Hi zoom25!
Thank you so much for a most informative post! You're quite a gentleman! Also, I am quite impressed that you know I live in Croatia. I rarely hide anything but it's amazing to me that people actually read what I write.
I read the article you suggested and found some interested contenders in my area. I typically try to buy from stores that actually 'exist' because they're less likely to disappear when you have to claim warranty. You know, the kind where you come around the following month only to find a pizzeria where the store used to stand.
In any case, this is how much some of these drives cost here:
1. Samsung 870 EVO 1TB, 5 year warranty - 976 HRK (130 €)
2. Crucial MX500 1TB, 5 year warranty - 807 HRK (108 €)
3. Crucial BX500 1TB, 3 year warranty - 721 HRK (96 €)
4. Kingston A400 960GB, 3 year warranty - 759 HRK (101 €)
The Samsung is likely the best one but it is also the most expensive one. I now know that there are different 'levels' of SSDs and that 'SSD is not an SSD'. In the case of these drives, the Crucial BX500 and Kingston A400 do not have a DRAM apparently which, if I understood this right, is basically a buffer (like computer RAM, of a sort) and allows for quicker access times. In fact, some fellow (I actually quite like his videos) specifically spoke against buying a non-DRAM SSD.
I must say, this is confusing a bit because my brother who assembles my PCs for me, just informed me that my "old" CAD workstation we just renewed does in fact use two Crusial BX500 drives running in "RAID 1" array. And according to the online source, this one should be slow. Interesting.
In any case, how do you feel about these drives taking into account the price? I know, the prices are high but they have always been high in Europe and they will only get higher.
Thanks again mate!
Cheers - Antun
Hi Antun, for your strict purpose of using it internally with only the BDP's CPU and its gigabit interface, you won't really be noticing any differences. For myself, I have to always take these things into account with photo or video editing with huge data rates, as each project can often balloon to X00GB+. I'm constantly reading and writing lots of data on my drives, so I need something that is both reliable long term with a high TBW (Terabytes Written) and fast enough in real time that it doesn't cause any lags or get sagged down after a while due to a poor buffer. For those purposes, I use NVMe drives both externally and internally. Those are rated for 2500+MB/s.
For basic audio playback, all of those drives should work fine, but I'd only feel comfortable going with the Crucial MX500 and the Samsung 870 EVO (if you can find the older 860 EVO for cheaper - get it. That's also still better than the MX500. I have 2 of those). I use and recommend these 2 drives for SATA exclusively to all my friends and family whenever doing builds. I also buy RAM from Crucial for my NUCs and Macs. Never had an issue myself or with any friend/family's builds.
You can maybe save a few bucks by going for the cheaper Kingston or BX500, but I'd personally still go for the MX500 or EVO for the peace of mind. These are the highest performing, and more importantly, the most reliable drives on the market.
You should obviously read up and ask around to feel confident about your decision, but I'm just letting you know that if I needed another SATA SSD, I wouldn't even be considering the A400 or BX500. It'd only be between the MX500 and Samsung EVO. The MX500 and Evo do offer a higher 5 year warranty in comparison to the 3 years of the other two, however there's less chances of you even needing to use the warranty in the first place with the Samsung and MX500 because of their class leading reliability. I have read mixed things about the A400
Between the MX500 and Samsung EVO, as I previously told you and you found out for yourself, the EVO has a higher retail price than the MX500 but also does perform a bit better than the MX500. However, both of these drives are on my "peace of mind" list and I would have no issues going for the MX500 if I needed a drive right away and the Samsung wasn't on sale and the price difference was too much. Not sure about Croatia, but here in US and Canada, whenever the Samsungs do go on sale (especially big ones like Black Friday), they actually get very steep discounts. They can actually be had for as cheap or cheaper than other lower class drives.
With the prices you listed, I wouldn't even be considering the BX500 or A400. The MX500 is easily worth the 7-12 € difference. I 100% recommend that drive if you can't find the Samsung on sale and you need a SSD soon.
