ASUS N550JK, Samsung Evo or Crucial M500? TLC VS MLC NAND?

I read the TLC NAND is what is in the Samsung EVO and it wears out faster than the MLC in the Crucial, is this true and does it even matter for a laptops usage? I read the lifespan is enough either way.

Price wise the M500 is a little cheaper is why I was considering it, but many point to the Samsung evo and pro as the best to use. I prefer 500GB, but am considering instead of waiting to go ahead and buy a 240-250GB SSD now and if I need to put my stock 1TB 5400RPM as storage in a caddy where the DVD drive is?

If I put a 5400RPM drive in the caddy will it cause lower battery life having both the SSD and regular HD or will the storage drive only spin up when used? What do I have to do in order to do this? Can I leave my OS on the backup drive or the recovery partition etc? best way to go about it so I have the 1TB if I need to send in for warranty?

Does cloning the drive clone the recovery partition as well? Or should I use a thumb drive for that? If i go with a 250GB SSD I want as much space as I can obviously.

Any other ideas, suggestions of help is greatly appreciated. THANKS.

I considered the Crucial M500 240GB SATA 2.5-Inch 7mm Internal Solid State Drive CT240M500SSD1 or the Samsung EVO (250GB or wait and get 500GB later on).

Laptop is: ASUS N550JK (Core i7-4700HQ 2.4Ghz (Turbo 3.4 GHz), Intel HD 4600/NVIDIA GTX850M), has stock 1TB 5400RPM drive in it now.

 

Between these two 2.5" SSD model brands, I would recommend the EVO but not in the capacity you are currently considering.

Both the M500 and the EVO at less than 500GB capacity are poor performers vs. 500GB and up. Comparing these two at the ~500GB capacity; the EVO feels much, much faster for light usage and effectively obsoletes the M500 for me.

Having two drives vs. one will require more power - but it will also depend on how you're using your system too. When using only the SSD (O/S + Programs) side of your storage subsystem the battery will last noticeably longer (especially with the EVO). When using both storage subsystem drives the battery life will be worse than what you are currently able to achieve from the single drive. The range for most of your usage will probably be somewhere in-between these extremes and will depend a lot on how you setup your system to use both drives.

When you take into account the OP'ing needed for SSD's (I recommend 30%), the larger capacity models don't only get you an inherently better storage device by virtue of optimized nand channels, nand interleaving and therefore more effective firmware. But also more usable capacity too of which we never have enough.


In your situation, I would consider simply replacing the HDD with an SSD of 500GB or greater capacity and buying an external enclosure for the mechanical HDD for strict data storage.

To estimate the useful capacity of an SSD you can buy today let's consider an example of the 500GB EVO model:

500GB x 1000 x 1000 x 1000 = 500,000,000,000

500,000,000,000 / 1024 / 1024 /1024 = ~465GB formatted capacity

465GB x 0.70 = ~325GB recommended capacity (~140GB left 'unallocated' for OP'ing benefits).


With the 325GB total capacity calculated above; I would be partitioning this like so:

150GB - C:\ drive for O/S and Programs
175GB - D: \ drive for DATA


As you can see, the cost of an properly setup SSD is not just in $$$ (just like a properly setup HDD never was either).


See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...upgrades/751633-ssd-os-drive.html#post9644067


See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...upgrades/751633-ssd-os-drive.html#post9646050


See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...marks-brands-news-advice-215.html#post9586490

 

Thanks, You know your stuff! I am glad you replied because I didn't really consider everything obviously.

So I am marking off anything under 500GB, I guess I will wait just a little longer and buy a 500GB evo (unless see a deal on larger, then who knows). After reading everything you wrote, I think I would have not been happy with a smaller drive (especially when you say 365GB recommend out of a 500GB drive, 250 would end up too small). And I really didn't want to pull the DVD drive anyway. I do currently have backup drives (USB 3.0 WD passport 1TB, plus 2 other drives). Think I was just getting impatient cause the N550JK could possibly be so much faster overall with an SSD and I loved a previous laptop that had recently with a 24GB cache SSD, so now I have the SSD bug and want one for the OS. If I allow myself to spend the cash when I am ready for an SSD, I would love to get the 750GB EVO.

Question, Is there a point where I should not go past on either partition as far as being too full? Will that be plenty for the OS and still leave enough free space? Reading those links now, so may find my answers, lol.

 

150GB for the O/S partition is based on being able to do monthly O/S updates and SP's as they happen. Including all the updates (or new versions of) all the programs you normally run.

Keep in mind though that I move the user folders to the D:\ data drive too - the only thing living on C: is O/S and Programs normally and this I like to keep at least 50GB free space or more for the O/S (updates and SP's) and programs temp file requirements during active use.

I would suggest simply saving for the highest capacity point we have now: the 1TB EVO. It is not that much more $$$ but the same effort will be expended to properly replace your HDD anyway (may as well make it last a few months/years longer).