FYI, grabbed a Micron 2400 series 2230 drive since it was the largest at the 2230 size and the most inexpensive compared to other regarded brands. Since the 2nd M.2 slot only allows for 2230 (and strangely stacked under the 2280 slot?), we’re limited on what to get for a 2nd drive. Was hoping to use this for a Fedora install while the main drive is Windows 11.
Having some issues with it. Not sure if the one I have is fake. Check out a series of videos I did while I was testing (I post in real-time):
I didn’t record this but Windows gets stuck booting when the drive is plugged in! (although it is in an enclosure - I don’t want to take apart my PC just to test it).
In Linux, using Gnome Disks to benchmark (1000 samples, 1000 MiB sample size), it keeps pausing every few samples on read-only. I didn’t want to keep writing since it would take forever.
Not sure if this is normal for a DRAM-less QLC drive. This is the first drive of it’s kind for me.
UPDATE: I was able finally able to find a machine to put this directly onto the motherboard and it works! Turns out to be an issue with the enclosure, which is odd. Never had an issue before. I don’t recall if I ever used it with a PCIe 4 drive before, but I think I must have. I own 2x 980 Pro (PCIe 4 drives) and must’ve used them in it to clone my system drive to upgrade but I don’t remember. Or maybe it’s just an issue between the Realtek bridge chip in the Sabrent enclosure and the Micron’s controller specifically.
Either way new results (didn’t get to film it): tests shows the 2TB is real (wrote 100%, verified 100%). Reads and writes were still slow, but it was around 650 MB/s read and 350 MB/s write. Far cry from the benchmark, which did show around 3500 MB/s read and 2000 MB/s write. Keep in mind those benchmark (Diskmark) numbers are the large block sequential. Small block random did did show speeds same as the verification test.
Using it in an enclosure can be a problem. Specific problems will depend on OS and the enclosure itself (mass storage vs UAS, for example), but in any case, it’s not comparable to using the drive directly on the motherboard.
Micron is a good brand (they just aren’t usually selling to consumers) and I have a few drives from them that are fantastic.
But you certainly could have a fake or simply a bad drive. Or your enclosure is bad or unsuitable for your test cases
I’m not sure if you meant low-cost or low-quality when you said “cheap” but the implication is low-quality. Micron is hardly an unknown brand or low in quality. Otherwise, I do agree with the sentiment.
I’m careful where I buy commonly counterfeited items. I would not buy from amazon even if it says “Sold by amazon” since they commingle stock from different sellers. 3rd party “fulfilled by amazon” sellers send in counterfeited items, and it gets mixed in. Insane imo, but there are articles on it & reports of people getting obviously counterfeit items “Sold by amazon”.
The m2 slot that the wifi uses cannot be used for a second drive, it is simply not keyed for it.
How is the drive formatted? What installation media are you using? How was the installation media created? What distro are you attempting to install? What enclosure is being used?
QLC drives are not the best but shoudl be fine for running an OS and Micron drives though not readily available on the consumer market are generally well regarded. Your issues are far more likely to deal with the answers to the questions I just asked, than with the drive itself, unless it is defective. Also where was it bought from?
Micron/Crucial’s consumer drives are a never-ending series of Ls, with P1, P2, P3, and P3 Plus being bottom-of-the-barrel QLC drives and P5 and P5 Plus being mediocre in every way possible.
Doesn’t look fake at first glance, standard Micron/Crucial packaging.
Pretty much, when you thrash them with large amounts of writes and it runs out of SLC-cache. It’ll be worse over USB as Windows usually turns the OS side write caching off to prevent data loss if accidentally removed. I’ve got a couple of Kingston NV2 DRAM-less QLC 2280 drives and the performance craters when hit with large writes or multiple small files, to the extent that an old SATA 2.0 SSD would give them a kicking. The response time balloons, then it recovers.
On the upside - reads are really quick. They’d be great for running games off, etc. I’d be careful about using them as an OS drive and expecting stellar performance 100% of the time.
I bought them knowing this was likely, but they’re really cheap (and went in a spare system) - £73 here for 2TB, and that’s with 20% VAT.
Not sure how they fix the 2230 problem. Can’t see much consumer demand for a TLC drive as the cost would be high.
EDIT : Sabrent do one but it’s 1TB maximum, because of the older NAND process used.
According to their Memory and Storage deep dive, both are for storage, but stacked.
I tested on several machines. One has Fedora 38 installed. Another was Windows 11. Another was just booted into a PopOS live USB. I tried exFAT, ext4, and NTFS
Unfortunately don’t have a machine I can pull apart to test directly in an M.2 slot on the motherboard to rule out the enclosure.
If I manage to install it directly on a motherboard to test and it ends up being good, I’ll post a new video on it and update here.
I don’t know why there aren’t any reviews and benchmarks on this drive. Seems to be a popular drive for Steam Deck and ROG Ally users. They post only a single KDiskMark or CrystalMark test. When I run either of those tools, nothing weird shows up. It’s only when in sustained reads and writes (in my case, I was testing capacity so filling up drive, then trying to verify data written). But I guess people who review them assume they’re real so they just do performance tests rather any kind of stress tests.
I have that enclosure. It uses a RealTek RTL-9210B controller. I read that it is/was a good chip, at least at the time I got mine in Dec 2021. I needed one that supported NVMe and SATA M.2 drives.
UPDATE: I was able finally able to find a machine to put this directly onto the motherboard and it works! Turns out to be an issue with the enclosure, which is odd. Never had an issue before. I don’t recall if I ever used it with a PCIe 4 drive before, but I think I must have. I own 2x 980 Pro (PCIe 4 drives) and must’ve used them in it to clone my system drive to upgrade but I don’t remember. Or maybe it’s just an issue between the Realtek bridge chip in the Sabrent enclosure and the Micron’s controller specifically.
Either way new results (didn’t get to film it): tests shows the 2TB is real (wrote 100%, verified 100%). Reads and writes were still slow, but it was around 650 MB/s read and 350 MB/s write. Far cry from the benchmark, which did show around 3500 MB/s read and 2000 MB/s write. Keep in mind those benchmark (Diskmark) numbers are the large block sequential. Small block random did did show speeds same as the verification test.
The NVME/SATA support is why I bought this enclosure. At the time, it was one of few that can also work with SATA m.2 drives. Adding that it’s tool-less, it made it an awesome tool to access both NVME and SATA drives like disk drives. A perfect tool for cloning or access multiple M.2 drives you may have lying around (and if you repair a lot of PCs and laptops, you will have a lot).
It’s like the equivalent of those IDE/SATA to USB adapters. Perfect tool for PC techs.
I saw your youtube, what is your experience with micron 2400 2tb 2230, I am thinking of getting it or sn770m (it is hot). If I can apply Brass Graphene Thermal Cooling Pad on it, I might think about it.
the rest of questions still remain.