On Thu, Sep 18, 2025 at 7:02 PM D. Hugh Redelmeier via Talk < talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
I have an old Dell XPS 9560 notebook. It has a dying SSD.
The SSD is M.2 SATA, which is not a good choice for performance. The XPS can support NVMe drives in the same socket, so I went shopping for one.
I'd been recently shopping for M.2 cards and researched the heck out of them. I'm surprised that after all the criteria you listed, the answer was an AliExpress cheapie. I buy lots from Ali, but after a number of bad experiences with USB sticks -- combined with warnings from around the Internet about cleverly counterfeited M.2 drives -- I vowed that I would never buy memory that way. Looking at your listing the price difference does not appear too great between getting it shipped from China and buying it from a store here with a return policy (like Canada Computers). What might be as relevant as the onboard controller issue is the PCIe generation. Getting a Gen4 stick for a Gen3 computer is an utter waste of money. I ended up going with the Samsung 990 Pro. Top of line, more than $100/TB, but I figured saving a few bucks on this just wasn't worth it. Second choice was the WD Black SN850X. Both of these have onboard memory controllers and DRAM cache. For reasons unexplained, at the time I bought the version with the heatsink was on sale so it was actually cheaper than the version without. The notebook might not have enough clearance for most M.2 heatsinks. I note that October Prime Days at Amazon will soon be coming, and memory/storage is often one of the categories they have on sale.
(I bought this computer used, before the pandemic. The seller said he had problems with the original SSD so he replaced it with this SATA drive. There is a chance I'll have trouble with an NVMe drive.)
Another reason to buy local. It might cost a little more but a few places have at least a one-week no-excuses return policy. As does Amazon.
So: I kind of need a drive with on-board RAM. There are not that many of them left.
There are indeed many of them left, including almost all of the high performance models. In addition to the two mentioned above, certain models of Seagate, ADATA and Kingston NVMe also have onboard DRAM cache.
I also prefer TLC as opposed to QLC since TLC generally has better endurance.
My approach, rather than get caught up on spec-sheet babble, is to: - read reviews from reasonably trustable sources (I found this youtube video <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f9hEn5_QZw> helpful) - compare warranty periods to get an idea of manufacturer confidence (ie, don't get anything with less than 5 years; the AliExpress card has NO stated warranty) I found it hard to search for an SSD with these attributes. They aren't often
spelled out in listings so Amazon search and AliExpress search are not great.
Odd. I've had no problem finding out which M.2 cards had onboard DRAM cache and which don't. Just searching "nvme dram cache" on shopping sites reveals quite a few entries. If you really care about the TLC/QLC issue there are places like Tom's (or the manufacturer sites) that will offer those specs once you've narrowed your choices. - Evan