from first week overheating. Pretty bad and slow RMI process and end up Amazon just refund me after two years.

Dhanushan wrote: ↑ Bait & switch is a common deception technique that's as old as time itself, but usually it's only seen being done by bad actors. What if I told you that this is happening today, right now, on sites like Amazon and Newegg, with some of the best selling SSDs?

This should be illegal… - Manufacturers are swapping SSD components

The irony of this video is that it basically pointed out the obvious that the "bait and switch" actually produced a better product than the original overall.

conurus wrote: ↑ Thank you. I already know about the bait-and-switch fiasco. At $129.99, what would you recommend?

Looked pretty hard and found these at the low end: SN550 (DRAM-less), A2000 (lower seq performance), NV1 (black box, but probably worse than A2000), Teamgroup (less known brand), any QLC stuff (not even considering). I might be missing others but chances are they all have disadvantages of their own.

If ADATA's reputation gets ruined by sensational click baits and had to cut price, it is to my benefit. That's RFD's spirit, isn't it. (We're just bargain hunting.)

Agreed, this is objectively a better drive than any of the drives normally at this price point. Yes Adata swapped some components, if one were to take the position of never buying an SSD from a manufacturer that has done this, their choices are Samsung and well Samsung... I've seen people here continue to recommend Crucial while criticizing Adata despite Crucial literally swapping out TLC NAND for QLC NAND in the P2, which is a far more egregious bait and switch.

bing1221 wrote: ↑ Don't buy this. My 8800pro had problem from first week overheating. Pretty bad and slow RMI process and end up Amazon just refund me after two years.

The 8800Pro is a notorious POS. This drive is not prone to overheating.

So gentlemen, a few things.

Industry makers have been swapping components on integrated circuits since the space age.

This would've been fairly uncontroversial had ADATA done certain things before swapping:
(1) Benched the new components and binned for comparable performance (by model, not by individual component).
(2) Purchased components of comparable rated reliability, and/or stress-tested that reliability in-house.

This isn't complicated, and Linus doesn't properly capture this simple nuance, but he's in the ballpark of correct.

If you get a good deal on the ADATA OP drive, I'd still consider, but I'd bench test and maybe google the surface controller and flash just to be safe.

God speed.

P.S. My recommendation applies to the 8200 Pro, not the 8800. I'm not a fan of the latter.

Desiato wrote: ↑ I don't think what ADATA did was necessarily malicious. I don't believe they started with an intent to deceive customers and the change in components may have been necessitated by supply constraints affecting the entire industry.

However, it was still harmful to customers who didn't get the components they expected. I don't blame anyone for being upset, especially enthusiasts who put so much time and effort into perfecting system builds and upgrades. From this POV, one might want to see ADATA punished with a bad rep so another company isn't tempted to do the same.

I already mentioned it but basically every company has done something along these lines. NAND being swapped is common and many companies (I'm eyeballing you Crucial, despite controller their own NAND supply) even swapped out TLC for QLC NAND. Controller changes are super common, Silicon Power straight up changed the entire drive in their A80, WD has made many changes to hardware in low end drives, Sabrent reduced the amount of DRAM in the Rocket when they changed the controller. Outside of WD and Samsung, these companies are at the mercy of supply constraints and since WD doesn't use exclusively their own controller designs in SATA parts, even they've been impacted by it. So basically by your own standards, the only acceptable company to buy an SSD from is Samsung. Adata has been unfairly singled out by practices that are far more normal in the industry that people realize.

redflagdealsguy wrote: ↑ So gentlemen, a few things.

Industry makers have been swapping components on integrated circuits since the space age.

This would've been fairly uncontroversial had ADATA done certain things before swapping:
(1) Benched the new components and binned for comparable performance (by model, not by individual component).
(2) Purchased components of comparable rated reliability, and/or stress-tested that reliability in-house.

This isn't complicated, and Linus doesn't properly capture this simple nuance, but he's in the ballpark of correct.

If you get a good deal on the ADATA OP drive, I'd still consider, but I'd bench test and maybe google the surface controller and flash just to be safe.

God speed.

P.S. My recommendation applies to the 8200 Pro, not the 8800. I'm not a fan of the latter.

For most people, benching it would be pointless. Most people at this price point were likely to buy an SN550 anyways. I don't care what variant of the SX8200 Pro one gets, it's gonna bet a better drive than an SN550. Maybe if one has a specific workload in mind but this is generally too old a drive to be desired for professional workloads anyways.

I'm aware of the bait and switch stuff with these drives (Adata isn't the only guilty party)... However at $129 during covid and global silicon shortage, I don't think you'll actually find a better drive for the price. It'll still run circles around any entry level SSD. It's by no means a BAD drive, it's just not 100% as advertised, and IMO still good for the price.

I'm giving this an upvote because, for the price and despite shady tactics, it performs better than other drives in this price range.