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#11
Well, from my sample of one SSD I bought - yes, the 860 EVO is good
I bought an 860 EVO 500GB 2.5" SATA SSD. So far it has clocked up 1,231 hours use and 5.7 TB written - all without any problems.
Most big names will have similar speed performance, the biggest concern is with endurance. This depends on the technology used, how many bits are stored in each cell. Single level cells (SLC) have by far the longest endurance, with a price to match! Multi-level cells (MLC) can be 2, 3, 4 or more bits per cell. The more bits per cell the cheaper it is to manufacture, but the lower the Total Bytes Written (TBW) before a cell fails and has to be remapped.
The EVO range is a reasonable compromise for consumer use with 3-bit MLC, relatively inexpensive but with a warranty for five years or (for the 500GB 860 EVO) 300TB TBW. The PRO range is more expensive but more durable, the QVO range is cheaper but a 3 year warranty and a lower TBW.
Upgraded from 500GB SSD to 1TB SSDThe key difference is that the 860 QVO uses 4-bit MLC, the 860 EVO uses 3-bit MLC and the 860 PRO has 2-bit MLC.
The same warranty/TBW considerations apply to any make - check their spec sheets to see how many bits MLC they use and what their TBW is.
(ii) How do I clone the SSD. Can I use a program such as Acronis True Image 2020 (already purchased) or am I better using the software that comes with the SSD (for example, Samsung SSDs come with software called Data Migration Tool)
In my case I made a Macrium image of my failing HDD and, with the SSD in a usb external case, used another PC to restore it to the new SSD.