Basically want something with decent performance and durability. Cost matters, but I’m not trying to hit rock bottom. I’m particularly wondering, is an HMB-type PCIe SSD ok combined with a SATA adapter? I think HMB is supported if your machine can use a PCIe or NVMe disk directly, but I’d be using an older Thinkpad with a 2.5" SATA slot at least for now. So I’m wondering if I’d lose a lot of performance if the SSD combo doesn’t have its own RAM buffer.

I see good deals by today’s standards for PCIe SSD’s at of all places, Office Depot.

Thanks.

  • solrize@lemmy.worldOP
    2·
    2 days ago

    HMB is host memory buffer or something like that. It means instead of having a ram buffer in the drive, the OS software uses some of the host computer’s memory for disk buffering. That makes the drive cheaper but I haven’t heard claims of it being any faster. Consumer drives seem to all use it now, and Linux supports it, but maybe not when you wrap up the HMB drive in a SATA shell.

    I guess $90 for 1TB is pretty good. I have been suspicious of the EVO drives but at least they aren’t QVO.

    Thanks!

    • hamsda@lemm.ee
      1·
      2 days ago

      You’re welcome!

      What’s so bad about the QVO drives?

      but maybe not when you wrap up the HMB drive in a SATA shell.

      That makes sense, with HMB being an NVME feature. I tried searching for HMB and SATA, but did not find any information about if it will or won’t work, so it’s probably best to assume that it won’t.

      • solrize@lemmy.worldOP
        1·
        1 day ago

        QVO is QLC flash which has worse durability. I’m trying to stay away from it though maybe it works better now than it originally did. Hmm, I had thought that the drive I looked at a while back had HMB but was not NVMe. Maybe you are right and I didn’t look closely enough. I believe those SATA shells don’t work with NVMe drives.

      • Veraxis@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        1 day ago

        The Samsung QVO drives are based on QLC NAND flash (Quad-Level Cell). It has lower write endurance than TLC (Triple-Level Cell) and they slow down to nearly hard drive speeds when close to full. Supposedly, the technology is lower cost, but when manufacturers charge effectively the same price or more for QLC as TLC drives, there is zero benefit for a consumer to buy them and they should probably be avoided.