It's rare for me to recommend CEX, especially for storage.
However these are solid state devices; they either work, or they don't. Moreover you can look at the SMART data to see exactly how heavily they've been used. CEX also offer a 24 month warranty.
An OEM drive never offered through retail channels; ordinarily found in Dell and Lenovo laptops from last year. CEX have it incorrectly listed as an mSATA drive. It isn't; it's an m.2 2280 NVMe PCIe Gen3x4.
Not done much research on this one, but as far as I can tell this is an NVMe drive too, with very similar performance to the Toshiba.
Here's the benchmarks from the Toshiba drive on my Ryzen 1600 (MSI Gaming Pro motherboard); not amazing for NVMe but in-line with last year's drives. You can see from the SMART data that it's barely been used.
All comments (43)
tomwoodhouse
14 Sep 17#1
Nvm they are both NVME. This is a case of CEX not knowing what they have. These are worth more used, you could probably even flip them on ebay
plewis00 to tomwoodhouse
14 Sep 17#15
For a used tech company CeX are notoriously bad at knowing what they're selling. If you get it right or lucky though you can get a bargain usually because they send you the wrong thing. But as a warning I ordered a 128GB Verbatim SSD 2.5" for £25 and got a USB flash drive and another time I ordered a Sandusky Extreme 500 USB drive and got a standard Sandisk Extreme SSD (worth a lot less), though other times it goes in your favour. Basically, if they ship you the right thing, great, but if not don't be disappointed and definitely have a backup plan (don't strip your computer in advance).
TehJumpingJawa
14 Sep 17#2
Anyone who does pick up the Toshiba drive (or any other NVMe drive for that matter), should have a read of this:
Go into Control Panel -> Device Manager-> Storage controllers -> right click the NVMe driver -> update driver -> browse my computer for driver software -> Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer -> Uncheck 'Show compatible hardware' -> Select 'Toshiba' as the manufacturer -> Select 'RD400' as the model.
My experience matched that described in the article, *massively* reducing write latency (~100x faster), significantly improving 4K write throughput & latency.
Here's the revised CrystalDiskMark benchmark using the RD400 driver: The AS SSD benchmark is even more dramatic! With Microsoft NVMe driver:
With OCZ RC400 driver:
CampGareth to TehJumpingJawa
14 Sep 17#17
Thanks so much for the information! I'm gonna go check my XPS 13 today and see whether it's using a proper driver! *edit* My PM951 is using the stock microsoft driver but is getting appropriate performance. Possibly the bug has been fixed?
jukkie to TehJumpingJawa
15 Sep 17#33
I have a Samsung NVMe SSD, left the drivers that were installed with Windows. Ran a benchmark after reading your comment, and then again after downloading the Samsung drivers. MASSIVE difference in 4k write performance, so thanks for that!
malachi to TehJumpingJawa
15 Sep 17#40
How do keep your NVME at low temps? I have tried both of mine in my MSI X370 SLI PLUS Gaming Motherboard and the temps are in the high 60's according to CrystalDisk. I cant do anything about cooling because the port is right under my GPU.
TehJumpingJawa to malachi
16 Sep 17#41
Perhaps Jerry-rig a fan to get some airflow over it? My port is under the GPU too, though my temps don't seem excessive; ~48 while idle, ~52 while benchmarking.
Are you seeing any thermal throttling? Toshiba's spec sheet quotes 0-80 degrees as operating temperature range, so you should be fine.
malachi to TehJumpingJawa
19 Sep 17#43
Thanks, managed to get an addin card instead which solved the heat problem but looks like the 2nd drive will go on ebay as my x370 can't raid nvme drives. Well annoyed considering it's a new platform!
stevehart9
14 Sep 17#3
Brought 2 heat added
seanmorris100 to stevehart9
14 Sep 17#7
U mean bought 2, 2017 people still not grasping this...
malachi to seanmorris100
14 Sep 17#8
Thanks for contributing towards HotUKGrammer! :angry: Want some heat?!?!?
Oh and it's You, not U :stuck_out_tongue: 2017 people still not grasping this...
Cheers for this. Finally got rid of a £24 voucher to boot. :thumbsup:
malachi
14 Sep 17#5
Thanks, will do great for my raid setup
Steelman111
14 Sep 17#6
They have a surprising amount of undervalued computer hardware at CEX, you can basically make a living scouring their site and flipping stuff on Ebay/Gumtree.
I suppose that's what happens when they would rather hire smelly hippies and yes-man sales people rather than people that actually know their stuff.
runnybabbit to Steelman111
14 Sep 17#10
I doubt they're the ones making such decisions. Either way, what other national stores have a market of buying and selling used consumer computer components? Compared to other stuff CEX deal with, it's a relative niche and more complicated due to a variety of factors.
Most people sell their hardware on eBay/Gumtree for a reason.
plewis00 to Steelman111
14 Sep 17#16
I buy a lot of hardware from them for our own machines. Makes you worried about how much they mugged the person that sold it to them off for (unless the components are stripped from their grade C or too bad to be sold machines).
I admit I have stockpiled excess parts (e.g. Buying 2 SSDs or sticks of RAM not one) from them and if we didn't need them returned them to eBay with no loss knowing if they don't work I have their own warranty to fall back on.
Laughed at your comment, just too scared to stereotype and say it myself, but they do have a very 'alternative' in store image let's say
pgilc1
14 Sep 17#9
Showing OoS.
clawdyu
14 Sep 17#12
I bought this a couple of weeks back from CEX aswell for my gaming laptop, I thought it was a bargain. Cheapest Nvme I could find. They also sell some cheap mSata drives, I think some 64gb for £22 and around £30 for 128gb, cheaper then ebay or anywhere else.
Heat added.
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Opening post
However these are solid state devices; they either work, or they don't.
Moreover you can look at the SMART data to see exactly how heavily they've been used.
CEX also offer a 24 month warranty.
There are a couple of bargains:
Toshiba THNSN5256GPUK £50 (+ £2.50 delivery)
uk.webuy.com/pro…PUK
This is the one I bought.
An OEM drive never offered through retail channels; ordinarily found in Dell and Lenovo laptops from last year.
CEX have it incorrectly listed as an mSATA drive.
It isn't; it's an m.2 2280 NVMe PCIe Gen3x4.
SK Hynix PC300 £52 (+ £2.50 delivery)
uk.webuy.com/pro…GBA
Not done much research on this one, but as far as I can tell this is an NVMe drive too, with very similar performance to the Toshiba.
Here's the benchmarks from the Toshiba drive on my Ryzen 1600 (MSI Gaming Pro motherboard); not amazing for NVMe but in-line with last year's drives.
You can see from the SMART data that it's barely been used.
All comments (43)
forums.lenovo.com/t5/…940
Then perhaps download & install this driver package from OCZ:
ocz.com/dow…zip
Go into Control Panel -> Device Manager-> Storage controllers -> right click the NVMe driver -> update driver -> browse my computer for driver software -> Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer -> Uncheck 'Show compatible hardware' -> Select 'Toshiba' as the manufacturer -> Select 'RD400' as the model.
My experience matched that described in the article, *massively* reducing write latency (~100x faster), significantly improving 4K write throughput & latency.
Here's the revised CrystalDiskMark benchmark using the RD400 driver:
The AS SSD benchmark is even more dramatic!
With Microsoft NVMe driver:
With OCZ RC400 driver:
*edit* My PM951 is using the stock microsoft driver but is getting appropriate performance. Possibly the bug has been fixed?
Ran a benchmark after reading your comment, and then again after downloading the Samsung drivers.
MASSIVE difference in 4k write performance, so thanks for that!
My port is under the GPU too, though my temps don't seem excessive; ~48 while idle, ~52 while benchmarking.
Are you seeing any thermal throttling?
Toshiba's spec sheet quotes 0-80 degrees as operating temperature range, so you should be fine.
Oh and it's You, not U :stuck_out_tongue: 2017 people still not grasping this...
(sorry, couldn't resist).
I suppose that's what happens when they would rather hire smelly hippies and yes-man sales people rather than people that actually know their stuff.
Most people sell their hardware on eBay/Gumtree for a reason.
I admit I have stockpiled excess parts (e.g. Buying 2 SSDs or sticks of RAM not one) from them and if we didn't need them returned them to eBay with no loss knowing if they don't work I have their own warranty to fall back on.
Laughed at your comment, just too scared to stereotype and say it myself, but they do have a very 'alternative' in store image let's say
Heat added.