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.
Latest comments (43)
TehJumpingJawa
7y 27d#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
7y 27d#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
7y 27d#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
7y 27d#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
7y 27d#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
7y 26d#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!
Toriniasty
7y 27d#42
Hynix CrystalDysk info compared to my old ssd (C: SSD, E: NVMe) Fun fact, came with the data of the previous owner.
malachi
7y 27d#39
Im sure in the early days not all z97 and x99 boards could boot from nvme. The ones which did needed some crazy mod to trick the motherboard to boot from it.
veedubjai
7y 27d#38
^ Have you got the latest BIOS for motherboard? asus.com/uk/…ad/
It appears that version 2601 started supporting NVMe drives. Version 3003 is the latest BIOS. Check what version you have.
delboyd
7y 27d#35
Mine just arrived too. All well and good but can't boot from it and can't figure out why
TehJumpingJawa to delboyd
7y 27d#36
What motherboard & chipset? I've read that early on some motherboards had problems booting from NVMe. Though you'd expect motherboards that include an on-board NVMe slot should have no problem...
One thing you must have is UEFI enabled, as booting from NVMe requires it. As you're using UEFI, you should also partition the NVMe drive using GPT not MBR.
My boot drive was already a 256GB SATA SSD booting as a UEFI/GPT device, so all I had to do was clone it (using Macrium Reflect) onto the NVMe drive and change the UEFI boot order.
delboyd to TehJumpingJawa
7y 27d#37
Z97, it's a Maximus VII Ranger. As far as I know, the BIOS has supported NVMe drives since early updates. Windows recognises the SSD fine, I can install things to it etc.
I formatted it as GPT and switched driver initiation to UEFI, but still nothing. The motherboard can't even see it when I go into "NVMe Configuration". I'm absolutely baffled...
malachi
7y 27d#34
My Toshiba's just arrived, as described
Will test later tonight.
malachi
7y 27d#32
Both of mine are due tomorrow too, let's see how this goes!
mikerr
7y 27d#23
Good prices from cex - but be aware their packing seems to be just "throw it in jiffy bag and post" - which is ok for most things, but not mechanical hard drives !
delboyd to mikerr
7y 27d#24
Good job this isn't a mechanical hard drive
plewis00 to delboyd
7y 27d#29
To be honest, a complex and sensitive PCB rubbing up against moving bubblewrap sounds like a static discharge disaster waiting to happen (CeX don't do or understand anti-static precautions either).
delboyd to plewis00
7y 27d#31
Haha, yeah I thought the same. Mine is due tomorrow so we'll see if it works!
dmaster2000
7y 27d#30
Hi if another one comes up again please pm me! Im building a pc and need one asap
golf_r32
7y 27d#19
How can you be sure the second one is nvme? Is it not this one thats on scan? scan.co.uk/pro…ops
robodan918 to golf_r32
7y 27d#20
You're right the hynix is sata
TehJumpingJawa to golf_r32
7y 27d#26
The one you've linked is the SC300 (SATA), not the PC300 (NVMe).
golf_r32 to TehJumpingJawa
7y 27d#28
Good point. I'm not so sure now - further investigation seem to show it may be nvme!
malhal
7y 27d#27
Good deal but if you are looking for higher performance, the U7 version THNSN5512GPU7 which is MLC rather than TLC can be had in 512GB for £156 from ETB Technologies with 4 left in stock. I got 2 of them for hackintoshes which work perfect by formatting as 4096 block size with the OCZ SSD Utility. Samsung disks only support 512 block size which is why they are not hackintosh friendly and need patches which I didn't want to do.
xZEDx
7y 27d#25
Good price
roguesspam
7y 27d#22
Prolly not been used much as the original owned didnt get chance to before someone stole it and flogged it to cex.
Clueless company that lie to sellers and buyers.
lucifon
7y 27d#21
All the decent ones are OOS now, all that's left is some OEM style laptop ones.
delboyd
7y 27d#18
Haha nice. Noticed this a few days ago, then saw someone mention it on a reddit sub.
Been waiting a couple of days for mine now. Heat
Steelman111
7y 27d#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
7y 27d#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
7y 27d#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
tomwoodhouse
7y 27d#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
7y 27d#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).
stevehart9
7y 27d#3
Brought 2 heat added
seanmorris100 to stevehart9
7y 27d#7
U mean bought 2, 2017 people still not grasping this...
malachi to seanmorris100
7y 27d#8
Thanks for contributing towards HotUKGrammer! Want some heat?!?!?
Oh and it's You, not U 2017 people still not grasping this...
Toshiba OOS. Just got Hynix. Many thanks OP, great deal and that's what I was looking for.
clawdyu
7y 27d#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.
pgilc1
7y 27d#9
Showing OoS.
malachi
7y 27d#5
Thanks, will do great for my raid setup
runnybabbit
7y 27d#4
Cheers for this. Finally got rid of a £24 voucher to boot.
![Fresh Breakfast Meat Box (Using code) @ Campbells Meat [Haggis / Lorne Sausage / Bacon / Black Pudding & More]](/images/topics/208684_1.jpg)
![[Xbox One] Q. u. b. e: Director's Cut on Deals with Gold](/images/topics/208716_1.jpg)
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.
Latest 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.
Fun fact, came with the data of the previous owner.
asus.com/uk/…ad/
It appears that version 2601 started supporting NVMe drives. Version 3003 is the latest BIOS. Check what version you have.
I've read that early on some motherboards had problems booting from NVMe.
Though you'd expect motherboards that include an on-board NVMe slot should have no problem...
One thing you must have is UEFI enabled, as booting from NVMe requires it.
As you're using UEFI, you should also partition the NVMe drive using GPT not MBR.
My boot drive was already a 256GB SATA SSD booting as a UEFI/GPT device, so all I had to do was clone it (using Macrium Reflect) onto the NVMe drive and change the UEFI boot order.
I formatted it as GPT and switched driver initiation to UEFI, but still nothing. The motherboard can't even see it when I go into "NVMe Configuration". I'm absolutely baffled...
Will test later tonight.
- which is ok for most things, but not mechanical hard drives !
Clueless company that lie to sellers and buyers.
Been waiting a couple of days for mine now. Heat
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
Oh and it's You, not U
(sorry, couldn't resist).
Heat added.