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Gobbeldygook posted:I bought this SSD from Newegg. I was a bit suspicious that it was $25 less than any other seller, but went for it anyway. I just checked the seller's feedback and they have zero feedback, positive or negative. I'm going to record myself opening the package. Assuming there is an m2 SSD in there, what do I need to do to the SSD to be certain I'm not being scammed somehow, ie it's actually 128gb not 1tb, it's used, etc? Plug it in and run a disk info utility like Crystal Disk Info.
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Oct 3, 2020 12:35
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sean10mm posted:Plug it in and run a disk info utility like Crystal Disk Info. Will that also notice faked size? I think it would also be necessary to fill the drive and check that all the data is still readable and uncorrupted.
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Oct 3, 2020 13:44
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Saukkis posted:Will that also notice faked size? I think it would also be necessary to fill the drive and check that all the data is still readable and uncorrupted. I think you're correct: drive info programs are only as good as the data that the drives are reporting. If they're lying, it won't be able to know. You'd have to fill the drive at least most of the way up and then check to ensure the data was actually written correctly and is readable. That said, the traditional way of faking poo poo is to wire in a small USB drive to a larger case. Can't really do that with a NVMe drive. If it shows up and it works at all when you plug it in I'd be pretty confident it is what it says it is, unlike 2.5" drives where you can't see the chips. $25 off a $130 drive is a good discount, but not a crazy suspicious level of discount. DrDork fucked around with this message at 19:40 on Oct 3, 2020 |
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Oct 3, 2020 19:37
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Would the manufacturer software be able to verify the reported serial or something?
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Oct 3, 2020 21:08
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DrDork posted:If a nation-state is interested in your data, you probably just want to shred the drive and not resell it on eBay to begin with. True, just saying, if you want to have ultimate confidence in data destruction without physical destruction, a secure erase implementation which issues erase commands to all blocks is best. Subjunctive posted:My understanding is that Secure Erase actually zeroes (or 0xFFs) the cells, as described here: So, like I said, I actually did some testing which seemed to demonstrate the 840 Pro series erasing all cells (evidence: how much the SMART wear counters advanced, amount of time needed for the erase), but equally demonstrated the 850 Pro series not erasing all cells (too fast, wear counters didn't advance by a meaningful amount). I also tested what you can read back from sectors after a secure erase. Both 840 Pro and 850 Pro return all-zeroes. That doesn't mean zeroes got written to media. SSDs use indirection data structures similar to a VM page table. Just like VM systems, a very useful trick is to provide a single flag bit in each mapping table entry which, when set, indicates that the logical block address contains all zeroes and has no allocated backing store. So, when you perform an ATA Secure Erase on a drive which implements it with key destruction, it has a fast way to "zero" everything. It just writes out a new mapping table where every LBA is marked as zero, and a new free list containing all the physical blocks on the drive. These data structures are large enough to explain why a secure erase still takes a second or two on drives which base Secure Erase on cryptography, even though the key destruction ought to take on the order of milliseconds (or faster). My feeling on all this is that the ATA standards committee is a typical PC industry body which didn't nail down behavior enough, so there's enough wiggle room for vendors to do very different thngs. And of course there's also not enough public compliance testing, so you can't count on drives doing the right thing. (all that said, I'd feel safe assuming no attacker, even a nation-state, could get my data after issuing a Secure Erase command to an 850 Pro. I wouldn't feel as safe with one of the bottom tier vendors like ADATA, however.)
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Oct 3, 2020 22:33
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DrDork posted:If a nation-state is interested in your data, you probably just want to shred the drive and not resell it on eBay to begin with. Plus going ham on a drive with power tools and firearms is a lot of fun. I usually wrap it up by putting them in an old microwave in a parking lot. China already has all my info (yaaay OPM hack) but I still make sure my drives are thoroughly dead when I dispose of them. E:Is bitlocker worth a drat for data encryption? I used to use it on a work laptop but I don’t have a lot of experience with it. Ugly In The Morning fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Oct 3, 2020 |
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Oct 3, 2020 22:34
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ADATA isn't *really* "bottom tier" anymore. I've no problem recommending the SX8200 Pro to people, especially since the SKHynix P31 hasn't been out long enough to be assured of no long term issues stemming from a new-build drive. I couldn't recommend ADATA's lowest tier SKUs for anything other than bulk storage, though.
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Oct 3, 2020 22:38
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Ugly In The Morning posted:Plus going ham on a drive with power tools and firearms is a lot of fun. I usually wrap it up by putting them in an old microwave in a parking lot. Oh, I agree! Several of my <100GB 3.5" spinners have gone out via firing squad. It does tend to hurt their resaleability, though. Bitlocker isn't bad (as long as you use a PIN), but it's also not perfect. In that it's easy to use and built in to Windows, it does suffer from the same issue that a lot of ubiquitous security tech does: it gets a lot of people trying to break it, and they've managed to a few times through various non-trivial means. The last one I saw required you to actually solder trace wires from a FPGA to a laptop's TPM. I'd say it's more than sufficient for your personal data and normal user prudence on protecting tax docs or whatever. If you're a government entity/contractor trying to protect TS/SCI material, maybe go with something else.
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Oct 3, 2020 23:06
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Ugly In The Morning posted:E:Is bitlocker worth a drat for data encryption? I used to use it on a work laptop but I don’t have a lot of experience with it. Bitlocker is good. DrDork posted:Bitlocker isn't bad (as long as you use a PIN), but it's also not perfect. In that it's easy to use and built in to Windows, it does suffer from the same issue that a lot of ubiquitous security tech does: it gets a lot of people trying to break it, and they've managed to a few times through various non-trivial means. The last one I saw required you to actually solder trace wires from a FPGA to a laptop's TPM. All the attacks or vulnerabilities aren't really against bitlocker the encrypted filesystem itself. They're against the OS, or the host PC hardware, or the entire concept of usable encryption. It's like, they're only one step removed from "we wait until the target enters their bitlocker password, then yoink the laptop out of his hands!" as the proof of concept. If someone can solder poo poo to your motherboard, they could also replace your keyboard with keylogging spytech or set up a high-res camera to watch you type the password. Once you start introducing the idea of an evil maid you might as well declare rubber hoses to be a vulnerability as well. As far as anyone outside MS or the NSA knows, if you have a bare cold drive encrypted with bitlocker it is as secure as the passkey is random.
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Oct 3, 2020 23:36
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Klyith posted:Bitlocker is good. Yeah, true. At the same time, though, isn't that how attacks against basically every non-trivial encryption scheme have gone for the past 20+ years? Don't bother trying to break the encryption algorithm itself, attacking the chain of trust is much, much easier. Steal the key from somewhere. Figure out that you can inject untrusted code in the boot sequence. Whatever. All I'm saying is that Bitlocker has had its chain of trust attacked successfully, so if there's serious concern about the contents of a laptop system leaking out, it's something to think about. But as I also noted, unless you have reason to think you / your company is being specifically targeted, no one is going to put the effort into doing so. It's not trivial like buying a normal unencrypted drive off eBay, popping it into a system, and running file recovery software on there to see what sort of interesting stuff pops up--that's the sort of effort level 99.99% of criminals are willing to put forth, and no more. You're right that, in isolation, a Bitlocker encrypted bare drive is pretty damned secure.
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Oct 4, 2020 02:43
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I'm thinking of upgrading my current 250GB SATA SSD to a 1TB NVME with a 4TB SSD for games'n'poo poo, replacing my 6TB HDDs I still have - is there anything I should look out for in terms of consumer traps? Last time I bought storage, 256GB of SSD was still about £200.
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Oct 4, 2020 20:23
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ijyt posted:I'm thinking of upgrading my current 250GB SATA SSD to a 1TB NVME with a 4TB SSD for games'n'poo poo, replacing my 6TB HDDs I still have - is there anything I should look out for in terms of consumer traps? Last time I bought storage, 256GB of SSD was still about £200. Don't buy a QLC drive to save $5. Otherwise: Klyith posted:For a desktop apps & games user: the WD SN550 in 1TB size, and the Adata XPG SX8200 or HP EX950 in 2TB. SK Hynix P31 looks baller as well but is very new.
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Oct 4, 2020 20:43
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Neat, thank you! Luckily knew about the QLC bit. I'm guessing Samsung are no longer the go-to now?
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Oct 4, 2020 21:37
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ijyt posted:Neat, thank you! Luckily knew about the QLC bit. I'm guessing Samsung are no longer the go-to now? They aren't bad but they really overcharge for what you get.
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Oct 4, 2020 21:41
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sean10mm posted:They aren't bad but they really overcharge for what you get. Would the SN750 be a good buy versus the SN550 for an OS drive, considering the below? DrDork posted:DRAMless drives also shouldn't be used for an OS drive, if that's what you mean by "upgrading" your drive. So go ADATA or HP for your OS drive, SN550 is fine if you're using it as a secondary / gaming drive. e: Holy poo poo the value on that XPG SX8200 Pro 2TB price vs the equivalent Samsung one. Oh mama. ijyt fucked around with this message at 21:52 on Oct 4, 2020 |
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Oct 4, 2020 21:45
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ijyt posted:e: Holy poo poo the value on that XPG SX8200 Pro 2TB price vs the equivalent Samsung one. Oh mama. Yuuuuup. Don't get me wrong, Samsung drives are great, and usually some of fastest (if not always THE fastest anymore) ones around. But considering you'd generally be hard pressed to demonstrate the difference between a 600MB/s SSD and a 6000/MB/s SSD in normal home use, the prices just aren't worth it for people just shoving games and poo poo on them.
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Oct 4, 2020 22:05
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ijyt posted:Would the SN750 be a good buy versus the SN550 for an OS drive, considering the below? see my reply to that psot, but the tl;dr is that no, a desktop apps & games user doesn't need a drive with dram
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Oct 4, 2020 22:49
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Klyith posted:see my reply to that psot, but the tl;dr is that no, a desktop apps & games user doesn't need a drive with dram Oh great, much appreciated everyone, thank you!
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Oct 5, 2020 01:21
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Also, just FYI, the SN550 is a DRAM-less drive. Usually the price difference between a drive without a DRAM cache versus one with it is no greater than  -  , so unless you're really pinching pennies it's worth it to go with a cached drive.
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Oct 5, 2020 05:17
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If I had a genie I'd wish all the manufacturers would make only dramless qlc drives My second wish would be a big bucket of popcorn for when I read r/hardware
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Oct 5, 2020 05:43
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BIG HEADLINE posted:Also, just FYI, the SN550 is a DRAM-less drive. Usually the price difference between a drive without a DRAM cache versus one with it is no greater than Hmm, I assumed all WD Blue drives would have a DRAM cache. Why isn't this stuff easier to navigate?
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Oct 5, 2020 09:12
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Rinkles posted:Hmm, I assumed all WD Blue drives would have a DRAM cache. Why isn't this stuff easier to navigate? The company would prefer you not to know what you're buying beyond the color label and size. They screwed over hard drive buyers by secretly putting shingled disks in their red line which are bad for RAID. All of the manufacturers have some issues with certain products so it requires a bit of a deeper dive to check what's actually going on. Luckily there's threads where goons are pretty up to date on most hardware news and info.
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Oct 5, 2020 09:38
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So just before I do something stupid, the price point of the Adata XPG SX8200 Pro 2TB is drawing me in, and I'm thinking of just getting two of them - is there anything I need to worry about with the brand in terms of the controller or suspiciously high RMA rates?
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Oct 5, 2020 13:00
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ijyt posted:So just before I do something stupid, the price point of the Adata XPG SX8200 Pro 2TB is drawing me in, and I'm thinking of just getting two of them - is there anything I need to worry about with the brand in terms of the controller or suspiciously high RMA rates? Nah, they're just a good value.
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Oct 5, 2020 13:10
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The only caveat (and it's a small one) of the SX8200 Pro is that it can run a little warm. There's a 2TB version of the SKHynix drive coming *eventually* (it's going to be the P31 Platinum), but I've not seen a release date or pricing info.
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Oct 5, 2020 15:38
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BIG HEADLINE posted:The only caveat (and it's a small one) of the SX8200 Pro is that it can run a little warm. There's a 2TB version of the SKHynix drive coming *eventually* (it's going to be the P31 Platinum), but I've not seen a release date or pricing info. Wasn't able to find anyone selling SK Hynix stuff in the UK via PCPartpicker unfortunately. Worst case I through an aftermarket heatsink on it.
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Oct 5, 2020 15:51
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ijyt posted:So just before I do something stupid, the price point of the Adata XPG SX8200 Pro 2TB is drawing me in, and I'm thinking of just getting two of them - is there anything I need to worry about with the brand in terms of the controller or suspiciously high RMA rates? They're very good drives at an excellent price point with really no major downsides. ADATA just isn't able to charge the name-brand premium that Samsung is. The SX8200 isn't the fastest drive on the market anymore, but it's still well and plenty fast enough for your needs, and the faster ones are notably more expensive. I have a 1TB version in three different machines and they've all been rock solid 100% A+ good buys.
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Oct 5, 2020 15:51
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Yeah for sure, I’m mostly getting M.2 for the formfactor and space saving in ITX builds, otherwise I’d be just as happy with SATA SSD.
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Oct 5, 2020 17:51
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I got the sabrent rocket 2TB and I think it's neat.
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Oct 6, 2020 02:30
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Can someone confirm or deny that Inland has altered their Premium drives to the point where it's not worth recommending them anymore? I know the early ones were decent-quality Phison E12 drives, but I've heard the newer ones use the downgraded controller and a smaller DRAM cache?
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Oct 6, 2020 02:38
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I did some reading when they first made the changes and came to the conclusion of somewhat worse than was previously offered, but not meaningfully so. It wasn't the most in-depth search and it was months ago so don't take it as gospel. Unless they changed it again?
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Oct 6, 2020 03:02
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Some Goon posted:I did some reading when they first made the changes and came to the conclusion of somewhat worse than was previously offered, but not meaningfully so. It wasn't the most in-depth search and it was months ago so don't take it as gospel. Unless they changed it again? The only reason I ask is that I live in an area with *two* Micro Centers, and more often than not people ask me about hardware they can pick up/get the same day. I've been trying to steer most to the SX8200 Pro and (reservedly only because of its newness) to the P31 when it comes to NVMe recommendations, but it'd be nice to know something definitive about the newer Inland Premium drives, so I can be more knowledgeable in my  dissuasion.
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Oct 6, 2020 03:07
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BIG HEADLINE posted:Can someone confirm or deny that Inland has altered their Premium drives to the point where it's not worth recommending them anymore? I know the early ones were decent-quality Phison E12 drives, but I've heard the newer ones use the downgraded controller and a smaller DRAM cache? If you consider their SSDs having half the DRAM (256 MB vs 512 MB for the old, 'good' ones which I got a fistful of when they were $89) then yeah not worth recommending. The newest Inland Premium 1 TB is nifty to me since it's now single-sided (denser NANDs.) I reallly can't tell any difference in speed between the old and the new in daily use.. BTW, don't recommend the Hynix P31 to Mac 2013-2015 rMBP owners, as it's currently been found to be incompatible, likely a firmware issue. As soon as I put iStat Menus on the laptop that's got the 'new' Inland I'll check the current draw on the new ones, I have one of the 'old' Inland Premium in an rMBP and it only draws 0.2A at idle and 0.4A at use. Binary Badger fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Oct 7, 2020 |
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Oct 7, 2020 17:00
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Quaint Quail Quilt posted:I got the sabrent rocket 2TB and I think it's neat. hell yeah brother put a rocket inyour pocket pretty excellent for the $220 I paid E: yeesh they're up to $280 now?!
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Oct 8, 2020 04:21
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Got a great deal on a 4TB 860 Evo, excited to soon be rid of my two old rear end 1TB HDDs, of which one is already getting repaired during boot. Might throw my 4TB HDD into an external enclosure and be done with it.
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Oct 13, 2020 01:13
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Seamonster posted:hell yeah brother put a rocket inyour pocket 
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Oct 13, 2020 01:20
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I got a gigabyte aorus used for $320, pretty wild coming from a regular SATA SSD. Something funny, the 1st used one I got, the last person replaced the internals with a samsung 970.
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Oct 14, 2020 03:04
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brand-wise how is Crucial these days? Prime Day has a P5 NVMe up for $115 and I'm tempted to pull the trigger
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Oct 14, 2020 03:31
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Rev. Bleech_ posted:brand-wise how is Crucial these days? Prime Day has a P5 NVMe up for $115 and I'm tempted to pull the trigger Crucial is a good brand, just be sure if you're getting a QLC drive or not and that it's fit for your purpose if so.
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Oct 14, 2020 03:39
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Some Goon posted:Crucial is a good brand, just be sure if you're getting a QLC drive or not and that it's fit for your purpose if so. Apparently it is QLC. Unless I misunderstand what I read about QLC, that's not ideal for the intended purpose (OS/app/game drive). On the other hand, it would be replacing a 4 year old M.2 drive which doesn't feature NVMe. Hrm.
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Oct 14, 2020 03:47
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