[Newegg] Micron M500 480GB Refurbished SSD - $109.99

how does this compare to the performance of the 2.5' ssd drives that come in macbooks of the last 4 years?

highflying10 wrote: ↑how does this compare to the performance of the 2.5' ssd drives that come in macbooks of the last 4 years?

I expect it would be very similar.

The problem with buying a refurbished SSD is that it could have a ton of TBW on it.

SickBeast wrote: ↑The problem with buying a refurbished SSD is that it could have a ton of TBW on it.

Agreed! With all the deals we've seen where a new 480 drive is only $30 or $40 more, it's hard to recommend this.

aeba7 wrote: ↑Agreed! With all the deals we've seen where a new 480 drive is only $30 or $40 more, it's hard to recommend this.

yeah this would have been hot before but now as recently as last week you could get brand new MLC drive with good specs for $129.99.

SickBeast wrote: ↑The problem with buying a refurbished SSD is that it could have a ton of TBW on it.

True, but it's really cheap and has 20nm MLC. Will likely endure hundreds of TB of writes (if not several PB). The 256GB 840 Pro (21nm MLC) endured over 2PB of writes with 21nm MLC in the Techspot torture test....

birthdaymonkey wrote: ↑The 256GB 840 Pro (21nm MLC) endured over 2PB of writes with 21nm MLC in the Techspot torture test....

sure, but those aren't real-world tests and simply mass-load data for a few months to see when it dies (i.e. no one in the real world could ever write 2PB over 10+ years to an 840, it would hit the p/e max long before that) - it's similar to running a car in a test lab for 500,000 kms, and then saying it won't rust for 500K.

I saw this offer in the Newegg email this morning. This is all of a $20 savings over the PNY 480 gig SSD deal from Bestbuy that just ended. There will be a lot more deals in the coming weeks as the old MLC and TLC SSDs are cleared off the shelves to make way for 3D nand SSDs. This is a review of the M500 for those who are interested in buying one. The power usage is sky high, worse than HDDs. Definitely not good for laptop applications.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6884/cruc ... 40gb-120gb

JackWhyte wrote: ↑sure, but those aren't real-world tests and simply mass-load data for a few months to see when it dies (i.e. no one in the real world could ever write 2PB over 10+ years to an 840, it would hit the p/e max long before that) - it's similar to running a car in a test lab for 500,000 kms, and then saying it won't rust for 500K.

Well, that's not exactly accurate. I was responding to a post about write endurance (significant TBW on a refurb), not some other aspect of drive reliability. Rust and engine endurance aren't really related in the same way... After conducting a 500K km test on the car engine, you could reasonably say that the engine has the potential to work for that many km before it wears out mechanically. Similarly, thanks to the Techspot test, we can say that the 256GB 840 Pro has the potential to endure 2PB of writes before the flash physically wears out.

In the real world, it probably wouldn't endure 2PB of host writes because write amplification would be higher. But I wouldn't be surprised to see a similar drive enduring 1PB of host writes over a 5-10 year period - assuming that some other component of the drive (e.g. a capacitor) didn't fail.

Unless these refurbs have been used in punishing professional work loads, if they survive the 180-day warranty period (to rule out obvious defects), they should last for many years. The higher power consumption and lower performance compared to modern drives (like that PNY 1211 with the SM2246) would be bigger factors to consider than write endurance. But then you guys were going nuts over the universally reviled V300 a few weeks ago when it cost $30 more than this SSD. I'd take an M500 over an async Sandforce drive every time even if they were the same price.

if someone buys one of these could you please look at the data from S.M.A.R.T and see exactly how used these are?

checking the return policy for newegg it doesn't make sense to buy this SSD test it for how much it has been used and then return it

better off keeping the PNY or Kingston SSDs that were on sale last week

No smart rfd'er would touch this 'deal', 20 bucks diff between a new drive with 3 or 5 year warranty vs this refurb with a 180 day warranty. 'Deal' is not solely dependent on price. Value is definitely not here IMO.

redflag0 wrote: ↑if someone buys one of these could you please look at the data from S.M.A.R.T and see exactly how used these are?

and what is the return policy like for newegg? do they accept SSDs that have been opened? free return shipping? no stocking fee?

sirxterminator wrote: ↑No smart rfd'er would touch this 'deal', 20 bucks diff between a new drive with 3 or 5 year warranty vs this refurb with a 180 day warranty. 'Deal' is not solely dependent on price. Value is definitely not here IMO.

yup agreed, checked the policy right before you posted

birthdaymonkey wrote: ↑Well, that's not exactly accurate. I was responding to a post about write endurance (significant TBW on a refurb), not some other aspect of drive reliability.

Huh? pumping several PBs of data over a month or two is not an adequate test for real-world reliability, as no 840 evo would come near that 2PB total in real life. that's a fact, as write amplification would be much, much, much higher and trim, garbage collection, and other internal housekeeping features create constant wear on the NAND every single minute of every single day the SSD is active, so when you add in 10 years of that extra wear on p/e/ cycles, there is no way you could ever match the "constantly pump mass data for 1-2 months and see when it cracks" tests.

they're fun to watch, like a fat guy at a hot dog eating contest, but don't mean anything in the real world.

For $20

- brand new vs used
- 180 day warranty vs 3 years

I think i would easily pay $10 for either.

Finally, then there's newegg reputation of shipping via Ace Ventura that I would want a longer warranty so if anything shows up later than the 180 day warranty.

sirxterminator wrote: ↑No smart rfd'er would touch this 'deal', 20 bucks diff between a new drive with 3 or 5 year warranty vs this refurb with a 180 day warranty. 'Deal' is not solely dependent on price. Value is definitely not here IMO.

Cmon it's a good deal for $110. Refurbished SSDs go through extensive quality control to make sure they are good. Even if the drive was heavily used before it was refurbished, it's still going to last for many more years, after which time SSDs will be so cheap that you'll be able to easily replace it. I'd buy this if I needed an SSD now and couldn't wait.

evoviii wrote: ↑For $20

- brand new vs used
- 180 day warranty vs 3 years

I think i would easily pay $10 for either.

Finally, then there's newegg reputation of shipping via Ace Ventura that I would want a longer warranty so if anything shows up later than the 180 day warranty.

It's not $20, it's $20 plus tax.

This would be been a hot deal about a year ago, but considering the recent prices of new SSDs... Not worth it.

What's the performance on these SSDs anyway? M500 is pretty old, even compared to the Mushkins and PNYs the past month.

JackWhyte wrote: ↑Huh? pumping several PBs of data over a month or two is not an adequate test for real-world reliability, as no 840 evo would come near that 2PB total in real life. that's a fact, as write amplification would be much, much, much higher and trim, garbage collection, and other internal housekeeping features create constant wear on the NAND every single minute of every single day the SSD is active, so when you add in 10 years of that extra wear on p/e/ cycles, there is no way you could ever match the "constantly pump mass data for 1-2 months and see when it cracks" tests.

they're fun to watch, like a fat guy at a hot dog eating contest, but don't mean anything in the real world.

Did you even read either of my posts? I said 840 Pro twice, nothing about an 840 EVO. I also accounted for the difference in write amplification, suggesting that it would in fact be much higher in real-world use. But the TR torture test was only testing a 256 GB drive. A ~500GB drive should have roughly double the write endurance. So let's say the write amplification (which includes garbage collection by the way - that's what write amplification is mainly due to) is 4X in real-world performance. A 512GB 840 Pro (which uses similar MLC NAND to this Micron drive) should STILL endure a PETABYTE of host writes before the NAND wears out due to exhausted p/e cycles.

To give you some perspective, my two Intel drives (a 320 and an X-25M G2), both purchased used over the last few years and used daily since their purchase for normal everyday computing (OS, office work, light gaming, web browsing, several Windows re-installs) are 5 and 7 years old respectively. They have 6TBW and 3TBW respectively.

As I said earlier, assuming these drives have been used in normal workloads and aren't pulled from super write intensive data center applications, TBW shouldn't be a concern. If you were to order one and find it already had 400TB of writes, then by all means send it back. I doubt they would be selling drives in this condition, however.

SRG01 wrote: ↑This would be been a hot deal about a year ago, but considering the recent prices of new SSDs... Not worth it.

What's the performance on these SSDs anyway? M500 is pretty old, even compared to the Mushkins and PNYs the past month.

The Mushkin Reactor and PNY 1211 both use 16nm Micron MLC and SM2246. They both perform the same as the Crucial BX100, which is just one rung below the current SATA performance champs like Samsung 850 Pro and Sandisk Extreme Pro. In other words, excellent "mainstream" performance SSDs.

The Crucial M500 design is definitely slower, but it should be a stronger performer than the Kingston V300 that Dell was selling at $134.99 a few weeks back.