War Story: selection of replacement M.2 SSD can be tricky (long)
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 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.) I checked: this XPS does not support HMB. HMB has been an important technology for making NVMe drives cheaper. It allows some of the host computer's RAM to be used by the drive, eliminating the need for on-SSD RAM. So: I kind of need a drive with on-board RAM. There are not that many of them left. I also prefer TLC as opposed to QLC since TLC generally has better endurance. And sometimes higher speed, especially for sustained writes. 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. I ended up buying one of these: <https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003788387057.html> That comes in several size variants, but I don't want the -T models since they have no on-board DRAM. I will find out if the "metal heat dissapation vest" prevents it fitting in my notebook. If it doesn't fit, I can find it a home elsewhere. Mystery: In the past DRAMs on NVMe drives seemed to be 1G (small sample of inexpensive drives). HMB buffers seem to be much smaller. For example, on my desktop, the Crucial P3 Plus 1TB NVMe's HMB seems to be 32MiB. That seems to be so much smaller that it must be doing something less than the on-board DRAM would do. Finding HMB size: On my desktop, I followed some AI advice from DuckDuckGo: $ sudo nvme get-feature /dev/nvme0n1p1 -H -f 0x0d The last line of output said: Host Memory Buffer Size (HSIZE): 8192 The AI advice said that that was the the size of the HMB in bytes. That turns out not to be the case. It is the size in memory pages (4k on my machine, I think). This is from a note to an answer in an old stackexchange page: <https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/681131/how-to-check-change-nvme-hmb-on-linux> So AI helped but was wrong in an important detail (by a factor of 4k). The stackexchange answer was similarly wrong but had a correcting note (coincidence???). There may be future war stories when I get this drive and try to install it. Any recommendations for cloning the old drive, skipping bad spots? - I have Windows and Linux partitions - I have an NVMe to USB device. - I can boot the computer from a USB stick so I can copy without either source or destination partitions being mounted. - the new drive is larger than the old one.
1. I have regular SATA SSD, so I guess HMB (I didn't know what that was) doesn't apply to me. 2. Copying: Clonezilla. With old MBR format, you can copy (cp or dd), then resize the last partition, and then resize file system in it. Wth new GPT format, you can't do that, because GPT has secondary partition table at the end. So, you need to use tools like Clonezilla. 2025-09-18 19:01, D. Hugh Redelmeier via Talk 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 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.)
I checked: this XPS does not support HMB. HMB has been an important technology for making NVMe drives cheaper. It allows some of the host computer's RAM to be used by the drive, eliminating the need for on-SSD RAM.
So: I kind of need a drive with on-board RAM. There are not that many of them left.
I also prefer TLC as opposed to QLC since TLC generally has better endurance. And sometimes higher speed, especially for sustained writes.
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.
I ended up buying one of these: <https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003788387057.html> That comes in several size variants, but I don't want the -T models since they have no on-board DRAM.
I will find out if the "metal heat dissapation vest" prevents it fitting in my notebook. If it doesn't fit, I can find it a home elsewhere.
Mystery:
In the past DRAMs on NVMe drives seemed to be 1G (small sample of inexpensive drives).
HMB buffers seem to be much smaller. For example, on my desktop, the Crucial P3 Plus 1TB NVMe's HMB seems to be 32MiB. That seems to be so much smaller that it must be doing something less than the on-board DRAM would do.
Finding HMB size:
On my desktop, I followed some AI advice from DuckDuckGo:
$ sudo nvme get-feature /dev/nvme0n1p1 -H -f 0x0d
The last line of output said: Host Memory Buffer Size (HSIZE): 8192
The AI advice said that that was the the size of the HMB in bytes. That turns out not to be the case. It is the size in memory pages (4k on my machine, I think). This is from a note to an answer in an old stackexchange page:
<https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/681131/how-to-check-change-nvme-hmb-on-linux>
So AI helped but was wrong in an important detail (by a factor of 4k). The stackexchange answer was similarly wrong but had a correcting note (coincidence???).
There may be future war stories when I get this drive and try to install it.
Any recommendations for cloning the old drive, skipping bad spots?
- I have Windows and Linux partitions
- I have an NVMe to USB device.
- I can boot the computer from a USB stick so I can copy without either source or destination partitions being mounted.
- the new drive is larger than the old one. ------------------------------------ Description: GTALUG Talk Unsubscribe viaTalk-unsubscribe@lists.gtalug.org Start a new thread:talk@lists.gtalug.org This message archived athttps://lists.gtalug.org/archives/list/talk@lists.gtalug.org/message/QG7II62...
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
I came across this well-maintained google sheet when I was shopping around earlier this year: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1B27_j9NDPU3cNlj2HKcrfpJKHkOf-Oi1Dbuu... The KC3000 fit my criteria for features, performance, price. On 2025-09-19 04:53, Evan Leibovitch via Talk wrote:
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 [1] 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 ------------------------------------ Description: GTALUG Talk Unsubscribe via Talk-unsubscribe@lists.gtalug.org Start a new thread: talk@lists.gtalug.org This message archived at https://lists.gtalug.org/archives/list/talk@lists.gtalug.org/message/A6NBM4R...
Links: ------ [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f9hEn5_QZw
On Fri, Sep 19, 2025 at 1:48 PM Ganesh via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
I came across this well-maintained google sheet when I was shopping around earlier this year: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1B27_j9NDPU3cNlj2HKcrfpJKHkOf-Oi1Dbuu...
Very nice, thanks! - Evan
I did a bunch of research when I was putting together my Proxmox server, and ended up going with (prices Amazon 10 months ago - although they seem unchanged): - 7x TEAMGROUP MP44 - 2TB $159 - reasonably priced, 7400MB/s - 1x TEAMGROUP T-FORCE Z540 - 1TB $176 - 12,400MB/s using cache with the MP44s being the RAID, and the Z540 being boot, swap, and some ZFS-optimization-thingy I've been very happy with them, though this machine is 700% overpower for what I actually need. ../Dave On Sat, 20 Sept 2025 at 01:20, Evan Leibovitch via Talk < talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
On Fri, Sep 19, 2025 at 1:48 PM Ganesh via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
I came across this well-maintained google sheet when I was shopping around earlier this year: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1B27_j9NDPU3cNlj2HKcrfpJKHkOf-Oi1Dbuu...
Very nice, thanks!
- Evan
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There's a few open-box WD Black SN850x 2TB NVMe PCIe gen 4 at Canada Computers: 1 @ North York 2 @ Hamilton https://www.canadacomputers.com/en/desktop-laptop-internal-ssds/226019/wd-bl...
5.0 (36 Reviews)
Back in February, when I decided upon my own research (which I've entirely forgotten) that this was the best option, they were about $250. In ~June, there was an open box at Burnaby for ~$225 that I almost bought. Now, open-box are $188.99 and new are $194.99 Pretty good prices, and my local Canada Computers is quite excellent to deal with.
Thanks for everyone's shopping tips. There is no question that there are better drives than the one I selected. They don't appear better for what I needed, but everyone's needs are different and mine are very particular. - the Dell XPS is quite old and long in the tooth (2017?). It doesn't make sense to invest much in it at this late date. It does have some nice features: UltrHD display, nVidia GeForce GTX Mobile, 32GiB RAM) - I have no idea what level of NVMe it supports but it is old enough to not support HMB. So newer NVMe standards won't help this computer but would help more modern ones. - It's not my main computer so it doesn't need massive space. I needed at least 256GB. That's enough for Win 10 and Fedora. 512GB feels more comfortable. I went with 1TB since 512 wasn't much cheaper but 2T was significantly more expensive.
On Sat, Sep 20, 2025 at 11:44 AM D. Hugh Redelmeier via Talk < talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
Thanks for everyone's shopping tips.
There is no question that there are better drives than the one I selected.
My concern was less about what you bought than how you bought it. There is a non-trivial amount of chatter about the selling of counterfeit SSDs on Ali/Temu, that function but run well below spec. Here is one example <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb1wzeCCWaY>. I also noted your concern about reliability and longevity when you mentioned the TLC/QLC issue. For that I look to both the manufacturer's warranty as well as the claimed MTBF and TBW. The Ali page for your drive had no warranty listed, though it was listed in the spreadsheet Ganesh offered. According to its official product page <https://www.netac.com/product/NV7000-1.html>, Netac indicates a 5-year warranty and a TBW of 700. (I shudder to think of the warranty return process for something bought off Ali, though). - Evan
On Thu, 18 Sep 2025 19:01:53 -0400 (EDT) "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.
Hugh, A nearby computer store talked me into buying a Western Digital WDS100T2B0B-00YS70 M.2 SSD, and it is now my primary drive. This is back prior to December 2022. I have no idea of how it compares with other drives, but it is way faster than my old hard drive, and I am very happy. I am under the impression that these have a fairly short lifespan, but I do nightly backups. When it fails, I will get another one, or one of whatever is available. -- Howard Gibson hgibson@eol.ca http://home.eol.ca/~hgibson
participants (7)
-
D. Hugh Redelmeier -
David Mason -
Evan Leibovitch -
ganesh＠rethinkmail.com -
Howard Gibson -
Ron -
William Park